China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Sisters are a glass act honoring heritage
Traditional handicraft of making grape replicas resurrected against the odds but challenges remain before harvest of success is celebrated, Wang Ru reports.
Editor’s note: China Daily profiles ordinary people doing incredible things in the cultural sphere as the country has advanced over the past decade.
Chang Hong, 60, remembers when she was younger, she went to a shop to buy cloth with her grandaunt Chang Yuling, a craftswoman. But what happened next would have a profound effect. When Chang Yuling wanted to touch a piece of cloth to feel the texture, she was discouraged from doing so by the salesperson. Her hands bore the hallmarks of her trade, and the salesperson thought they might stain any item she touched.
Chang Hong felt humiliated, and made up her mind that in the future she would not engage with the ancestral craft, which often used dye and damaged the hands as protective gloves were not as prevalent at the time.
But, as the skills required for the craft seemed to decline, Chang Hong had second thoughts. She realized the value of it and resolutely shouldered the responsibility to retrieve and inherit it.
This particular part of the story started in 2003 when Chang Hong read a report, which claimed that some traditional crafts had disappeared into the mists of history, including the Chang family’s grapemaking. This has nothing to do with the vine, but is a handicraft that makes glass grapes and was invented by Chang Hong’s ancestor.
In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Chang Hong’s great-great-grandfather, who was originally responsible for making glass pearls as eyeballs for stuffed toys, came up with the idea to make glass grapes and offered his work as tribute to the imperial family.
Chang Hong heard from her family that in the late autumn of 1894, when Empress Dowager Cixi (18351908) went to a theater building at the Summer Palace in Beijing, she noticed a bunch of grapes positioned by the stage. Surprised at seeing “fresh” grapes at that time of season, she demanded to taste them, but was told they were artificial.
She requested the presence of Chang Hong’s great-great-grandparents and awarded them a plaque, which Chang Hong remembers seeing and admiring when she was young. After that, Chang family’s grape-making craft became famous. In 1915, it won a top prize at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and the “grapes” were sold to more than 20 countries.
“In that turbulent era, my ancestors invented the craft and made it prosper; it was really amazing. If the craft were lost in my time, I would feel guilty,” says Chang Hong who, after reading the report, talked to her younger sister Chang Yan, and they decided together to revive the craft.
Chang Yan says: “We were surprised that, after so many years, there were still people who knew about the craft, but we felt bad seeing the report describing it as ‘lost’. Although we no longer made the ‘grapes’ at that time, we are still descendants of the family, and the craft had not yet been lost totally.”
Chang Hong adds that since the grapes that her ancestors made were mostly destroyed or lost over the years, when they pass away, few people will be able to see the works with their own eyes. “It will become nothing but a name in a history book. We don’t want that to happen and want to pass it down,” says Chang Hong.
The Chang sisters grew up seeing their elder relatives making “grapes”, which involves 11 complicated procedures, but they had never completed a piece by themselves before.
“My grandaunt Chang Yuling required us to stay by her side when she made the ‘grapes’. She told us that maybe we would not become professional craftswomen in the future, but must know how to make them,” recalls Chang Hong.
But when Chang Yuling died in 1986, they no longer kept the craft going, so they met a lot of difficulties trying to recover it. For example, they remembered names of the dyes their elders used, but when they bought them, they found the colors were not like those from their memory.
Later, they learned that the former dye factory had closed down, and the new products, though bearing the same name, were made by other factories and had different hues.
Since Chang Yan was a fine arts teacher who understood color, the sisters decided to do it themselves. After about three months, they finally made some “grapes” and took them to visit an apprentice of Chang Yuling, surnamed Li, who had learned the craft from her master in the 1950s.
Li, in her 80s at the time, was very excited to see the “grapes”. “She was surprised at us being able to figure out the craft, and praised that the way they looked was just like the ones they had made in the past,” recalls Chang Hong.
The Chang sisters hadn’t seen grapes made by their elders for many years, and had based their work only on their memory. As a result, Li’s words were deeply reassuring.
In 2009, the craft was listed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage in China, and the Chang sisters became inheritors of it.
They made more improvements to the family craft. For example, while the traditional “grapes” were only purple or green, they tempered more colors and thus diversified their offerings. They have also modified the styles of the “grapes”.
The Chang sisters were not engaged with the craft on a full-time basis until they retired.
In the old days, people who mastered crafts sometimes regarded it as exclusive and did not impart their skills to people who were not family members. So it was with the Chang family. The female members, distrustful of the males, decided the craft would only pass from female to female within the family. In order to not reveal the craft to others, five female members of the Chang family remained single and devoted themselves to the craft, including Chang Yuling.
Chang Hong tried to write down their stories about a decade ago, but the task brought on a deep melancholy and sadness. In her eyes, her elders, especially the five women, really sacrificed a lot for the craft, and that is one of the reasons that urged her not to give up on it.
In the 1950s, the Chang family’s grape-making craft broadened its horizons and started to recruit apprentices. In 1957, with help from local government, they received an order of 50,000 bunches of “grapes”.
In the 1970s and ’80s, two batches of apprentices learned from Chang Yuling, but after her death in 1986, the craft gradually declined until the Chang sisters revived it.
Chang Hong’s works were exhibited at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. After nearly 100 years, the craft once again stood on the world stage. “It seems like a conversation with my ancestors, and I want to revive the glory of my family,” says Chang Hong.
Although the craft is back, there are many challenges. Chang Hong doesn’t want it industrialized, which may change the craft and lead to crudely made products, but the current working process is not that efficient, and profitable returns cannot be guaranteed.
Now Chang Hong is training her granddaughter, 10-year-old Chang Kaixin, to learn the craft. “I consciously cultivate her, and make her stay by my side when we work. Maybe she will inherit it in the future. I also want to impart the craft to more people,” says Chang Hong.
In that turbulent era, my ancestors invented the craft and made it prosper; it was really amazing. If the craft were lost in my time, I would feel guilty.”
Chang Hong, an inheritor of the traditional handicraft of making glass grapes