With thousands of years of history, Qinhuai Lantern is a beautiful name card of the city of Nanjing, and behind the sound of paddle lights, Lantern Festival artisans are achieving originality year after year. In today’s story, we will show you a 70-year-old lantern craftsman who has strived for originality while sticking to traditional techniques over the past decades.
In a slightly shabby house inside a small courtyard in Nanjing, Cao Zhenrong was seen making lotus-shaped and zodiac animal-shaped festive lanterns.
Cao, the provincial level inheritor of Qinhuai Lantern, has kept on making innovations on the lantern-making techniques though has enjoyed widespread fame.
Although most of the lanterns are being made from bamboo sticks instead of iron wires, the lantern-making techniques are no simpler than those in the past. The making of a dog-shaped lantern, for example, won’t be done until welding is made on at least 50places.
In order to let more people know the lanterns and come to love the lanterns, Cao would teach the children to make the lanterns in his workshop of the Nanjing Folk Museum whenever he is available. His unique fire-roasted bamboo chopsticks technology has amazed the children from time to time.
A frame is to be made for the making of a traditional lantern with bamboo split, then rub the fine paper strip firmly and use the color cloth to decorate the frame with colored paper, which is time-consuming and laborious.
(Source:Jiangsu International Channel)
