China Witness

by Xinran Xue

  XINRAN: What's brought you most hardship in life? And what's brought you most pleasure?

  HUADENG: The hardest thing is dreaming up new lantern shapes. Design is the hardest thing. Making a water-lily or a lotus-flower lantern, or a dragon lantern or a lion, none of that is hard. What's hard is thinking up the shapes. If you don't design it properly, then the lantern won't work. Before we make any new lantern shape, we have to draw a simple diagram and write in the measurements. You can't start making it until you've sketched it all out. You can't eat or sleep when you're designing something new, because if you get it wrong, you've wasted all that labour and materials. Another hard thing is not being understood. People don't understand the way we work, especially the younger generation. If you've made a bit of a name for yourself, then you're even worse off. Once your family and friends get to hear of it, they ask you where you're making your money now. I tell them I'm doing this and that. They say: "But you've been doing that for years! Are you still at it? China's completely changed! How come you haven't changed at all?" It really hurts when people don't understand because then you don't get any support. The third thing I find very painful is a situation like now; I'm running a small workshop, employing ten people, and suddenly it gets busy – like the 2008 Olympics. Nanjing is planning a big dragon 2,008 metres long, and the city government wants us to find twenty or thirty craftspeople for it. Where am I going to find all these craftspeople? I told them, I can't afford to keep spare workers. If you get people in, and don't have the money to pay them, are they just expected not to eat for a couple of weeks? The government doesn't give me a subsidy to train craftspeople or to keep them on, I don't get any help at all, and that often makes me feel sad. I'm not complaining but the city officials come along and say to me: "Now then, old Huadeng, you do such-and-such, and we'll support you in such-and-such a way, we'll get the administration onto it. My goodness, your premises are too small, we'll call cadres at all levels together for a meeting to discuss it. After all, you're a 'name card' for the Qin Huai district, you've been on a Chinese postage stamp, and that hasn't happened in Nanjing for hundreds of years! So we all want to support old Huadeng!" You've seen how we work – it's like a craft workshop of a hundred years ago, isn't it? It might even be worse than a hundred years ago. And another thing – they're pulling this place down, so soon we're going to be evicted. No one has been round to take a look. You don't get any help at all. People will hold celebration parties for you but no one will help you in your work. I feel a bit lonely. In fact, I'm very lonely.

  XINRAN: It's all very well for the Qin Huai district, for the city of Nanjing, for the whole country – but when your design was chosen for the postage stamp, you only got paid 500 yuan, and they made deductions from that. So if the Qin Huai local authority or Nanjing city government want to use, or commission, your lanterns, or if they ask you to put on a lantern display to make the city look festive, do they pay you for it?

  HUADENG: Yes, if they need props for a performance, or if they want the lanterns for a municipal event, then they pay expenses.

  XINRAN: And does what they pay you cover your expenses?

  HUADENG: Of course not! For instance, I sometimes make a pair of water-lily lanterns when a young couple get married. It's quite delicate work, but I only charge them fifty yuan for each, or a hundred yuan the pair. If it's the Qin Huai local authority who ask us to make lanterns, we have to drop the price a bit, because although they don't look after us directly, overall you could say that they're on the next rung up administratively, and we can't afford to put a foot wrong. All the same, they don't support us when we really need it. You have to stand on your own feet, and you're very isolated. Don't laugh at me if I say this. Sometimes I don't do any business for three months and don't earn a penny, but you've still got to pay the workers, and you can't not pay the rent, the electricity and the water, can you? Sometimes it's all so hard. I still hope, though, that one day our folk art will get proper public recognition.

  XINRAN: Why don't you think you're getting public recognition? When we were doing our research and contacted Jiangsu Radio and got information on folk crafts from national organisations, the first people they recommended in Nanjing were Li Guisheng, and you and your brother, so surely this must imply public recognition? When you talked just now about feeling isolated, I could see how you felt by looking in your eyes. The art of Qin Huai lanterns has been handed down to you by your father and grandfather, so it has a vitality which has survived down the years, doesn't it? So how come, when more people than ever before have been to school, and life is more civilised and modernised, people nowadays have no respect for a tradition which goes back more than a thousand years, and have abandoned it? Why is it ignored by the public, and even by the government?

  HUADENG: "Flowers grow in the garden, but you smell them outside it" – that's the kind of recognition you're talking about. Let me put it more simply: China's folk crafts are all exported. In China, the government only start to take a bit of interest if you are famous and you're someone putting your talents to good use. But it's not easy for poor craftspeople to make a difference. The Qin Huai local authority only sat up and took notice of me after my lantern won the national competition and appeared on a postage stamp. It's not like we artists can't agree, and can't make even better lanterns.

  It's not like that at all. Since the 1980s, CCTV have come every year to film the lanterns, dubbing us "delightfully rustic". We weren't too happy with being called "rustic", but we laughed at the "delightfully". In the Jiangnan region, that's the kind of atmosphere at the Spring Festival among ordinary folk; they're full of delight at our local pleasures.

  Lanterns are seasonal, but the craft isn't seasonal. No one supports your business needs for three seasons of the year – you have to wait till the Spring Festival, when the government has to create a festive atmosphere, and then there's too much business. So we have to get through the year, and we can't make the workers go out begging for food for nine months of it. There's another thing – the markets all had their own regulations in the past, and space for the crafts stalls was always free. But now space is like gold dust – you get a stall but you get charged for it, and we have to do a lot of business before we cover the rent and make some profit.

  When we're selling lanterns in the Confucian Temple market, the high-ups from the city government and the local authority always come and see me. "How are things this year, old Huadeng?" "Fine! Thank you for your help and concern!" "How's it going this year?" "Oh, fine, fine! Thank you so much for asking!" But that's just putting a good front on it. The thing that most makes you feel warm, but also leaves you feeling desolate, is: "If you have any problems, come and see me!" Got problems? Go and see you? And where would I find you? I'm about to be evicted from these premises, and I don't have anywhere to go. I said to the local authority, if they're really going to evict me and I don't have anywhere to go, I'll have to shut this workshop. After all, I can get by on my pension. I'll stay at home and do what I want, and I won't worry any more about how Nanjing's festivities look!

  XINRAN: You've got such a burning desire to do this, such a strong will, how many young people are studying lantern-making with you now?

  HUADENG: None, not a single one!

  XINRAN: Are you worried? Are you worried that your art, your knowledge, and your faith in it, might just disappear?

  HUADENG: I'll tell you the truth. I used to worry, but since I set up the workshop, I stopped worrying. I might be wrong to say this, though.

  Qin Huai lanterns have existed for thousands of years, and other people, the government, the country are not bothered, so why should I bother? You could say that the course my life takes is in my hands, but the course that Qin Huai lanterns take is not in the hands of us makers. It's down to the policymakers. Qin Huai lantern-making represents the "name card" of Nanjing's history, the "name card" of the art of the People's Republic of China. If they value that "name card", then Qin Huai lanterns can carry o
n going, even rise to new heights. But if they neglect it, then it means our time is up.

  Years ago, I told cultural affairs officials that there were ten different series of Qin Huai lanterns. The most common ten are aeroplane lanterns, rabbit lanterns, water-lily lanterns, lion lanterns and so on, but now a lot of them are a lost tradition, and no one knows how to make them any more. The lion lantern, for instance, there's no one left in Nanjing who can make those. There were a few old artists who could, but they've died now. I still want to do my bit to keep Qin Huai lanterns going, but then I think, after I'm dead the tradition may die out, and I don't feel like bothering!

  XINRAN: Doesn't that distress you?

  HUADENG: There's no point in getting distressed. When I cross over to the Underworld, the King of the Underworld won't say to me, you didn't get it sorted out up there so you'd better come and make lanterns for me. He can't say that, so that's not what I get bothered about. Never mind that I'm old, I really feel I've reached my peak now. Just look at my lantern-making. I've never been as good as I am now, and if at this time I can bring a bit of happiness to ordinary people's lives with my two hands, then that's even better. As for where Qin Huai lantern-making will end up, that's not something we makers can sort out with a complaint here or a few harsh words there, do you understand what I'm saying?

  XINRAN: If you had the chance, would you be willing to take on a few foreign students?

  HUADENG: Of course. Anyone who wants to learn, I can teach them!

  XINRAN: But wouldn't you be concerned that a traditional folk art handed down to you by your forefathers might be lost to other countries?

  HUADENG: There's no reason why Chinese art shouldn't cross national boundaries. But sweet dreams and idle chat won't keep us alive! I'm on my own in this, and all I can do is run a workshop employing a dozen or so workers and keep on at people about folk art. This is a "small national business" I'm running. I pay all the taxes I'm supposed to and don't cheat my clients, and just make a living out of my art.

  I don't have wild ambitions. If I can just carry on the lantern-making tradition, and help my country by taking on a few unemployed workers, then I'm well satisfied. I do my best, and that's all I can do. Of course I'd love to have a factory employing two hundred workers, divided into ten workshops, each one devoted to studying one of the ten series of lanterns, and recording them, so that the next generation can learn how to make them. I'd like to set up a training workshop so a few people could develop new designs, and bring the science and technology of ancient lantern-making up to date, and make the display period longer, which would give a clearer expression of Jiangnan art. I'd better shut up, or my workers will tell me I'm dreaming again! Anyway, as I was saying, I'd be just as happy to pass these things on to foreigners and see Chinese Qin Huai lanterns take root and flourish in other countries. Why not? No one's come to me and told me, "Old Huadeng, you're only allowed to teach Chinese people, you can't teach foreigners." No one's told me that, so I'm free to do what I want. I'm a "liberal" now, running a private enterprise. Apart from paying my taxes, I'm a "liberal", and if I want to do something, I can do it.

  XINRAN: You've been through so many ups and downs in your life, I'd like to ask you, if you had your life over again, would you choose to follow the same path?

  HUADENG: If I could have my life over again, I'd say to the King of the Underworld, in my last life I was a lantern-maker, can I please apply to be a lantern-maker in my next life on earth? Why? Because I think lanterns are beautiful! Just look at them, they're all the work of our own hands, the water lily standing gracefully erect, the bunny all cute and lively, the spirit of that dragon! I feel so good, looking at those lanterns…

  XINRAN: But what about all your grievances? Your children don't want to learn from you, the government doesn't want to support you, you're not very well off. Don't you have regrets?

  HUADENG: No, none. I feel I've worked hard for more than sixty years, and I've finally tamed the lotus lantern; plus I've represented the country with my stamp and told the world about Qin Huai lanterns, so I feel honoured, happy and proud.

  XINRAN: How did your daughter and son-in-law react when they heard the news?

  HUADENG: They were happy, very happy, though they still remind me that I haven't made any money. But I've achieved things that billions of people who are rolling in wealth haven't been able to do. You can't pay the Chinese Post Office to have your product printed on their stamps, can you? I didn't pay them money. I got there through my own efforts.

  XINRAN: And what do your children say to that?

  HUADENG: Nothing! I'd really like to seize the moment and shout at them to come and learn lantern-making from me, take advantage of the fact that I'm at the height of my powers and could teach them.

  XINRAN: Apart from the fact that lantern-making hasn't made you any money, and has shown your children that it isn't a good way to earn a living, have you thought what other reasons they might have for not wanting to succeed you?

  HUADENG: Of course it's to do with what today's young people want to do with their lives. They pursue money rather than art. That's a common problem in China. I was ten when I started to learn from my father. Nowadays, no ten-year-old, or even a twenty-year-old, will listen when you try and teach them right from wrong!

  When young people come to my workshop looking for a job, I say to them: "No, my young friend, you've got it wrong. We don't do manual work here; we learn an art. If you come, you come as a pupil. I can't pay you thousands of yuan, because I haven't taken a fen out of the business myself yet, but you can learn the art of lantern-making." When they hear me say that, they turn on their heel and go.

  I've had this business for six years and I still haven't bought any decent clothes or nice shoes. My mobile is someone else's cast-off, and I'm scarcely scraping a basic living in other people's eyes, but I have no regrets. I feel that what I've achieved is beyond anyone's expectations. My work's been featured on Chinese postage stamps!

  XINRAN: Is there any difference between the way the Chinese cared about and appreciated the art of Qin Huai lanterns when you were young and nowadays?

  HUADENG: Between when I learned lantern-making from my father and the Great Leap Forward in 1958, we went to the Confucian Temple market to sell lanterns every year. Especially after Liberation, you went and registered with the Qin Huai local chamber of commerce, and the government sent people to put up strings for you to hang the lanterns from on Jinling Road, and put up the stands for you. So my dad got Stall 1, someone else got Stall 2, and they didn't charge you a fen, do you see what I mean? The government put people and effort into supporting you.

  The Confucian Temple lantern market goes right back to the Ming dynasty. It's famous all over China. Just like the way small traders in Shanghai who wanted to make money used to flock to the Town God Temple, so the Confucian Temple market was the place where people collected in Nanjing. We sold lanterns there for years and years, and the local government never charged us. Nowadays, I can't count on help from any department. They just issue an instruction that lantern-makers should be charged 1,000 yuan per stall. After the lantern festival restarted in 1985, our factory used to go and sell every year, but two tables end to end, that's 2,000 yuan in stall fees alone! Then there's the workers' wages and lunches, and you have to rent storage space and pay to get the lanterns there. It all adds up to too much, so for the last two years I haven't been.

  Let me work out for you the costs for an ordinary small water-lily lantern, the sort that a new worker starts learning on and that sell for ten yuan each. If a worker starts making lanterns in August, he or she will have only made three hundred by the Spring Festival. If none are spoiled, three hundred lanterns at ten yuan each can bring in 3,000 yuan. The stall fees are 1,000 yuan, so after that's been paid, you're left with 2,000. My workshop expenses, water and electricity, business rates all have to come out of that 2,000. Each person gets at least 100 yuan a month, so that's 500 yuan over five months. Th
en we have to buy in all the materials from outside, rulers, paper, starch, rubber solution, et cetera. That's at the very least 50 yuan a month, and then there's at least 50 yuan for travel. That's another 250 yuan. You want lunch? The very cheapest will come to 50 yuan a month, won't it? August to December is five months of wages. That's on average only 200 yuan a month! That's not even 50 yuan for a five-day week! Ten yuan a day, less than two yuan an hour! Who's willing to work for that? I think that's an important factor in the current decline of Qin Huai lanterns. Artists have got to consider their own lives and their abilities, haven't they?