Bamboo Paper Making Skills

Bamboo Paper Making Skills

Bamboo paper making technology, traditional handicraft in Jiajiang County of Sichuan Province and Fuyang District of Hangzhou City, is one of the national intangible cultural heritage.

Bamboo paper production maintains a complete traditional process. It is manually made by dipping paper. There are 15 links and 72 processes from material selection to paper making. The production process is completely consistent with the process contained in Tiangong Kaiwu of Ming Dynasty. The material is exquisite and the production process is complex.

On May 20, 2006, bamboo paper making technology was approved by the State Council and listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list, heritage number_-71. In April 2008, bamboo paper making skills were listed in the second batch of intangible cultural heritage protection list of Huangyan District by the district government. May 2008 was listed in the second batch of intangible cultural heritage protection list of Huangyan Municipal Government. In June 2009, it was listed in the second batch of intangible cultural heritage expansion projects in Zhejiang Province.

historical origin

Bamboo Paper Making Techniques in Jiajiang County, Sichuan Province

Jiajiang "Bamboo Handmade Paper" began in the mid-Tang Dynasty. In the eighteenth year of Tang Tianbao, a large number of craftsmen accompanied by Tang Ming Emperor when he entered Sichuan brought the mature bamboo paper production technology into the middle of Sichuan during the Jin Dynasty. By the Song Dynasty, bamboo paper production in Sichuan had developed rapidly, and bamboo paper produced in Jiajiang had been widely used in printing industry. According to experts'textual research, the bamboo-paper edition books produced by Meishan, one of the five major printing bases of Zhu Dynasty adjacent to Jiajiang, have obvious characteristics of "bamboo-paper" curtain pattern in Jiajiang. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiajiang Paper-making technology had a considerable scale. Ming Dynasty History of Scenic Spots said: "Jiading (Jiajiang Ming was Jiading Prefecture at that time) under Jianshan are paper houses, thin as cicada wings and strong, long quality..."

After the Qing Dynasty, the output of Jiajiang handmade paper increased further. As of 1939, there were three series of handmade paper, more than 50 varieties. Jiajiang handmade paper production reached its peak in 1945, with an annual output of more than 8000 tons. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the production of Jiajiang Handicraft Paper Industry fell into a low ebb due to the sharp decrease of demand and the impact of the mechanism paper industry, with the annual output reduced from 8,000 tons to about 1,000 tons.

After the founding of New China, Jiajiang Paper Industry has gone through a tortuous development process. By 1985, its output had recovered to more than 3000 tons, and Jiajiang hand-made calligraphy and painting paper had created many new varieties.

Bamboo Paper Making Techniques in Fuyang District of Hangzhou City

Bamboo paper was created in Jin Dynasty. The bamboo element in Ge Hong's Bao Puzi's "Xiaoyao bamboo element, expressing affection for Yuanhao" is bamboo paper. When did the production of Fuyang bamboo paper begin without any textual research? It was well-known in the Song Dynasty. According to the records of Xianchun Linan Zhi, Fuyang produced "Chiting Paper" and "Xiaojing Paper" in the Southern Song Dynasty, which became the top grade paper for the imperial examination papers and the imperial brocade medals. In the Song Dynasty, Xie Gongjian, which was refined from the raw material of Chiting Paper, was well-known throughout the country. The famous Yuanshu paper in Fuyang bamboo paper, according to legend, began in Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1153). Historically, there is the saying that "Kyoto Yuanfuyang paper is the best one in the world, and ten Yuanshu papers are qualified candidates". During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Fuyang Bamboo Paper made remarkable progress in terms of output, variety and quality. Because of the great development of paper industry in the Qing Dynasty, raw materials such as hemp and leather could not meet the needs. Only bamboo was the most important raw material, so bamboo paper played a dominant role in the Qing Dynasty. According to Qing Guangxu's "Fuyang County Chronicle", it is said that "the people of Yiren lead the papermaking industry, the old and the young work diligently, day and night ceaselessly". Since the 1970s, with the popularization of mechanical and cultural paper, the market of hand-made bamboo paper has gradually lost, and the number of paper troughs in Fuyang has declined sharply. According to the statistics of 2009, there are only about 500 paper troughs left.

Technological characteristics

Jiajiang bamboo paper

Jiajiang hand-made calligraphy and painting paper with tender bamboo as the main material has the characteristics of white and soft, wetting and ink-retaining, fine fibers, smooth and smooth. It has been praised as "light painting is not gray, light and strong, strong and light, smoky poems, book and dragon and tiger posture".

Fuyang bamboo paper

After more than one thousand years of inheritance, Fuyang bamboo paper has exquisite and unique production technology. It has many original technological innovations, such as the human urine fermentation process in the pulping process in all bamboo paper producing areas of the country, and the "wave beating method" in the swing curtain papermaking process, which is generally called "Fuyang method" by the handmade paper industry. Especially the production technology of Fuyang paper-making bamboo curtain is outstanding in the national handmade paper industry. The bamboo curtain is made of very fine bamboo silk as warp and weft. It is hand-woven and coated with high-quality lacquer. It has the characteristics of fine, uniform, round, smooth and tough cord, and can flex freely when making paper. There are many kinds of bamboo paper in Fuyang, including Yuanshu paper, yellow paper and screen paper. Yuanshu paper is the representative product of bamboo paper. The color of Yuanshu paper is light beige, even in thickness, with obvious curtain marks on the surface, hairy on the back of paper, and accompanied by the fragrance of bamboo. Yuan Shu Paper is very suitable for brush writing, soft and foldable, and has good resistance to borers. Paper is preserved for a long time without decay and decay, and it is not easy to aging.

Technological process

Jiajiang bamboo paper

There are 15 links and 72 processes in Jiajiang bamboo paper making from material selection.

Jiajiang bamboo paper making technology traditional handmade paper has a few words to sum up: cut its hemp, go its green, sauce its ash, boil with fire, wash with water, copy with curtain, brush with green, every year to the first 10 days of the afternoon, in order to produce all kinds of paper, groove households have to invite people to go up to the mountain to cut bamboo and hemp, including bamboo and hemp supporting, bundling, bamboo and hemp transportation and other processes.

Soaking and depigmentation: Bamboo and hemp are put in a stone cellar, tied up with stones, and then immersed in lime water for two weeks. The bamboo and hemp are depigmented.

Bamboo and hemp: Including opening cellars to classify bamboo and hemp, beating and washing.

Maotai bamboo and hemp: Put the washed bamboo and hemp layer by layer in the stone cellar, sieve them with lime layer by layer on bamboo and hemp, then soak them in water for 7-10 days, and boil them with spring after lime fermentation.

Boiled bamboo and hemp: Put the sauced bamboo and hemp from the pit into the spring pot and tie it up. Place the bridge on the pillows on both sides to form a space of 1 to 1.3 feet. Then put the bamboo and hemp on the bridge until the spring pot is full or even a few feet over. After the first cooking, 5 - 7 days, bamboo and hemp cooked, bamboo and hemp is to start large-scale operation on the spring pot, but also sing the bamboo and hemp chant.

Washing material: Wash the lime 6-7 times, shake the material again, that is, shake the lime from the bottom of the material, and then cook it for the second time.

Secondary cooking: including spring loading, move the cleaned material to the spring pot one layer by one, pack it tightly, and then rinse it in the ash pond with water. The water is dipped layer by layer to remove the sewage from the material. Soak the material in alkali water, and then start cooking for 4-5 days. After boiling, dig the material out of the pot.

Sprinkle material: It is to use water to clean the sewage on the material, and to decontaminate it through 7-8 times of reeds.

Material cutter: Fermented with water, the material rots for more than half a month.

Enamel stacking: That is to make fermented materials into piles and become paper-making raw materials.

Stone mortar tamping: Put the stacked material into the plate, remove the old skin impurities, and then put it into the stone pit and press it with your feet, through repeated until tamping.

Washing and bleaching: Put the fine material into the washing bag and rinse it with water for many times until it is washed. Put the bleaching powder into the material and turn it inside. Only after one day and one night can the material meet the requirements.

Beating: Pulp is bleached in a vat with chlorine solution. After cleaning, the pulp is put into a paper trough. The pulp is pounded back and forth with a bamboo stick until there is no pulp ball.

Paper making: Paper makers use bamboo curtains and Chuanzi to pick them up one by one in the paper trough and add synovial paper to separate them.

Brushing paper: The brusher clamps up the pressed paper one by one, hangs 10 sheets and brushes them on the wall. After 4-5 days of natural drying, the brusher removes them and dries them, tears them, cuts them and sells them.

Fuyang bamboo paper

Turning a tender bamboo into bamboo paper requires elaborate manufacturing techniques and superb technical requirements. Because of 72 technological processes, the proverb "It's not easy to make paper by means of seventy-two measures" is widely circulated among paper farmers in Fuyang. Fuyang bamboo paper production process has 30 main processes, each process is closely linked to a ring, fine work, not allowed to be a little sloppy. From the first process of chopping bamboo to paper, the whole process takes 60 days.

1. Raw material processing

Cutting bamboo: Every year around the lunar calendar, bamboo shoots grow rapidly into tender bamboo. Paper farmers seize the opportunity to help them cut bamboo up the hill and transport large bales of tender bamboo to the bamboo cutting farm.

Broken green: The tender bamboo is transported to the bamboo cutting yard and cut into a bamboo tube about 2 meters long.

Cutting green: Paper farmers have shelves specially built for cutting bamboo. Put the green bamboo tube on the shelf and use a bamboo cutter to cut the green skin of tender bamboo, called cutting green. It is more difficult to cut green, which needs to be operated by skilled craftsmen.

Copy white: The tender bamboo tube after peeling off the green skin is called white billet. The white billet needs to be beaten repeatedly on the big stone pier until the tender bamboo barrel breaks into fragments. Bamboo that is not fragile needs to be hammered until it breaks.

Dropping pond: The white slabs were bundled with tender bamboo strips and soaked in clear water pond for four to five days.

Broken material: pick up the white billet and cut it into five sections, each section is about 40 cm long, then tie the cut white billet into small bundles about 30 cm in diameter with tender bamboo strips, each bundle weighs about 15 kilograms, a bundle is called a page.

Immersed blank: The white blank which has been cleaned and bundled is put into the salting pond and immersed in the lime liquid of the pond. The optimum concentration of lime solution is that it can adhere to bamboo. Generally, after adding 100 Jin lime and 40 litres of clear water, more than 600 pages of white blank can be immersed. After soaking, the white billet is stacked by the pickling pond for one to two days.

In radium: The stacked white blanks can be placed vertically in the paper bracket, and 600 to 700 pages can be placed vertically at a time. The white blanks can be immersed in water, and then the top is closed.

Brass burning: brass bottom burning, day and night cooking, cooking time according to the tenderness of bamboo material, the climate of cold and hot, and a little bit longer, generally need five days to cook.

Remove radium: Remove the cooked bamboo material from the paper bracket, and immerse it in the clear water pond immediately to prevent the lime from sticking to the bamboo material after drying.

Turn-over: Bamboo is soaked in a clear pond for five to fifteen days. During the soaking period, bamboo needs to be washed regularly, and continue to soak after changing the clear water. It needs to be washed five to six times until the decomposition is exhausted.

Binder: Re-arrange and bind the bamboo that has been washed and cleaned from the turntable.

2. Making paper

Foot Material: Put the white material in stone days, tread on it repeatedly by foot force, so that the teeth are constantly beating white material until the white material becomes fine.

Material Collection: Take out the fines in the stone white. Break the fine material into pieces evenly.

Pulp: Put the broken fines into the slot.

Wood Rake Stirring: Put clear water into the paper tank and stir repeatedly with the wood rake.

Remove the coarse bars: In the mixing process, it is found that there are coarse bars out in time until the fine material and water are dissolved evenly and become slurry.

Curtain-entry extraction: This process is the most difficult in the whole bamboo paper production process. The pulp in the paper groove is swing on the paper curtain by the papermaker holding the paper curtain in both hands. It is required that the pulp on the paper curtain be uniform in thickness by shaking the wrist. Then, the curtain bed tilts forward, shaking out excess slurry or residual coarse fibers, so that the paper curtain deposits a layer of pulp film, that is, wet paper. The wet paper on the paper curtain is buckled back on the paper shelf, leaving the wet paper behind. Such repeated and non-stop copying, one after another back-button wet paper, so that the wet paper on the shelf tidily increased, forming paper blocks.

Grinding edge: Grinding edge of bound paper with sandstone brick to make it smooth and beautiful.

Seal: After polishing the edges of the paper, a red or blue stamp is stamped on all sides, indicating where and by whom it was made.

Inheritance and Protection

Inheritance value

As a kind of intangible cultural heritage with historical, cultural and scientific value, Jiajiang handmade paper making technology has important practical significance and far-reaching historical significance for its protection.

Fuchun bamboo paper has formed a set of unique production techniques on the basis of inheriting the traditional Chinese paper-making techniques, such as "human urine fermentation" in pulping technology, and "curtain surfing" in copying technology, which are all excellent skills of Fuyang bamboo paper production and are not available in other bamboo paper producing areas. Fuchun bamboo paper making technology is the wisdom crystallization formed by Fuyang paper-making craftsmen in the long-term production practice, and is also an important example of inheriting and developing the great invention of paper-making in ancient China.

Current situation of inheritance

With the change of the times, the production of Jiajiang handmade paper is facing a crisis, the supply of raw materials is difficult, and the inheritance is scarce. Although there are more than 1,000 papermaking workshops in Jiajiang County, traditional handmade paper production in a strict sense is rare. Therefore, it is necessary to protect, rescue and excavate Jiajiang bamboo paper making technology, a intangible cultural heritage with historical, cultural and scientific value.

With the change of the times and the improvement of living conditions, the bamboo paper making technology in Fuyang is also facing the crisis of "dating". The government departments and folk craftsmen in Fuyang are also working together to revitalize and inherit the bamboo technology.

Heritage figures

Yang Zhanyao, male, born in July 1945, is the representative successor of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. He declared the project in Jiajiang County, Sichuan Province: bamboo paper making skills.

Zhuangfuquan, male, born in January 1955, is the representative successor of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects.

Li Faer, male, born in August 1950, is the representative successor of the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. He declared the project in Fuyang City, Zhejiang Province: bamboo paper making skills.

protective measures

In April 2008, bamboo paper making technology was listed in the second batch of intangible cultural heritage protection list of Huangyan District by Huangyan District Government.

In May 2008, bamboo paper making technology was listed in the second batch of intangible cultural heritage protection list of Taizhou city.

In June 2009, bamboo paper making skills were listed in the second batch of Zhejiang intangible cultural heritage expansion projects.

On May 28, 2018, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology selected the Bamboo Paper Making Skills of Lexian County as the first national revitalization catalogue.

major schools

Jiajiang bamboo paper

Jiajiang's bamboo paper making skills reached a fairly high level in the Qing Dynasty. In addition to being designated as "for the use of the court", the bamboo paper was also used extensively in the examination of the imperial examinations. The long history, exquisite skills, high quality and high output are the key factors for Jiajiang bamboo paper to stand on the important position of China's paper industry.

Fuyang bamboo paper

Fuyang, Zhejiang Province, is known as "the land of earth and paper". Its bamboo paper manufacturing technology began in the Southern Song Dynasty and has been handed down from generation to generation for more than a thousand years. Fuchun bamboo paper is mainly produced in mountainous areas along the South Bank of Fuchun River and in Qingyun, Longyang, Xindeng and other places.

Huangyan bamboo paper

Huangyan's handmade paper-making was well-known in the Tang Dynasty. Since the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, most bamboo paper production in Huangyan has been converted to the production of "thousand sheets" (or "Fushou Paper". It is the ghost paper burned to the deceased, taking "Fushou" as the luck of the living. In Huangyan, "1000 Zhangs" originated in Yutou, Ningxi, Fushan, Shangzheng and other towns.

social influence

Important activities

On May 16, 2016, the first Chinese Handicraft Paper Heritage Seminar was held at the University of Science and Technology of China. Zhu Zhonghua and Yu Renshui, who are the inheritors of bamboo paper making techniques recommended by Fuyang District, participated in the seminar.

Honorary recognition

In 1915, the bamboo paper production technology product Changshan Paper won the highest special title of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce and the second prize of Panama World Commodity Expo.

In 1926, the bamboo paper production technology product Changshan Paper won the third prize of Beijing National Goods Exhibition.

In 1915, the bamboo paper production technology product Beijing Put Paper won the second prize of Panama World Commodity Expo.

In 1926, the bamboo paper production technology product Beijing Put Paper won the third prize of Beijing National Goods Exhibition.