A Study On Folk Handicrafts In South Fujian And Taiwan

In recent years, with the increasing of the research and the academia's high-level attentions to the regional culture in Fujian and Taiwan, many scholars commenced on the investigations in the two areas and made a systematical analysis on the beliefs, customs, religions and regional economies in Fujian and Taiwan. However, they confined their studies to the categories of the histories of economy, culture and religion, and ignored the studies on folk handicrafts in Fujian and Taiwan.Basing on the rich cultural resources in Fujian and Taiwan, the paper studied the successors' family trees, pithy formulas and skills of the folk handicrafts through the comparisons and analysis on the subjects, skills, craftsman's status and material selections by ways of field investigations and analysis of document records and historical data. Moreover , the author chose the guild's practices as the example of research and inquired into the production models and institutions of folk handicrafts in Fujian and Taiwan. So the main purpose of the study is to investigate the whole sequence and look into the origins of folk handicrafts in Fujian and Taiwan with a macroscopical view and analyze the pith through case study with a microcosmic view.As for the method of study, the paper laid emphasis on the inquiries of the famous artisans' life history and the introductions of their representative works, which included the succession of handicrafts and the innovation of skills. Moreover , in order to make an overall and objective analysis on the forms and features of folk handicrafts, the paper focused on the research of the guild's practices, the pithy formulas and the relations between the subjects and the folk, the religions and the folk, the languages and the folk and so on.In this paper, the author chose the folk handicrafts in Fujian and Taiwan as the object of study. The first-hand information through the analysis on the features of some art forms and the interviews with the successors is a real picture of the local folk handicrafts. The relevant data and records based on this will provide theory basis and reference for the later working decisions and immaterial culture heritage protections during the works for the cultural ecosystem reserve in Fujian and Taiwan. On the one hand, it supplied a gap for the studies on the history of traditional handicrafts industry in Fujian and Taiwan, and on the other hand, it will promote the sense of identity and history for the cross straits and have historical significance and social value for preventing culture independence of Taiwan and promoting the peaceful unification of our motherland.