Master Craftsman

Zhang Laifu gripped the lantern and turned to ask the teahouse attendant, "How good is this lantern?"

The attendant froze for a moment. "It's just a paper lantern. What is there to judge?"

"Which workshop made it?"

Now the attendant understood. "Follow Candle Oil Road to the south end of the street, turn left, and go into the alley. You'll see a big shop called the Old Bright Lantern Shop. It's especially bright and spacious. If you can't find it, ask around at the street corner. All the nearby merchants know it."

Zhang Laifu walked down the road. At a restaurant along the way, the owner gave every departing customer a small lantern.

Farther ahead stood an inn. The owner there also gave a small lantern to every guest who went out at night.

Then came a bookshop. A customer bought two books, and the proprietor gave him a lantern too.

Farther on was an entertainment house. A young woman came out to see a guest off and handed him a lantern as well.

Giving night travelers little paper lanterns seemed to be a custom in Wansheng Province.

Zhang Laifu followed the road to the Old Bright Lantern Shop and stood outside for a long while.

The shop really was spacious and bright. Its storefront stretched across three bays, but it had no sign. Inside, there was no counter.

More than a dozen long tables filled the room, all covered with lanterns—paper lanterns.

A burly man of about fifty, a half-smoked cigarette between his lips, rubbed his gleaming bald head and came over to Zhang Laifu. "Buying lanterns? How many?"

Zhang Laifu looked around. "Is this the Old Bright Lantern Shop?"

"What kind of question is that? The lantern shop is right in front of you. Can't you see it?"

"I can see the shop," Zhang Laifu said, "but I don't see a sign, so I don't know if this is Old Bright..."

The proprietor, Yang Laoliang, pointed at his bare scalp. "Am I not bright enough? What do I need a sign for?"

His head really did shine. It was pale and glossy, with an oily sheen that dazzled the eyes under the lantern light.

Seeing the three lanterns Zhang Laifu carried—a gauze lantern and an ox-horn lantern in his left hand, and a paper lantern in his right—Yang Laoliang asked, "Are you here to buy lanterns or not?"

Zhang Laifu looked at the roomful of paper lanterns and felt as though he had come home.

Those weren't lanterns. They were a whole roomful of wives!

This time, there could be no mistake. He belonged to this trade.

Zhang Laifu set the three lanterns aside, clasped his fists toward the proprietor, and said, "I've come to learn the craft."

"Learn the craft?" Yang Laoliang looked him up and down, then agreed. "Come with me."

He agreed just like that?

He certainly had. At a paper lantern shop, they did things briskly, without so much fuss.

Old Liang led Zhang Laifu through the front room and into the rear courtyard, where even more lanterns were piled up.

"Master Wang, someone's here to learn the craft."

"Bring him over."

Old Liang led Zhang Laifu to Master Wang. By his looks, Master Wang was around sixty, with graying hair, a dark face, deep-set, keen eyes, and a back held ramrod straight. He wore a blue-green, front-buttoned short jacket beneath a padded coat.

Two young men stood beside him. One was about twenty-five or twenty-six; the other looked seventeen or eighteen.

Yang Laoliang told Zhang Laifu, "Stand with them. They're both new apprentices."

The man in his twenties was Deng Yuechuan. He had come to learn the craft a month earlier.

The younger man was Chen Xiaowang. He had arrived two days before Zhang Laifu.

Yang Laoliang gave a brief introduction. "These two will be your senior apprentices. Ask them if there's anything you don't understand. I don't stand on ceremony: no apprenticeship gift, no banquet. But the rules of learning a craft still apply. You'll write an Apprenticeship Petition and study here for three years. Food and lodging are covered, but you won't be paid."

Three years was far too long. Zhang Laifu asked Laoliang, "Could I work here for a short stint first?"

Old Liang frowned. "To work a short stint, you need a Graduation Certificate proving you've learned the trade. You have to be at least a junior hand before you can earn a living at it. Who's your master? Let me see your certificate."

So even a junior hand needed a Graduation Certificate. You couldn't simply call yourself one.

Chen Xiaowang whispered to Zhang Laifu, "Without a Graduation Certificate, you won't be able to do anything later. The Trade Guild won't even let you set up your own business. You might as well learn the craft here."

He couldn't commit to learning a craft without care. Zhang Laifu asked Yang Laoliang, "You have a Master Craftsman here, right?"

Yang Laoliang smiled. "What do you think? Could my shop have grown this big without a Master Craftsman? One look at the quality of these paper lanterns will tell you what our craftsmanship is like."

Their craftsmanship was hard to judge, though.

Unlike Bright Illumination Studio and Auspicious Splendor Workshop, the Old Bright Lantern Shop usually made only the plainest paper lanterns. Almost all were the same style; special orders were made separately as needed.

"We got a big order tonight. Master Wang's going to make them himself." Chen Xiaowang winked at Zhang Laifu. For some reason, he found Zhang Laifu easy to warm to.

Zhang Laifu stared at Chen Xiaowang, his eyes blank. "He doesn't usually make them?"

"How could we make our master do the work on an ordinary day?" Chen Xiaowang glanced around as if sharing a secret few knew. "You haven't heard? Master Wang's nickname is Wang Tiaodeng. He's a second-tier Craftsman. Normally, you wouldn't even get to see an expert like him."

Zhang Laifu watched Wang Tiaodeng closely, but Wang Tiaodeng did not start work right away. He told Deng Yuechuan to give it a try first.

Deng Yuechuan had been an apprentice for only a month, and his hands were clearly unpracticed. He took eight shaved bamboo strips, heated them over the fire for a moment, put on cotton gloves, and began bending them.

"He's bending the bamboo strips to make the frame," Chen Xiaowang told Zhang Laifu.

Nearly ten minutes later, Deng Yuechuan had bent all eight strips. Perhaps the heat had been wrong, or perhaps he had not judged his strength well. The curves were uneven, and when he arranged the eight strips in a circle, they hardly looked like a lantern.

"It doesn't just look bad—the bottom and top rings won't fit either!" Chen Xiaowang worried on Deng Yuechuan's behalf.

Deng Yuechuan was anxious too. The bottom and top rings were the two bamboo circles that secured the lantern's frame. With the strips curved unevenly, they would not lie flat against the rings and could not be fastened in place.

He bent and tugged, trying to force the frame together. Wang Tiaodeng stepped forward, kicked him, and cursed, "Get lost! Stand aside and watch!"

Deng Yuechuan moved aside and lowered his head, not daring to speak.

Wang Tiaodeng picked up Deng Yuechuan's crooked frame and asked Chen Xiaowang, "Tell me why his work turned out like this."

Chen Xiaowang lowered his head. "His skills aren't good enough."

"As if I needed you to tell me that!" Master Wang kicked Chen Xiaowang too, then turned to Zhang Laifu. "You were watching as well. Why did his work turn out like this?"

Zhang Laifu put some distance between himself and Old Wang. He did not want to be kicked, and he had indeed spotted the problem. "These bamboo strips vary in width and thickness, but he's expected to bend them all into the same shape. Doing that by hand alone is too difficult."

Chen Xiaowang looked at Zhang Laifu in surprise. He had been an apprentice for two days, yet the newcomer explained things more clearly than he could.

The strips used for the frame really were rough. Some even differed considerably in length. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Wang Tiaodeng nodded. "Yes, making a frame with nothing but your hands isn't easy. Do you have a better way?"

Zhang Laifu puffed out his chest confidently. He had studied a little of this sort of thing at university. "Starting straight in is too hasty. The bamboo strips don't even have basic measurement marks.

"To make the frames more reliably, you first need to select suitable materials. Sort out the strips that meet the requirements, rework the ones that are too long or thick, and discard any that are too short or thin.

"Ideally, you'd draw plans beforehand, control the dimensions of each part and the angle of each bend, strictly regulate the heating time, and then use specialized tools..."

"Why are you spouting all that useless stuff?" Wang Tiaodeng interrupted. "Are you doing carpentry? What are you going on about measurements for?"

Zhang Laifu thought for a moment. "Isn't it much the same as carpentry?"

"Not even close!" Wang Tiaodeng took eight bamboo strips over to the brazier and began heating them.

Chen Xiaowang said quietly, "Do you know that learning just how long to heat the bamboo strips might take a year?"

"Does bamboo cost nothing? You'd throw away every strip that doesn't make the cut? How could you run a business like that?" Once the strips were heated, Master Wang bent all eight at once without even putting on gloves. Every strip curved to exactly the same degree.

"This move is even harder," Chen Xiaowang said. "Bending eight strips at once—plenty of apprentices still can't do it after years of practice."

"And you were going on about plans. What good would plans do?" Master Wang beckoned, and an apprentice brought him two bamboo rings. He fitted them into place with both hands, threaded and wound two thin bamboo strands through them, and the frame was done.

An apprentice handed him a sheet of rough-edged paper printed with a design. Master Wang caught it between his index and middle fingers, wrapped it around the frame, pushed with his thumb, and turned his wrist. The lantern was already pasted together.

Someone else handed him a length of wire. Wang Tiaodeng fixed it inside the lantern's opening, bending the upper end into a hook for hanging it from a pole and the lower end into a spike for holding a candle.

He fitted the pole, set the candle in place, and lit it. Then Wang Tiaodeng asked Zhang Laifu, "Is it bright?"

Zhang Laifu nodded. "It is."

Wang Tiaodeng shook the lantern. "Including that stub of foreign wax inside, this lantern costs two copper coins. Buy in bulk from us, and we'll even sell it for one and a half!"

"With something this cheap, who has time to sort materials, measure them, and mark them? All that fancy talk is nonsense!"

With that, Master Wang grabbed dozens of bamboo strips and passed them over the fire. His hands twisted and folded, and in less than a minute he had made more than twenty lantern frames.

"Paste the paper!" Master Wang called. One group of apprentices came forward to paste the paper, while another split bamboo, shaved poles, and prepared materials.

Zhang Laifu marveled at the speed of Wang Tiaodeng's hands. They were faster than a machine.

Chen Xiaowang tugged Zhang Laifu. "What are you standing around for? Come work with Master!"

"I'm not in a hurry to work." Zhang Laifu turned toward Yang Laoliang. "I'll sign the Apprenticeship Petition first."

P.S. Ox-horn lanterns were high-end lamps with a complex production process, and their makers passed down their craft through their own lineages. The methods for making paper lanterns were relatively simple, and even outsiders could make them. But without knowing the tricks, outsiders spent too much labor on them, driving the cost too high to sell. Paper lantern makers therefore had their own lineages too.

Gauze lanterns required different techniques, with covering the frame in gauze being a craft passed down through its own lineage. Wire lanterns were another trade, with their own dedicated artisans and workshops. Historical records on the various trades drew strict distinctions between them: they were entirely different lines of work.