Sheep hair, wolf hair, purple hair; seal script, official script, running script; dotting, chaffing, dyeing... The inheritance of Chinese culture for thousands of years is inseparable from a writing brush.
As computers and mobile phones become more and more popular, the annual sales volume of writing brushes in Wengang Town, Jinxian County, Jiangxi exceeds 1.2 billion pieces! This historic town has inherited 1,600 years of brush-making craftsmanship. It accounts for about 80% of the national brush market. While inheriting a thousand-year cultural heritage, it has "written" a cultural industry worth nearly 10 billion yuan.
Aerial photo of Wengang Town. Xinhua News Agency
Thousand-year-old writing brush, "writing" creates a tens of billions of industry
Wengang brushes originated in the Jin Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty. The brush-making technology has a history of more than 1,600 years. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Wengang brushes became the royal brushes of the imperial palace, and there was a saying that "a pen costs one tael of gold".
In modern times, with the rise of hard pens, especially the increasing popularity of computers and mobile phones, calligraphy brushes have gradually faded out of daily writing, and Wengang calligraphy brushes have also been silent for a time. In order to make a living, some Wenggang people carry their handbags on their shoulders and go from house to house selling calligraphy brushes. "When you go out, you have a load of brushes, when you come in, you have a load of skins" is a true portrayal of Wengang's calligraphy at that time.
This is a collection of various styles of brushes taken at the Wengang Fur Brush Trading Market. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Zhuzuo
In 1988, with the support of the local government and relying on the long-standing pen-making technology, Wengang built a fur brush trading market, commonly known as the "Brush Market", which opens on the first, fourth and seventh days of the lunar calendar. Every market day, people choose furs, look at pen tips, pick pen holders, and test paper and ink. The scene is bustling with people, and both buying and selling are booming.
Today, there are more than 800 stationery booths in the trading market, offering more than 2,000 products such as brush tips, pen holders, and oil paint brushes. With an annual transaction volume of 90 million yuan, it has become the largest brush trading market in China. Wengang Town has more than 400 brush manufacturing companies, more than 2,200 workshops, and more than 22,000 employees. The related stationery industry has annual sales revenue of nearly 10 billion yuan, and its products are exported to the United States, France, Australia, Singapore and other countries and regions.
Merchants purchase brush materials at the fur and brush trading market in Wengang Town. Xinhua News Agency
Hundreds of processes, preserving thousands of years of ingenuity
Zhou Pengcheng, the national representative inheritor of Wengang calligraphy brush making skills, is 72 years old and has been making calligraphy brushes for more than 60 years.
Early in the morning, in Zhou Pengcheng's studio, a velvet knife flew between his fingers. He gently picked up the wool, spread it evenly and flattened it, then rolled the velvet thinly and covered it on the pen core.
"It matters which part of the wool is taken and where the hair edge falls. If there is a difference of one millimeter, it will not work properly when writing." Zhou Pengcheng said that a good writing brush needs to go through more than 120 processes such as wool selection, degreasing, velvet removal, slicing, cutting and lining, bundling, and edge trimming. Eighty percent of the hard work is spent on the technology and formula.
In addition to the material, the season, temperature and even air humidity all affect the quality of a pen. "A person must be upright and the mind must be calm, and the brush made in this way is a good brush." In order to pass on the old craftsmanship, he also set up a brush making skills training center in Jinxian to teach the skills for free.
Zhou Pengcheng makes brushes at the Bizhuang. Published by Xinhua News Agency (photo by Fan Zheping)
In 2021, Wengang brush making skills were included in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects. Since 2019, more than 200 highly skilled talents in calligraphy brush production have been added to the local area, and "Jinxian Wenbi" will be approved as a national geographical indication certification trademark in 2021.
A new pen can "draw" the stars in the sea
Wengang people are not stuck in a single track of traditional calligraphy. Following the core craftsmanship accumulated over thousands of years of pen making, the local area integrated writing industry resources, deeply explored the connotation of traditional culture, and developed more than 400 cultural and creative products such as paper-wrapped pens, fetal hair pens, and pen-in-print pens.
E-commerce and live streaming have connected traditional culture lovers from all over the world. After returning to her hometown to start a business, Huang Yuanzhen, a "post-90s generation", focused on the e-commerce track and increased research and development of new products. "Normally, daily sales range from 5,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan, but orders increase significantly during the back-to-school season." She said, hoping that more and more people would pick up a brush and start writing, so that traditional culture could enter more people's daily lives.
The categories of brushes have also expanded from wolf hair, sheep hair, and jianhao to fountain pens, gel pens, oil paint brushes, and now popular overseas nail art pens and makeup brushes. The ancient pen-making standards of "point, round, neat, and healthy" are being inherited in new fields.
This is a nail art pen produced in Jiangxi Jinxian (Wengang) Wenbi Shuzhi Industrial Park. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Zhuzuo
The new life of the brush is not limited to factory workshops. The town has successively built museums and research workshops on brush culture and fountain pen culture, turning the history of pen making and pen art stories into visual and touchable cultural scenes.
Many traditional villages have retained the ancient architectural texture of the Gan style and have embedded academic and rural cultural tourism businesses. Visitors can walk into ancient villages and workshops, experience the birth of a brush up close, and experience traditional culture immersively.
Wengang people adapt to the needs of the times and follow market changes, allowing old craftsmanship to take root in new fertile soil and continue to sprout. A small brush is continuing to write the brand-new years that belong to Wenggang people in the journey of the new era.
Planning: Ling Weijia
Coordinator: Liu Yaxuan, Zhuo Zhuo, Tao Hong
