The Historical Inheritance And Contemporary Changes Of Traditional Handicraft

Folk crafts has always been an important field of folklore research,which is deeply rooted in people’s daily life and is closely related to the daily communication and practice of the common people.The emergence and development of folk crafts is characterized by complexity and diversity,which provides a variety of research in the field of humanities and social sciences.The rural handicraft is the most common one among different folk crafts,which was often produced as a traditional agricultural sideline in the local society.The porcelain repairing craft of the Shitanwu,Zibo city,central area of Shandong province is produced and developed around the local people living in the Shitanwu,Badou town,Boshan district.During the period of traditional rural society before the establishment of the new China,the existence of porcelain repairing industry in Shitanwu village is based on seasonal production of family agricultural sideline,which can not only meet the internal demand but also can be used as a supplementary livelihood model to provide services for neighborhood during slack season.Before the Cultural Revolution,the social structure between villages did not change fundamentally despite Shitanwu area suffered from turbulence.Porcelain repairing industry still continued its.own context in the traditional agricultural society,showing a relatively stable development trend;But with the deployment of pressed cultural policy,the porcelain repairing industry was stagnated during this period.During the rural transition period after reform and opening up,with the decentralization of national policies,various rural handicrafts began to show a revival trend,gradually restoring the traditional production mode.The individual handicraft industry showed its unprecedented vitality.However,since year 1990,with the prosperity of the national ceramic industry and the decline of ceramic industry in Boshan,traditional porcelain repairing product was gradually replaced by industrial product.The impact of industrialization accelerated the disintegration of traditional rural society and the porcelain repairing industry totally perished from now on in the Shitanwu village.Entering into the 21st century,the government strengthened the support for traditional crafts via intangible cultural heritage protection policy,porcelain repairing industry again shows the trend of revival.From the national perspective,the national macro-control as the driving force provided the policy support of the revival and transformation of traditional porcelain repairing industry.From the perspective of local society,the public also adopted a flexible way to adjust themselves.Traditional porcelain repairing craftsmen urgently need to develop their skills to adapt to the process of modern changes.These two perspectives present a kind of mutual influence and mutual penetration state.They jointly influenced the present status of porcelain repairing craft.Throughout the rise and fall of porcelain repairing craft,it reflects the important changing process of rural handicrafts in the transformation of traditional society.Folk handicrafts is a part of people’s daily life,and its fate is inextricably related to political,economy,culture and society changes.This article took Yang Tao’s personal narrative as the main line,deeply described the overall village environment of Shitanwu,grasped Yang Tao’s life experience,inheritance context,social relations,industry rules and so on to gain a further understand towards the development of folk crafts during the rural social changing process in China.