Scattered Folk Crafts

I brought along Song Zhiwei, a doctoral student in ethnology, and the two of us followed the carvings south of the Yangtze, beyond Yangguan, through Lingwai, into the Northeast, around the Central Plains, into the Southwest, and along the coast, searching one craft at a time. Each time we found a family, we first saw the objects, then the process, then the people: an object showed us what the craft looked like, a step in the process showed us how the work was done, and meeting someone showed us whose hands the craft had ultimately passed into. As we searched, I realized the box on my back was getting heavier and heavier. Each family I recognized meant one more promise I had to make.