Wood-spinning toys go to the international market with the spirit of "artisan"

In the early 1980s, with the reform and opening up, foreign toys continued to flood into the domestic market, and hibiscus toys were hit by unprecedented impact. At that time, Fan Jimei, the director of the Muxi Crafts Gift Factory, led the whole village to research and develop the raft processing lathe, but eventually it was forced to close the factory due to the transformation. In the past 600 years, the grand occasion of “family smashing the car and busy paintings of households” has instantly become a bubble, and the hibiscus toys have begun to decline. Fan Jimei only learned the skills of hibiscus with his parents when he was seven or eight years old. For the children of Houyi Village, this is a "farm work" that must be learned in childhood. But since he joined the army, he has never touched it. The factory closed down, and the raft industry was hit hard by the young Fan Jimei. In the next five years, only the workshops in his home will make a "squeaky" sound of machine castration, and the original noisy village at night is particularly "sharp".

"How can the craftsmanship passed down from generation to generation be destroyed in the hands of our generation? There is no problem with the hibiscus toys. The problem is that our crafts cannot keep up with the pace of the times. We must improve the technology, innovate the varieties, and let the rafts return to Chinese toys. The market, Fan Jimei, 66, recalled this year. In fact, Fan Jimei always has his own "small abacus" in his heart. He hopes that the hibiscus toy can continue to accompany the next generation of children like the generation of his own generation. He will let the children accept the Chinese traditional culture from an early age. The edification. In the past five years, Fan Jimei has rarely gone out, and spent the whole day in the wood piles dealing with machines that can't speak. Hard work pays off, he finally developed a wooden boring lathe, which achieved a major change in manual knife cutting to machine castration, and the efficiency increased nearly 100 times. In addition, he also fully integrated foreign elements into the hibiscus toys, and developed more than 20 new varieties such as American Walnut, Japanese kimono dolls and small trains. In the powder process, after many experiments, the powder prepared by Fan Jimei is coated on the surface of the hibiscus toy to be more glamorous and wear-resistant, forming a perfect visual impact.

Under the unremitting efforts of Fan Jimei and other inheritors, Muxi Toys was included in the provincial intangible cultural heritage in 2009, and was listed by the State Council as the fourth batch of intangible cultural heritage in the country in November 2014, achieving a significant historical significance. Transition. Hibiscus toys, unlike "single-use" toys, are both aesthetically pleasing and wear-resistant. For decades, Mudu has been selling well in domestic and foreign markets. Houyi Village has also become the administrative village with the highest foreign exchange revenue in the town, with an annual foreign exchange income of more than 1 million yuan. Many representative works have been repeatedly used by the National Art Museum of China and Song Qingling Fund. Will wait for the collection of units.

Nowadays, if you want to have a traditional Chinese New Year, you can buy a new year's raft, because it is closely connected with the zodiac. This year, Fan Jimei designed the "Great Saint Monkey King" form exaggerated, embarrassing, and very beautiful, selling more than 10,000 pieces in the month before and after the Spring Festival. Although Muxi has a foothold in the toy market, the “artisan spirit” of artists such as Fan Jimei remains unchanged. As long as they are not busy with exhibiting sales, they will sink into the raft technology and develop new varieties.