[Academic Dunhuang intern × Miao silversmith with strong craftsmanship]
22-year-old Ye Yanzhou broke into Miaoling with an unfinished academic controversy - his master's thesis was questioned due to "isolated documentary evidence". Only by finding an empirical connection between Dunhuang documents and southwest silver jewelry in the Miao village in Wenshan, Yunnan can he prove it. But as soon as he stepped into the silversmith's workshop in Pojiao Miao Village, he was struck speechless by 19-year-old Mu Xu with a silver hammer: "The 'mountain grass wrapped with vines' taught by the elders can be hammered out by hand, how can it be taught by books?"
One held a copy of the mural and said "The curly grass pattern originated from Dunhuang", the other wielded a hammer and firmly believed that "the silver material will move, and the pattern will move too"; one was taking notes on the field edge and his trousers were wet by the morning dew, and the other squatted in the fire pit and forged the technique so that the charcoal fire shone red on his fingertips. It wasn't until Grandma Shi took out the caravan apron from the Republic of China that the couplet bead pattern on the Sichuan brocade silver buckle closely matched the Tang Dynasty Western Region documents. Only then did the pair of "documentary school" and "hand feel school" find resonance in the jingling silver sound.
Practical difficulties in the protection of intangible cultural heritage emerged one after another: Muhe's B&B was complained for selling imitation machines. The manufacturer wanted to buy out the copyright of the pattern for 500,000 yuan. The average age of the 37 silversmiths in the village was over 52 years old. Taking the record of "Sun Pattern = Golden Wheel in the West" in "Silversmith's Manual", they examined the pattern migration on the terraced fields, explained the warmth of "Thirteen Engraving Methods" through short videos, and even looked at the inscription "Taken from Shazhou Pattern" on the Qing Dynasty silver crown in the museum. Understanding tradition is never an excuse to be conservative.
Purpose: Protection of intangible cultural heritage