Cao Zhengxin’s efforts to promote Yiyang oil paper umbrella
2024-05-08
“In addition to inheriting traditional crafts, it is also imperative to promote intangible cultural heritage through innovation,” said Cao.
“I cut down bamboo in the forest behind the studio, work in the studio, and rest in the bedroom, which is all what I do in a day,” said Cao, who was making an oil paper umbrella.
His studio in Yiyang City of Hunan Province is filled with tools for making oil paper umbrellas and many newly completed products.
Born into a “family of umbrella makers”, he has cultivated a special fondness for oil paper umbrellas since childhood. His parents were his first teachers. At the age of 23, he entered the local oil paper umbrella factory and began systematic learning.
“It took me several years to make an oil paper umbrella well independently,” said Cao, adding that it needs to select materials carefully to make an umbrella with complex production processes. Oil paper umbrella is a traditional and high-quality product in Yiyang. It is made from bamboo, pine, as well as mulberry bark and requires more than 70 processes. Each process is important, and the most difficult is making tung oil that is brushed on the umbrella surface.
Tung oil is the key to waterproof and moistureproof oil paper umbrellas. The firing temperature and timing of making tung oil are crucial. If they are not properly controlled, tung oil cannot be used. It is precisely because making tung oil is not easy that in Cao’s view, every oil paper umbrella is unique.
After mastering the core technology of umbrella making, he and his wife began making umbrellas at home after leaving the factory. As oil paper umbrellas have become popular in the tourism market, they received more and more orders. They started to make umbrellas together with old artists.
In 2016, the Yiyang oil paper umbrella making technique was included in the fourth batch of provincial-level representative intangible cultural heritage projects, and Cao has become its 12th generation inheritor.
“Our oil paper umbrellas are more popular abroad than at home,” said Cao. Yiyang oil paper umbrellas have the highest sales in Southeast Asian countries. However, he hopes that Yiyang oil paper umbrella can be truly liked by every Chinese person.
Since 2000, he has given lectures on Yiyang oil paper umbrella in schools.
On the basis of inheriting traditional skills, he has innovated the paintings on the oil paper umbrella surface by integrating elements such as Xiang embroidery and tie dyeing.
“It has promoted both oil paper umbrellas and other intangible cultural heritage techniques.”
Only through innovation and inheritance can oil paper umbrellas be brought into people’s daily life. For this reason, even though he is already in his sixties, he is still sparing no effort to promote its development.
