Yangjiabu : 500 Years of Pride, Paintings and Kites

文：张崇高

Yangjiabu is a source of pride for Weifangs residents.

Yangjiabu, located 15 kilometers northeast of Weifang in East Chinas Shandong Province, is known throughout the world as the hometown of the kite. Weifangs residents take immense satisfaction in knowing Yangjiabu is the birthplace of both kite making and the Chinese Woodblock New Years painting.

Both handicrafts can be traced back more than 500 years. Yangjiabu, where the two crafts developed simultaneously, has long been called a melting pot. Today, people can watch as Yangjiabus craftspeople, using the traditional methods from past centuries, manufacture kites and/or New Years paintings. These craftspeople work in shops in ancient courtyard compounds, which were built during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

Yangjiabus Woodblock New Years Painting is as highly regarded as the Yangliuqing New Years Painting in Tianjin and the Taohuawu New Years Painting in Suzhou. Yangjiabu, Suzhou and Tianjin are considered Chinas three folk painting communities. Unlike artists in the other communities, Yangjiabus painters have displayed their creations high in the sky.

Yang Tongke, an 88-year-old kite afficonado, says, although there is no written record, it is generally believed that Yangjiabus residents were making kites as early as the Ming Dynasty.

The Nanbaya area in the capital of Weixian County was, during the Qing Dynasty, a well-known market for Yangjiabu-made kites. The market has a storied past. There was a bitter conflict nearly 300 years ago as various business people tried to monopolize the kite market. Yangjiabus residents won, and have since controlled the market. Yangjiabu-made kites were well-received, and the place developed, in the 1740s, into a mass-production kite base. Although none of those kites can be found today, the Yangjiabu paintings are proof that era existed. Painters in Yangjiabu have for centuries been decorating kites with their New Years paintings. They believe that is the best way to display and advertise their creations. Yangjiabus craftspeople have adopted elements from each craft. In fact, the crafts have been referred to as “twin-sister art forms.”The “sisters”have infiltrated and influenced each other, and Yangjiabus kites have combined both art forms.

Yangjiabus kites combine numerous local features, and they have distinct and exquisite brushwork and bright, sharply contrasting colors. If hung on a wall, a Yangjiabu-made kite is transformed into a beautiful “New Years picture;”if flown, it becomes a fanciful object. For hundreds of years, Weifangs residents have boiled eggs and prepared food for their children and taken kites during an outing to mark the Qingming Festival. The children competed with each other to determine who had the most beautiful kite, and to see who could get his/her kite to fly the highest.

Kite flying became very popular. Virtually everyone, whether rich or poor, bought and flew kites. To attract customers, craftspeople racked their brains to create new kite designs. Workshops continually improved the quality of their products, and developed state-of-the-art kites such as the “Eagle,”entipede”and “Leizhenzi.”Each spring, which is the best season for kite flying, hordes of people gathered at the community wall to the east of Weixian county to buy kites. It was one of several kite markets in the county. The most famous kite workshops were the Wang Fuzhai Family Workshop, Dumb Chens Family Workshop and Tang Hongfei Workshop.

During the 1920s and 1930s, kites manufactured in those workshops cost about six silver dollars. The best kites could cost eight silver dollars.

Although kite artisans tried to offer greater varieties of kites, it was impossible to make just one of each style. To ensure others did not have the same style of kite, some people designed their own kites. Some rich people hired kite artisans to design special kites. Zhang Yangtian, an offspring of the governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces during the Qing Dynasty, hired kite master Liu Xinwu to make kites. New designs and improved quality helped enhanced the development of kite production. Some kite artists - including Yu Xiaotang, Peng Fuzeng, Hu Jingzhu and Sun Deshao - did not make their livings in the trade, even though they devoted a great deal of time to researching and manufacturing kites. Considering kite making to be a pastime, they devoted their energy to improving quality rather than quantity.

At that time, many new creations, based on original ideas, came out one after another. For example, the soft-wing kites were represented by kites named the “Crane and Celestial Boy,”the “Eagle,”the “Swallow,”the “Fish”and the “Butterfly.”The string kites included the “Dragon-head Centipede”and the bucket-shaped kites were typified by the “Lantern.”

According to legend, a kite seller from Yangjiabu encountered a wolf on the way home. Frightened, the man hit the wolf with a kite. The wolf mistook the painting on the kite to be a person. The wolf attacked, and ran away with, the kite. That story suggests that, many years ago, paintings by Yangjiabus folk artists were so vivid that they could not be distinguished from reality. Yangjiabus residents developed hard-wing, soft-wing, string and bucket-shaped kites during the reigns of Emperor Qian Long and Emperor Jia Qing. Those kites were based on designs of kites from the Ming Dynasty.

Kite making, Woodblock New Years Painting and fan making were Yangjiabus three main products during the Qing Dynasty. The residents made New Years paintings each winter, kites each spring and fans each summer. To make production, transportation and selling more convenient, Yangjiabus kite artisans changed their original materials of reed and sorghum straw, used for kite frames, to bamboo sticks. They also shifted their production primarily to hard-wing kites. Compared with the traditional materials, bamboo frames were durable and better suited for mass production. Bamboo can easily be sliced into thin strips.

The introduction of bamboo into kite production greatly enhanced work efficiency and kite quality. Kite making became a very profitable industry in Yangjiabu. Retailers around China visited the area and established long-term relationships with various workshops.

After the Opium War and the invasion of China by Western powers, the nations rural economy faltered and the lives of rural residents worsened. To adapt to the economic situation and help improve peoples living standards, Yang Zhongshi and his son, Yang Yuzhou, from the Fumao Painting Shop, began pasting block printing pictures on kites. The process, at that time, was unheard of, as all the kites had previously been painted by hand. This greatly reduced production costs, which, in turn, attracted kite traders from across China. The reformation of the Fumao Painting Shop was a turning point for Yangjiabus kite-making industry. Production reached an all-time high, and there was a huge increase in the number of people engaged in the craft. According to records, in the early 20th century, kite producers from Yangjiabu were capable of making 180,000 kites, in about 100 varieties, each year. In the 1930s, more than 200,000 Yangjiabu-made kites were sold annually.

Artisan Wang Fuzhai is highly respected across China for his distinct style and fine workmanship. His kites have long been considered a national treasure. Critics argue Wangs representative works —such as the “Crane and Celestial Boy”and “Leizhenzi Carries King Wen”- have tremendous aesthetic and artistic value.

Unfortunately, the kite-making business suffered during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-1945). The industry was on the verge of extinction in the late 1940s. However, it picked up quickly after the founding in 1949 of the Peoples Republic of China, due to the governments efforts to revive the folk craft. In 1952, more than 220 craftspeople, or 55 households, from western Yangjiabu resumed their families?kite-making businesses. They produced 20,000 kites ?including 20 kinds for sale in Qingdao, Jinan and other major cities across China - each year. The well-received kites included “Ne Zha Turning the Ocean Upside Down,” “Liu Hai Teasing Gold Frog”and “A Flood Submerging the Gold Hill Temple.”

The kite-making business slumped during the “Cultural revolution”(1966-1976), but was revived in the 1980s, especially after 1984, when Weifang held its first international kite festival.

Chinas largest kite-making factory was established in western Yangjiabu in 1987. Kite making has become the communitys leading industry. Given the increasing demand for kites across China, several households ?led by kite masters such as Yang Tongke, Yang Tongyue, Yang Qilin and Yang Qixian ?have resumed production. It is no wonder, then, that Yangjiabu has become a world-famous kite-making town.

The kite makers, who inherited traditional techniques, have perfected their craftsmanship by using modern technologies, materials and techniques. They now produce, combined, more than 300 varieties of kites, including 50 top-grade styles. It is now possible to find the huge “Dragon-head Centipede”made by kite master Yang Tongke in 1986, which is 350 meters long and 70 centimeters wide, and the grand sized “Vase,”patched up with New Years Paintings, and various minikites produced in Yangjiabu.