XINRAN: Mr Gu, how well do you understand your teacher, Master Li Guisheng?
GU: How should I put this? When I became his pupil, I was not related to him, and I didn't go cap in hand asking to study under him. Instead, government officials were kind enough to bring us together. After the Gang of Four were smashed in 1976, the city government permitted some of us artists to make and sell lanterns for ourselves at the Confucian Temple market. In 1984, a lantern-makers association was set up in Nanjing, and Mr Li was its head. There were twenty-four members, and I was the only young one. That year we had no idea whether there would be a second or a third festival for Qin Huai or Jin Ling lanterns. I designed and made up some new lanterns and when the head of the Cultural Office saw them, he asked: 'Who made those lanterns?' He was told: 'Young Gu made them.' 'Call him here.' Then he said to me: 'You're an able young man, go and present yourself to Master Li Guisheng as his pupil and learn everything you can from him.'
XINRAN: Did he first ask Master Li if this was agreeable to him?
GU: No, he didn't. A cadre's word was law – we all knew that! Besides, my teacher was worried about not having a successor. I could tell he was really pleased at this sort of 'government interference'.
XINRAN: So I suppose you know a lot more about Li Guisheng's life story than anyone else?
GU: Well, yes – a bit more than most people anyway. Actually he's always been very reluctant to talk about it, because he says people always put a modern interpretation on things which happened in the past, and that's miles from the truth. He's always said that the only reason he learned lantern-making was because his family was poor, and it was just a way of keeping body and soul together. When he was learning, no one talked about it as an art form or anything. Learning the craft the old folks in his family passed on to him was just as natural to him as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. In those days, he says, no one thought about it. It was just a matter of having some craftsmanship and some skill, and using them to earn a bit of money. As for 'folk culture' and 'folk art', carrying forward and developing cultural traditions and all that, he was clueless. He only read about it later in articles written on him. Yet I know he takes such pains with the artistic side of lantern-making, and he's such a good guide that when we make something new, we run it past him.
XINRAN: So what made you take up lantern-making?
GU: It was because my father made lanterns too. Our house used to be piled high inside and out with lanterns we had made during the year, waiting to be sold at the New Year festival. We had all kinds of lanterns, but I never got excited about them until one day when I heard that the city government of Nanjing had taken a Li Guisheng unicorn lantern with them on a visit to Japan and received two colour televisions in exchange for that one lantern! I thought that certainly had more of a future than peddling lanterns in the market! I may have been little but I had big ideas.
XINRAN: Just now your teacher told me how worried he was about the art of lantern-making dying out. What do you feel about that?
GU: He's right to an extent. Very few people are taking it up these days. The way I look at it is this: to ensure the continuation of Qin Huai lanterns, we first have to preserve the craftsmanship used in their manufacture, and record the way the old people did it. I've already proposed that the government should set up a lantern museum, to display the craftsmanship and allow an exchange of academic knowledge. We could attract public attention and engage people's interest by means of hands-on workshops and other things. We could divide up the 1,700 years of lantern-making history into separate chunks – from the Western Han dynasty through the Tang dynasty, the Mongols, the Ming and the Qing, to the Republic of 1911, and finally our People's Republic – and display to everyone examples of work from each period, as well as the lantern-making tools. Second, there should be a training school attached, providing a sort of patriotic education, and giving children the chance to understand this folk craft. International academic exchanges could be organised to link up lantern-making with folk customs overseas. We've been to Germany to teach classes, and we're off to England soon. Then we'll be going to other European countries to link up with folk artists there. In Nanjing we ought to develop the lantern festivals more, so as to attract Chinese and overseas visitors to the home of lantern-making.
XINRAN: I believe that the art of lantern-making is extremely precious – to Nanjing, to China, indeed to the entire world. But how do you envisage the transition from the primitive workshops in which they are currently made to the scenario you've just described to me? Who do you think will pave the way to the future? Is this something you lantern-makers will fight for on your own? Or do you need the government's help? Or international support?
GU: Ordinary artists don't have the financial resources to fight this battle on their own. A museum like this would need 3,000 square metres of space, and would cost at the very least 2 to 3 million yuan. Who's going to stump up that amount? It needs to be the government, or it could be a joint investment by businesses. The government could own the building, investors could fit it all out, and we artists could contribute the materials we have collected down the years and our techniques. We could share the profits, as we would share the risks. The thing is we mustn't lose sight of the popular characteristics and traditional style of lantern-making. Otherwise it would be meaningless.
And if we could publish some books describing exactly how lanterns are made, with illustrations, introducing each separate technique – for instance the twenty-one steps needed to make a water-lily lantern – then when we're dead and gone, at least we can give these books to the next generation as a permanent record, as a way of handing on the Qin Huai folk culture. That's the way I see it.
XINRAN: You spoke just now about your hopes of building on the techniques and craftsmanship of the older generation as you develop the art of lantern-making. Can you tell us what you feel are the main differences between you and them?
GU: I would say there are a few differences. Back then, they made lanterns in order to keep body and soul together, whereas we do it more out of interest in and enjoyment of a cultural tradition.
Qin Huai lanterns are a form of festival folk art. Festival folk art can be divided into the static and the dynamic, and Qin Huai lanterns are a static form.
If we compare the materials used now with thirty years ago, there have been major changes and innovations: wire has replaced bamboo strips, and silk has replaced coloured paper. In the old days, all lanterns were made of paper. If you hang a paper lantern outside, it's useless as soon as it rains. We use modern materials and modern techniques – what we're making are the same as traditional Qin Huai lanterns, but you can hang them outside for four or five years and they're still fine. Old-style lantern shapes like aeroplane and lion lanterns play a less important role, and recently dip-dyeing has become popular, so that lanterns in new water-lily and lotus shapes, and pineapples and so on, have gradually become the main decorative lanterns at festivals and on holidays.
There are administrative changes as well. With the older generation it was usually the head of the family who ran the business. Lantern-making has always been run as a single-family craft, and working methods are still very primitive. But now we're experimenting with cooperative production methods, with a production line. This should increase our output and improve the quality of the lanterns too.
And now I have a few questions, but I don't know if I can ask them.
XINRAN: For the future of lanterns, ask away!
GU: You live and work abroad. In your view, do foreigners like Qin Huai lanterns? Are young overseas Chinese interested in learning this folk art?
XINRAN: At the moment, I don't know what answer they would give to those questions. But I believe that many foreigners really like Chinese folk culture. Just like you said, folk culture belongs to the world. My book will take your questions to my readers, my listeners and my friends. I hope that more and more visitors to Nanjing will provide the answers to your questions through their interest in Qin Huai lanterns.
8 Across Mountain and Grassland: a Witness to the Long March
Mr and Mrs Changzheng, in PLA uniform, in their wedding photo, 1947.
