ChinaUS EUROPEASIA 中文双语Français
Life\Art

Young entrepreneur eager to revive bamboo culture

By Yang Yang in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province | China Daily | Updated: 2016-11-18 07:43

Young entrepreneur eager to revive bamboo culture

Bamboo fruit tray.

That year was 2008-coincidentally when Wuzhen started tourism to develop Xizha. Qian's father, a skillful master of bamboo weaving, was invited by the developer to open a shop in Xizha to sell Wuzhen's local specialty.

Now when you wander in Xizha, you might come across a big circular bamboo plaque, on which the characters for "Wuzhen" are elegantly painted. Qian's parents spent a whole month weaving the plaque, which has become an icon in Xizha.

While his father started the shop, Qian traveled to places in Zhejiang like Wenling, Dongyang and Anji, where the few remaining old bamboo-weaving masters live.

He aspired to learn the best skills from them, and they were happy to have a student. Otherwise, this craft that has been passed down for centuries would be lost.

However, Qian soon found problems with this time-consuming undertaking.

In late 1980s and early 1990s, when China had just started experiencing high-speed growth, the demand for bamboo products also soared.

But as new materials such as plastic became cheaper and fashionable, people were using fewer bamboo products for convenience. A bamboo basket is much heavier than a disposable plastic bag.

"When I went to primary school, fewer people in our village were making bamboo products. Now, very few old people are still doing it because it's time-consuming and cheap," Qian says.

BACK TO THE TOP
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US