Revolution and Remembrance -- The Last Stand of

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GUANGZHOU 011469 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EB, R, EAP/CM, EAP/PD, DRL STATE PASS USTR USDOC FOR 4420/ITA/MAC/MCQUEEN, CELICO, DAS LEVINE USPACOM FOR FPA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON KIPR SCUL ELAB PINR CH SUBJECT: Revolution and Remembrance -- The Last Stand of Traditional Culture in Chaozhou? Ref: Guangzhou 11352 (U) This document is sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. Not for release outside U.S. Government channels. Not for internet publication. ¶1. (U) Summary: War and revolution -- including that of a cultural nature -- have not been kind to the once highly civilized city of Chaozhou in eastern Guangdong. Still, some artisans hid treasures during the Cultural Revolution and preserved the expertise and aesthetic level as best they could. Now traditional Chaozhou fine arts -- intricate wood carving and raised silk embroidery -- have made something of a comeback but are being threatened by the lack of apprentice and journeymen artisans not to mention the provincial and central authorities' penchant for appropriating Chaozhou artifacts for permanent display in outside museums or for outright gifts to state visitors. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Chaozhou has some stunningly beautiful cultural sites and sights that could become the basis for a very large tourism industry (reftel),but it has not been an easy road for Chaozhou. This ancient city resisted the Manchus in the 17th century and paid a terrible price. Warlord armies crisscrossed the area in the 1920s, and armed conflicts between Communist and Nationalist forces also took place there during this era. Japanese trepidations exacted their toll in the 1940s, and then it became the turn of the Communists. The early part of that era saw the substantial dismantling of the Xiangzi Bridge, a unique and valued structure for Chaozhou citizens but just an "old bridge" awaiting "modernization" for the Communists. Then, the Cultural Revolution cut a huge swathe in Chaozhou, including the destruction of most of the Buddhist images and accompanying paraphernalia and decorative artwork in the city's famous Kaiyuan Temple, founded in the 8th century. Physical Grandeur Being Restored -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Now the Chaozhou government and citizenry are well on their way to "retoring" the grandeur of the city. The Xiangzi Bridge, with its stone pillars topped with wooden pavilions and moveable wooden pontoons in the middle, will be reopened in September. The Han Yu Temple, built in 999 and which had not suffered much during the Cultural Revolution (due perhaps to the anti- "superstition," anti-Buddhist stance taken by this famous Tang Dynasty essayist and philosopher) is very presentable even now. The Kaiyuan Temple has brand new Buddhist images, including some housed in an entirely brand new eastern wing, and is serenely and tranquilly beautiful despite the crowds of worshippers. A Wooden Life -------------- ¶4. (SBU) But what of the artisans and the aesthetics social classes of Chaozhou? Have they been "restored" as well? Master Artisan Gu Liuxi told us that he is doing quite well now. The new Buddhist images at the Kaiyuan Temple are the work of him and his factory -- a dizzingly noisy place with some workers using chain saws to cut huge logs down to workable size, others carving the intricate details famous in Chaozhou woodworking, and still others applying the gold leaf found on many religious and non- religious works. Gu said that he had survived the Cultural Revolution in part because he was not then seen as a senior craftsman, but he lamented the wanton destruction that had taken place, particularly at the Kaiyuan Temple. After the Cultural Revolution was over, there was not enough money to restore the temple, but fortunately he and his factory, then state-owned, received orders from Buddhist temples in Thailand (where a lot of Chaozhou overseas Chinese reside) and the company moved forward from that point. ¶5. (SBU) Gu continued that the Kaiyuan Temple restoration was a highlight of his life, and he was pleased that Chaozhou people from all over the world, including of GUANGZHOU 00011469 002 OF 003 course within the city itself, had made massive monetary contributions. The revenue from the restoration has also allowed Gu to expand production of a whole array of products including non-Buddhist pieces, and some of his works are now on display at various exhibition halls throughout China. These smaller works, often of scenes from history (the Three Kingdoms Era, for example) or literature ("The Dream of the Red Chamber," for example), are intricately carved such that the details on the faces, for example, are nuanced and realistic. Such works require as many as three or four years, with teams of artisans, some specializing in faces, some in furniture and screens, and some in the natural settings (hills, forests, and waterways). But these artisans are increasingly hard to find, and the specialists are overwhelmingly middle-aged. Working for three or four years on small pieces is painstaking, hard work, and young people do not want to take the time to learn how to do this type of intricate carving, he lamented. Moreover, the tradition of passing on techniques to the next generation within an artisan family is also difficult in a one-child era (Gu's daughter is involved in the business end of running the factory and the two showrooms but is not herself interested in learning the craft). Silken Threads -------------- ¶6. (SBU) We also visited Master Artisan Zhang Xiuwen at her Chaozhou embroidery shop. Zhang explained that Chaozhou embroidery is famous for being raised, i.e., silk thread is piled onto itself to create relief images of animals, people, flowers, plants, and even Chinese characters (in cheaper pieces, the raising is done with cotton thread with a silk facade on top, but Zhang said that these cheaper pieces often create problems later for purchasers). These pieces could be relatively small but they can also be enormous (for example, the Kaiyuan Temple is festooned with embroidered floor to ceiling banners in the Chaozhou style). Because of the interest shown particularly by the Consul General's spouse, Zhang excused herself and went to her home, which is on top of her shop, and came back with her "stash" of a couple of score of embroidery pieces. ¶7. (SBU) The Master Artisan had "rescued" these pieces and several more score as a relatively low employee at the embroidery craft factory where she had been employed when the Cultural Revolution broke out in Chaozhou. She had not believed that the Red Guards would have wanted to destroy or confiscate these works, but after looking at the destruction that took place before her very eyes, she secretly took what she could and hid them for over a SIPDIS decade. And these are treasures. A traditional style "one hundred birds" piece -- water-stained after it was retrieved from a burning pile of embroideries -- is brilliantly composed, with every single bird having distinct faces and forms, while a version of "two chimeras playing with one another" is vividly charismatic. ¶8. (SBU) Zhang had rescued more of these, but after "reform and opening" she had told Chaozhou municipal officials that these treasures still existed and she had donated many to them. She was shocked and unhappy to discover that many of the pieces were subsequently sent on to Guangzhou and Beijing where they either went on display at some museum or became outright gifts to visiting foreign dignitaries. She finally convinced Chaozhou authorities that they were giving away "the very soul of Chaozhou," and now she carefully hordes those pieces remaining in her own personal possession while Chaozhou officials have become far more conscious that these artifacts are more appropriately displayed in a Chaozhou setting, particularly as the city further develops its tourist industry. ¶9. (SBU) Zhang said that the force of her argument was buttressed by the fact that literally no more of these types of embroidery pieces are forthcoming. The "secrets" of manufacturing the silk fabric on which the embroideries are stitched are "lost forever," and there is no large GUANGZHOU 00011469 003 OF 003 extant supply of this particular type of fabric anymore -- she hordes some also for her own personal stitch work. More importantly, the craft is also deteriorating if not dying. To be sure, Chaozhou still produces embroidery but much less care and work is involved in the production of contemporary pieces (they are still good enough, however, for provincial authorities to present as gifts to dignitaries, with Chaozhou products accounting for 40 percent of provincial government gifts to visitors, according to Chaozhou city officials). Moreover, because embroidery is painstaking handiwork, many young women refuse to take it up, preferring instead the lower pay but easier work style of the factory or shop floor. Comment -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Although "very expensive" by Chinese standards, the works by Gu and Zhang are cheap considering the amount of time spent producing them and the artistic creativity embedded therein. Accordingly, the products are seeing brisk sales particularly to overseas Chinese albeit the number of domestic Chinese patrons is also growing. Still, it is not likely that the revenue potential will be a sufficient draw for potential artisan apprentices and journeymen to spend the years mastering the crafts. So, while the physical attributes of Chaozhou's culture will soon be fully on display for the world to see, the human "memory" behind that culture as embodied in the generation of Master Artisans Gu and Zhang may not be transmitted to their posterity. Dong