Gaoligong Mountain, many people know this name, because of the war between the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the Japanese army. Our arrival is also related to the war: in the Ming Dynasty, a Hunan soldier brought handmade paper from Hunan to here. More than four hundred years have passed, and the handmade paper in the hometown of the Shubian soldiers has disappeared, but Tengchong's handmade paper has stubbornly survived under the protection of Gaoligong Mountain. Tengchong handmade paper is the legacy of war, and we are running to this heritage.
When we arrived in Tengchong, at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain on the China-Myanmar border, a modern handmade paper museum was facing a traditional paper village that had been playing paper as a chess game for many years. This is not a life-and-death war, but a battle of ideas without a trick.
After the old man Zheng Yinghai finished making the oil-paper umbrella, he printed a seal with his own name on the surface of each umbrella
Ancestral hall and museum
A local driver in Tengchong was hired as a guide, but the driver got lost after driving the car into a small town called Jietou. The signs for the Tengchong Handmade Paper Museum appear on the road signs on the right. It's a country road that leads to Mount Gaoligong, and occasionally tractors roar through it with black smoke.
The driver questioned the possibility of a tall museum of handmade paper in such a poor and remote area, and got out of the car to consult the tractor driver. The driver asked the right person. Their village is at the end of this path, and the handmade paper museum is at the entrance of the village.
After seven twists and turns, the vehicle finally began to walk in a straight line, like an arrow flying out, and the Gaoligong Mountain in front of it was the target. The arrow sped toward Gaoligong Mountain, the village approached, and the handmade paper museum at the mouth of the village began to show its face. It's just that the way she appears is different from the bridge I designed in my mind.
Hand-drawn map of Gaoligong Mountain on Tengchong handmade paper.
I looked at the photos of the Handmade Paper Museum when I was doing the guide. The photo is taken in the spring, and the new wooden handmade paper museum is like a butterfly that has finished picking honey, spreading its wings in a sea of rape flowers. And now the wooden room of the handmade paper museum has been crawled with the vicissitudes of the years. Therefore, the first impression of the Handmade Paper Museum on me is like inadvertently bumping into a woman removing makeup, half real, half dreamy.
The driver was confused by the sight in front of him again and began to stop again to ask for directions. Park the car next to the wooden building at the entrance of the village and do not enter the wooden house. But I walked into the threshing ground across the road from the wooden house. In the threshing field, there is an aunt wearing a straw hat to cover her face and a beautiful woman with long hair and a shawl to collect rice together. Before we could ask, the long-haired beauty greeted us. She is Liu Yanyan, the director of the Handmade Paper Museum that we are going to visit.
The Handmade Paper Museum is a rural construction project of architect Hua Li and designers, who want to revitalize the economy and culture of the countryside by design and handicraft. Liu Yanyan is a returnee with overseas work background and the current director of the Handmade Paper Museum.
I asked her why she had chosen to consider this village at the foot of The Gaoligong Mountains as her own experiment in rural construction. Liu Yanyan did not speak much, but only mentioned two personal names: Liang Shuming and Yan Yangchu. Liu Yanyan, like the rural pioneers she admired, was an activist.
In the handmade paper workshop in Longshangzhai, craftsmen are fishing for paper
Along with her, long Zhanxian, the museum's first director, was in action. He is the old village chief of Longshang Village and played a crucial role in the landing of the handmade paper museum. The Handmade Paper Museum used to encounter great resistance when it was established. Because the address of the museum is located at the entrance of the village, this place was once the ancestral hall of the village. Traditional village chiefs live in groups, and the ancestral hall has become the cultural center of each village. Although the ancestral hall was destroyed after liberation, it still has its place in the hearts of the villagers. Therefore, when foreign designers built a handmade paper museum here, they were opposed by local villagers, believing that it was a destruction of the village tradition.
"Later, I came forward to tell the villagers that the construction of the handmade paper museum was not only not a destruction, but an inheritance of tradition. This is the ancestor brought from Hunan, and now the ancestral hall is no longer there, building a handmade paper museum to carry forward the skills of the ancestors is the best remembrance of the ancestors. When the Handmade Paper Museum was inaugurated, we held a ceremony to worship our ancestors at the Handmade Paper Museum. On this day the whole village came. After the ancestral hall disappeared, the villagers had not gathered together for a long time. ”
Last year, after Long Zhanxian stepped down from his position as director of the Handmade Paper Museum, he returned to his former life: farming, herding cattle, and making flue-cured tobacco. Only when distant guests arrive and want to learn about the history of Longshang Village and the museum, Long Zhanxian will put on his shirt and change into leather shoes and return to the handmade paper museum. Nowadays, the Handmade Paper Museum has become the business card of Tengchong handmade paper and a model for Tengchong rural construction.
Prisoner of Paper
The museum works part-time as an inn, but there are only two rooms. There were more than a dozen of us in our travels, and Liu Yanyan assigned us one by one to nearby houses. I was assigned to a courtyard. Tengchong County is located in the southwest border, but it preserves the essence of Han culture. Although not as delicate as Beijing's, the courtyard is still elegant: a persimmon tree hung with red lanterns, exposing the owner's leisure. The host settled us on the second floor, heard that the guest Hei Yu was a returnee in France, hoping that Hei Yu could give the inn a romantic name. Hei Yu rudely ripped off a tomato on the balcony on the second floor and stuffed it into his mouth, thoughtfully. Persimmon meat into the belly, the inn is famous: under the persimmon tree.
Each oil-paper umbrella is a brush stroke when it is opened
The guide Jiawen originally planned to take everyone to shoot the paper workshop. But the transparent blue sky behind Gaoligong Mountain and the clouds flowing like waterfalls are like a strong magnetic field, absorbing the line of sight and blocking the footsteps, so set up a camera on the terrace on the 3rd floor of the inn, willing to become a prisoner of the dusk light and shadow of Gaoligong Mountain.
When we broke free from what we saw, it was already dusk. The sky on the top of Gaoligong Mountain flashed a few stars, and the village at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain lit up a few lights. The Handmade Paper Museum is a living Tengchong handmade paper workshop that records the craftsmanship of Tengchong handmade paper, and is also a library open to all villagers, which contains books related to handmade paper and Gaoligong Mountain.
The first floor of the Tengchong Handmade Paper Museum is a small library, which is a place for children in the village to read and play.
Early the next morning, when the village broke free from the morning fog, the whole village was busy green.
Professional people are concentrating on doing things, villagers have begun to make handmade paper, and outsiders have begun to shoot handmade paper documentaries. Because the handmade paper here is much the same as the handmade paper in the Han areas I have inspected, I began to skip class and make idle clouds and wild cranes. Idle people wandered around the paper village and met Li Yijiao, the designer of the handmade paper museum who was also walking through the village. Li Yijiao graduated from the Yunnan Academy of Arts and had the most beautiful childhood memories in Tengchong.
Hearing that I wanted to see the most authentic Tengchong handmade paper, Li Yijiao took me to the edge of the village , the home of 73-year-old paper household Longzixiu's grandmother.
Tengchong Handmade Paper Museum under the blue sky and white clouds
The century-old mansion is basking in millet, and Long Zixiu is basking in the sun with paper. How many generations the family paper affair has lasted, Long Zixiu can't remember clearly, only that if his son had not suffered from pneumoconiosis and could no longer go out to work, the family paper affair would have been broken.
Traditional memories meet contemporary art
Three days later, after the documentary was filmed, Wang Yiqiong, a contemporary artist who was traveling with her, felt that the "paper meaning" was not exhausted, hoping to make the most traditional handmade paper and modern paper have a chemical reaction.
So a bunch of bonfires lit on the threshing ground. The fire was not strong enough, so he carried it with his fellow villagers to tear down the remaining beams of the house. The bonfire party will become a "contemporary art scene" in the name of paper. Everyone does not know what the ghost of the "modern art scene" is, including Wang Yiqiong, a modern artist who orders a bonfire.
Wang Yiqiong didn't know what kind of fame she wanted to do. It is only known that the purpose of modern art is to guide as much as possible according to the situation. So, make as much use of site materials as possible. Paper is the only material in Jietou Town that has anything to do with art. Handmade paper, ten paper households in the village, each with one piece.
Handmade paper derivatives designed by designer doors of the Handmade Paper Museum
Wang Yiqiong turned her back to the campfire and faced her fellow villagers to give a live speech. Flickering singing, no; flickering dancing, not; flickering to tell ghost stories, not yet... He said the campfire was too big and hot and sweaty. Finally, the children of Longshangzhai did not stand up to Wang Yiqiong's flickering and began to write on the paper. If you are not allowed to use a pen, then roll up the paper into a cylinder and write your name on your own handmade paper - Long Nianzu. A surname that is easy to make people associate, a name that is easy to make people reverie.
Pandora's Box opened. Children's imaginations begin to explode: writing with their hands, sticks, leaves dipped in ink, or PASS ink, charcoal under the campfire, and uneaten corn can be used as pens. In the hearth, children use the method of "returning to their ancestors" to try the infinite possibilities of writing, and adults think about our paper, our writing, and the possibility and meaning of our words while watching the drama.
Notebook made of Tengchong handmade paper
After writing, the "modern art scene" became a "crazy primitive man" carnival. Adults still watch the play calmly, and children sing and dance. Remember a lyric: flowers blossom and fall, we will still cherish. Handmade paper, is and will eventually retire from the writing stage. Even our words may eventually disappear. That's not something we're going to have to think about. We only enjoy the gifts they give us in the present.
Text Picture 丨 Thunder Tiger