Lanzhou Yuzhong from the Ming Dynasty has the reputation of "Lanzhou hookah in the world".

It's becoming hard to find. Once unparalleled in the world, Lanzhou hookah.

"A curved stick, people come and ask first." This is a riddle in the courtyard, and the mystery is an artifact: a hookah.

The hookah is a tool for smoking hookah, which is generally made of brass or brass, and the brass hookah bottle is the most exquisite. There is a movable smoke pot in front of the cigarette bottle, a water storage bottle, a curved straw, a tobacco box at the back, and a small hole for paper twist on both sides. The straw is about a foot long and curved into an arc, which is why the riddle refers to the water rental bottle as a curved stick.

When smoking, fill the small bottle with more than half a bottle of water and light the hookah at the smoke pot. The other end sucks, sucking while igniting the fire, the upper space of the water bottle forms a negative pressure, and the smoke produced by the burning of tobacco goes down from the fine hole of the smoke pot, passes through the water, and gurgles. The smoke in the mouth is fully filtered and purified by the water by sucking through the straw, which reduces the damage of smoking to the human body.

Since the 190s, almost every household in the rural area has bought hookahs. Matching hookah Li.

Summarize the owner of the hookah smoking utensils either make it himself, or ask a carpenter to make a wooden box, come to light the fire with a small firewood stick, set up a lampstand next to the hookah jar wooden box, there are: matches, waste wooden sticks out of a small space in front of the hookah, insert the hookah bottle. There is also an aesthetic interest in placing kerosene lamps on top: next to the lampstand, the smoke gauge is made of red velvet cloth covers, and the flowers and plants are embroidered on it. When people visit, the first thing they do is to smoke.

The owner took the cigarette bottom with his family, Liu Huo loved to light the oil lamp, and Shan Gong Bi respectfully picked up the hookah with both hands and handed it to the visitor, and the visitor also took the cigarette bottle with both hands, and used a small firewood stick to lead the fire from the lamp while holding the smoke and snorting violently. Smoke in the nostrils of the ventilation seedlings ignite the hookah on the smoke pot.

The small Rong stick was burned out, the steel hookah was burned and sacrificed, and the people who sucked the state people took smoke from their mouths, and their expressions were hearty. After smoking a pot, gossip and chat, the index finger explores the tobacco box, picks a few locks of tobacco against the wall, and kneades it with the thumb to turn it into a pockmarked small smoke ball, which is loaded with a human smoke pot.

With small talk, Yiren burns - pot. The conversation is non-stop, the smoke is non-stop, and the pot is too addictive. Before changing hands or placing cigarettes and meals, the smoker should also fill the smoke pot with tobacco to form a convenience for the next smoker, which is the norm of hookah smoking culture and etiquette.

The hookah used in hookah smoking is processed into flakes, ten hard as tiles, sprayed with an appropriate amount of water or liquor, the cigarette pieces will slowly moisten and soft, and the cigarette pieces will gradually disperse into tobacco shreds by kneading. Loose tobacco - some tobacco boxes with hookah bottles, extra plastic boxes or plastic bags stored in old use, not air-dried, so that they can be taken at any time.

There is a folk poem: "The brass boat bends the pipe rod, and the pot in the belly is hidden in the water." Ignition one - sucking grunt, leek leaf rue Kong Ming pass. It not only vividly describes the smoking process and utensils of hookah, but also hints at the ins and outs of hookah. According to legend, the Three Kingdoms Shiyin Qimeng Festival offered tobacco to Zhuge Liang to treat miasma patients. Later, when Zhuge Liang came out of Qishan, tobacco was passed on to Gansu, and was widely planted in Lanzhou Yuzhong, Quanlan and Jingyuan, Yongdeng, Yongjing, Lintao and other courtyard areas.

Lanzhou, Yuzhong is located along the Yellow River, backed by mountains and water, with deep fertile soil, rich in calcareous and potassium elements, + points are conducive to the growth of tobacco. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty (1573 AD), the consumer population gradually turned to the countryside, and farmers, herdsmen, and fishermen became the main consumer groups. Photo paper cigarettes, hookahs are inexpensive and are the first choice for the poor.

Humanities, geography and folk customs are similar, Lanzhou shisha has an absolute geographical partnership in the countryside of Longzhong, and the consumer demand is strong. However, after the 190s, especially after entering the new century, young people in Longzhong no longer smoke hookah, and only the old people continue to be accustomed and still favored, but the dosage has shrunk greatly.

Lanzhou's shisha production used to be very prosperous, but now it is even more difficult to find a processing workshop or processing artist. In Gansu, in Longzhong, many people mention Lanzhou hookah, the first thing that comes to mind is Yuzhong, "In the past, it was processed in Yuzhong, and there were many in Yuzhong." "But when you ask about the specific processing location and the specific processing personnel, no one can say clearly.

I asked people everywhere and asked Yuzhong about it, and the information I came back was: 'No one smokes hookah now, and no one does it now.' "In the Internet search, the entries listed by the major search engines, more about hookah are intangible cultural heritage, Qingcheng, which is close to silver and next to the Yellow River, is once an important processing town, but the information about the enterprise is also in a state of extinction.

At the end of October 2016, Xinhuanet published a report on "Centennial Intangible Cultural Heritage Lanzhou Shisha", revealing that in Shanggucheng Village, Jinya Town, Yuzhong County, there is also a shisha processing factory in operation. This is great information about hookahs.

The west of Longshan, the north of the Qinling Mountains, and the south of the Yellow River belong to the typical landform of the Loess Plateau, which is the late and middle region. Bounded by the Yellow River, Lanzhou urban area is located on the western edge of the Longzhong region, and the Yuzhong County under its jurisdiction is completely connected to Dingxi, which is the authentic Longzhong area.

The ditch is vertical and horizontal, the beams are abrupt, and the landform of Yuzhong is more dry and cracked than that of Dingxi. Jinya Town is only more than 10 kilometers away from Lanzhou City, the Yuanhai Railway is interspersed from the town, and more than 90 kilometers of Wanchuan network flows through here to the Yellow River with a calm attitude, expressing the reading of the Pingchuan here. Through the East Fen Wanhua and the inspection of the truth, it is fragrant.

Lanzhou uses the yellow flower tobacco grown in the woodland as raw materials. Gradually start adding T water bing. In 1644, the Manchu people were closed, and the Manchu nobles were the upper class people who were fond of hookahs, and Guan gradually became a political fashion. Empress Dowager Cixi and President Cao Neng at the beginning of the Republic of China were all hookah addicts.

Lanzhou hookah silk is neat, the color and sweat are bright, the smell is fragrant, and it is known as the "silk, color, and taste" three uniques, and its reputation is far and wide, and the sales are dumb. Huang Junban's "Golden Pot Seven Inks" of the Qing Dynasty recorded that "Longdou Lanzhou Specialty Tobacco Family. Fan copper is a tube, storing water and sucking, which is called hookah". In an article published in Shanghai's "Declaration" in 1948, it was said: "The production center of Gannan torch is in Lanzhou, and the tobacco leaves are the best. ”

In the underdeveloped transportation, the transportation of tobacco processing is completely manual, with low efficiency and small output.

In the era when the cost was very high, when the hookah reached the hands of consumers, the price was naturally expensive, and only the dignitaries and wealthy businessmen could afford it. Later, the transportation developed, the market expanded, and the city dwellers.

Cigarettes, paper cigarettes, and hookahs have gradually become "hookah consumers." 1930s. China started out as a great place to grow tobacco leaves.

Shanggucheng Village, which is not on the map of the network.

Gucheng Village, but without the word Shang, I don't dare to make a rash conclusion. However, there is one on the map in various versions.

There is only one intersection in the town of Jinya, and the streets are scattered with shops and pedestrians. Ask many people, everyone knows Shanggucheng Village, but they don't know that there is a hookah processing factory there. Rushing over, ten minutes by car, three or four villages have passed, and then ask people, the ancient city of Shang has long passed. Turning back, I noticed that there was really a big arch on the side of the road, and it said Shang Gucheng on it. The people basking in the sun behind the arch said that inside the alley was the tobacco factory".

The alley is very narrow, with houses on one side and earthen walls made of foundations on the other. The upper base wall is a typical feature of Longzhong. Hundreds of meters of deep lanes, highlighting the openness, has arrived at the gate of the tobacco factory. The cigarette factory is not big, a three-story small building, in the surrounding private housing group seems to stand out, especially the advertising signboard on the top of the building, the word rest is full of - one storey high, especially the job. The small courtyard in front of the building is full of tobacco leaves.

All-star wood smoke workshop door industry. + The wooden structure of the table speed to build doors and windows is broken, the carving is lacking, and the tobacco leaves are dried in front of the house. is drying quickly, for fear that the rare warm sun of winter will slip away.

Tobacco cannot be advertised, it is off-limits. In the small two-story building slightly lower next to the courtyard, Boss Liu was not interested in talking about hookah, "This factory used to be a state-owned enterprise, and then it was restructured and contracted to Guangdong people, and it was not good, and it was transferred to Zhejiang people to do it, and it was still not good, we took over in 2013." ”

The boss is not hopeful about the decline of the shisha market, and the production and sales continue to decline, and he believes that there is no change. Shisha processing techniques and processing workshops have been pushed further and further away by history, and nostalgic emotions call for people to regain their memories. The greatest value of the enterprise lies in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and the interest of the boss is also in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

The courtyard where the three-story building is located is only half of the factory. Across the alleyway, the courtyard opposite the three-story building is the old home of this factory. The large courtyard is covered with small courtyards, and there are many old houses with civil structures. Its predecessor was the Jinya Hookah Workshop, which was the private tobacco workshop of a red capitalist who led the masses to support supplies for the front line and helped the liberation of Lanzhou. It was once an underground organization in the tobacco factory.

Most of the people are from Lanzhou and Yuzhong. Due to the high profits, Yanzhou is a member of the water lake processing products of this gang of people, a total of 1 management. Yuzhong is not only the most important tobacco planting base, but also some Shaanxi businessmen have come to Lanzhou to invest in shisha, which is also the main processing and production base. In particular, the ancient town of Qingcheng, because of the abundance of tobacco leaves, and the Yellow River water transportation advantage is obvious, in the Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty, it has entered the peak period of human and water phase production fruits, and there are more than 100 large and small tobacco workshops.

Tobacco and plant and hookah processing and operation have made Qingcheng prosperous for more than 200 years and become a famous prosperous and rich place in Longzhong. The Wanchuan River Basin, where Jinxing Town is located, is suitable for growing tobacco leaves, and is the raw material base of Lanzhou Tobacco Mill. In the 120s, in order to reduce production costs, the tobacco mills in Lanzhou gradually moved to the planting base of Wanchuan River City. In the 1940s, there were more than 60 shisha workshops in Yuzhong.

After the liberation, the government initiated the reform of public-private partnerships. In 1956, 22 tobacco factories in Lanzhou formed the Lanzhou Shisha Factory, and 24 tobacco factories in Yuzhong formed the Yuzhong County Shisha Factory. The province manages two state-owned cigarette factories and shares the trademark of "Gan, City, He, and Zuo". Later, tobacco was no longer grown in Lanzhou, and the Lanzhou hookah factory also stopped production and changed careers. Yuzhong has become the only planting and production area of shisha in Lanzhou.

The hookah factory in Shangchengcheng Village, its name suffix from the tobacco factory, the tobacco factory, and then to the current company, has undergone a change all the way. As the only surviving hookah processing factory in Gansu, it has the meaning of "tinder".

"In the past, it was only smoked by the rich, but now it is mainly smoked by the poor, and fishermen along the southern coast, before going to sea, bring a box, which is enjoyable and better than paper cigarettes." Boss Liu has a clear understanding of the shrinking sales, "the production level is high, the living standard is high, the 5 yuan and 10 yuan paper cigarettes are not smoked, the hookah will naturally break the inquiry and read, and now the sales price of the hookah is also very low, and the living standards of the people in poor areas are compatible, and the sales volume is very small." ”

The boss did not have the ability to save sales, nor did he save them.

Try to let the smokers plant less, and if you plant too much, you will not be able to harvest it, and the people will suffer. "The history of this smoke is the most damp, and it is in the state-run stage. Then

Cars pull goods, now a year to buy tobacco leaves no more than 5 days with car shipments, 50,000 kilograms, sales of hookah only more than 20,000 gong, sometimes also use the fire hall, now in the central region of the fine wine, the main temperament of the river. Gonghuan water area. When Xu Shousheng, a native of Jiangsu, served as a high-ranking official in Gansu Province, he was in the right coastal area and East China

There are quite a number of consumer groups in the coastal area of Jiangsu", the instructions wrote: "As a child of a fisherman in the coastal area of Jiangsu, I can prove that in a report on Lanzhou hookah, Lanzhou hookah has to pay value-added tax and consumption tax on hookah, "earn 10 yuan, and the postal capital enterprise Ashikaga Yuan is as big as the time to collect the micro agriculture and forestry specialty institute to make myself fall 53 yuan, and pay 47 yuan to the state." In the 100s, Yuzhong County was a collector, 70 came from hookah processing, and in the 70s, it was the 199th generation of hookah, and it could also contribute 4% of the tax revenue to Yuzhong County. Today, the only water hat factory in Gansu can only pay hundreds of thousands of yuan in taxes.

Before taking over the hookah factory in 2013, the boss surnamed Liu was in the woven bag business. However, in 1984, when the decline of hookah in Lanzhou had not yet appeared, he worked as a sales representative in the south of the state-owned company, and he was quite familiar with hookah. Took over the shisha factory. "The boss has already envisioned a future industrial park: ecologically planting shisha leaves, allowing people to visit the shisha processing process, and eating local dishes from the farmhouse." The company's branch in Qingcheng Town has been successfully practiced by the boss and turned into a museum and tourist attraction, and the function of promoting the historical and cultural value of shisha has been brought into play.

The once glorious era of hookah processing has gone, and it has become a pot with tens of thousands of water pots and two processes. This is the same as the steep eaves of the east of Longzhong, the people who have been in the city have not been heard, the former smoke field I am the original, the earthen house surface is almost uncovered, and the architectural style of the number is far away, and similar to the houses in the west of the river, such a house structure shows that the lack of rain here is far greater than other places in Longzhong.

In the old factory, earthen walls, wooden pillars, and mud floors, the style of the 22 early Chinese industrial germination periods, and the last hookah factory, 16 of the 22 artists are from Guochuan Town, Qingshui County, Tianshui City, Liu Fujun is not only the craftsman among them, but also the foreman of these 16 people.

Liu Fujun started pushing hookah at the age of 16, and by 2016, he had been working for 32 years. His craft is inherited from his ancestors. During the Republic of China, Liu Fujun's grandfather pushed cigarettes in the largest hookah workshop in Lanzhou. Rushing all the way from Qingshui County to Lanzhou, Liu Fujun only took half a day by car, but his grandfather needed to walk for eight days at that time. Liu Fujun has never met his grandfather, but the craftsmanship passed down by his grandfather has allowed him to use it for half his life.

Liu Fujun's father, Liu Deying, learned to push cigarettes with his father in the last years of the Republic of China. After the liberation, Lanzhou's shisha workshops throughout the urban and rural areas were integrated into public-private joint ventures of state-owned enterprises, opening the way to intensive management. Liu Deying witnessed the standardization process of the whole chapter of the establishment, 'During the Great Leap Forward, the tobacco factory was put on the machine, and manual work was abolished. He left the tobacco factory and returned to his hometown to work as a farmer.

After the reform and opening up, hookah processing was liberalized again, and small enterprises blossomed everywhere. Some villages also have enterprises, and some private individuals also run workshops. Liu Deying returned to the workshop and took his eldest son Liu Junxing to work in a small private factory for a while.

In 1984, Liu Fujun, who graduated from junior high school, followed his eldest brother to re-follow the path of his grandfather for the first time, and learned to push cigarettes in Lanzhou in one production season.

Hookah from tobacco leaves to tobacco, to go through tearing, drying, ingredients, stewed tobacco, a press, a push of the wire, a pressure in a package, a foreign sales and many other links, each link is divided into a number of small processes, and there are strict process standards. It takes about three months to complete the entire process. Liu Fujun is engaged in the tobacco pushing link, which is also the general name of wire pushing and pressing in the process. This link is located in the downstream of the entire production chain, and it is the link that shows the most technical level.

The cigarette talk that was done in the last pressing link was transported to the wire pushing workshop, Liu Fujun and his assistant Sun Yinxiang were separated on both sides, Liu Fujun stood in the back, and Sun Yinxiang stood in the front. The large special pusher head has a booster handle and a pull handle on the front. Liu Fujun was in the pushing position, Huanyin stood at the angle of pulling, and the two people pressed the push to the chimney, one pushed, the other pulled, and the hookah wire turned out from the knife edge.

Liu Fujun took the chimney box, quickly loaded the cigarette, and covered the manhole with the word cover and the box: Sun Yinxiang took the last round of pressed chimney, cut off the tobacco exposed on the outside of the chimney with a cutter, opened the chimney, took out the hookah, turned around and put it on the workbench; When Sun Yinxiang turned around, Liu Fujun had already installed another chimney box, Sun Yinxiang took the new chimney box, put it in the hemp rope buckle tied next to the chimney pier, pressed hard, the fluffy hookah instantly became dense in the chimney, and the compacted chimney beam was bolted and could not rebound, and placed - next to the settlement, the two continued to push the wire.

The two people cooperate in place, the eyes are fast, and the two processes of pushing the wire and pressing the square are integrated. Alternating in turns, the exquisite coordination will not let the craftsman have the slightest pause, two people and four hands are not free, and the processing is endless. It takes only 40 seconds for a skilled near-worker to make a H shisha river. In the process of pushing wire and pressing the square, the person who pushed in the past was the master, and the person who pulled saw the apprentice.

After work, workers can find time to take pictures.

Pushing and pulling have their own essentials and are indispensable. Only the perfect fit can improve production efficiency and improve product quality.

The master should use even force when pushing the wire to ensure that the tobacco is neat and even, and when the cigarette is not messy, it is divided into two loads, the first time to fill the bottom, the second time to fill the face, and the middle can be sandwiched to the waste cut from the front of the cigarette on the workbench. The weight of each piece of tobacco is about 52 grams, and the thickness of the upper and lower movements cannot exceed 2 grams.

The apprentice should also master the strength when drawing the wire to ensure the smooth operation of the planer and the uniform filament; When pressing the chimney box, it is necessary to press it in place, and the cigarette piece is not in place, which is also an unqualified product: before opening the box to take the cigarette, the edge must be sharp and clean to prevent the cigarette from showing raw edges: when taking the cigarette, it is necessary to act quickly, handle it gently, and put it in place to avoid damage to the corners of the cigarette.

In the past, the master-apprentice relationship was also different in terms of accepting people, basically accounting for four or six points, with sixty percent for the master and forty percent for the apprentice. Now there is no concept of master and apprentice, and there is no difference between receiving people, no matter whether the two people push or pull, the law is divided into five and fifty, the responsibility is shared, and the results are shared.

"In the past, apprentices had to cook for their masters, but now they are no longer dignified and treated equally." Talking about the social changes in the relationship between master and apprentice, Liu Fujun is avant-garde and relieved, "This is the inevitability of social development, the concept of the past was a feudal concept, and now in an open society, people must adapt to changes." Both master and apprentice are craftsmen. The spirit of craftsmanship is to do a good job and ensure the quality. ”

The social relationship between master and apprentice has changed, but the level of craftsmanship has always been high and low. Liu Fujun's assistant Sun Yinxiang is also Guo employed, in the first half of 2016, he was still a security guard in Shanghai, and he has been a security guard for three consecutive years, often sleeping hard at night. Earlier, he worked as a quarterly cigarette pusher in a private small cigarette factory in Lanzhou, and he had a certain foundation. So, he returned to Tuiyantai in the second half of 2016. But when he returned to Tuiyantai, he didn't dare to rashly stand in the master's perspective, but chose to be an assistant to the temperature measurement image, "I can do it, but I don't dare to do it, I'm afraid that I can't do it well." ”

"The same ten-way smoke, their brothers found it even after they did it." The thickness of the two pieces is not higher than the product produced by others, and the unqualified boss is discharged, although there are more hookah production processes.

The core. The most critical and most watery content is the Ni material, and the pressure of this push is three before the next order. In terms of production, land, and operation, regardless of the size of the hookah factory, it is determined that the largest number of leading workers in the "squad head" belongs to the "team leader".

The chimney dun processed by Liu Fujun is made by the people led by the "pole head", and the "head" is used to make the tobacco leaves of Gucheng, which is modulated by "handle". Modulated tobacco leaves and pocket tobacco leaves are bundled into an excitation, which is the pre-15. The core secrets and brand values of Lanzhou hookah are all in the formula of "handle".

Data show that tobacco contains carbohydrates, proteins, nicotine and minerals. The smoke of Jiline can stimulate the central nervous system of the person and make the person excited. In the botanical classification, tobacco belongs to the genus Solanaceae, which contains more than 60 species, and the safflower tobacco species and the yellow flower tobacco species have become cultivated crops.

In 1910, safflower tobacco began to be planted in Weihai, Shandong Province, China, and began to be planted in a large area in Yunnan, Guizhou and other places in the 1930s. Yellow flower tobacco is sun-dried tobacco, suitable for cultivation in northern areas, tobacco leaves can be made into chewing tobacco, snuff, early tobacco and hookah.

The yellow flower tobacco harvested by Yili in Xinjiang is processed into Mohe tobacco: the yellow flower tobacco planted in Keshan, Yi'an, Suihua and other counties in Heilongjiang Province is made into toad smoke; The yellow flower smoke planted in some places in Quwo and Dai County in Shanxi Province is used for early smoke. Gansu is the main production area of yellow tobacco, Lanzhou, Yuzhong, Jingyuan, Lintao and other cities and counties have a history of planting, mainly used for processing hookah.

The production process and formula of Lanzhou shisha have been constantly changing with history, and each period has corresponding fine-tuning and improvement, and each adjustment will promote the taste and function of the product.

The practice and recipe of Lanzhou hookah is late and along the moon to the present, roughly as follows: the wide and thick green tobacco leaves, the stem and root are dried in the shade, and the acacia flower, purple flower, city, alum, gypsum and other mixed steaming: and rub with clear oil, salt, Lou Huang; Add spices such as the same day, vanilla, Bogou, Sichuan peony, atractylodes, borneol, cross-incense, etc., stir evenly, and press it into a chimney: then manually push it into a filament, and press it into a small square in the mold after creating the silk, which can be packaged and sold.

Lanzhou shisha is formed into two colors of green and yellow due to the different harvesting methods of tobacco leaves, and is processed into green tobacco and yellow tobacco respectively. According to the complexity of the production process, Lanzhou hookah can be divided into three types: green, yellow and cotton.

The tobacco leaves recovered every year must undergo cramping, sorting, drying, and antiseptic treatment, and the tobacco can only be processed in the next year after being qualitized for one year. "Handle" is the core of the technology of the tobacco factory, he will master the ingredient ratio of tobacco leaves, and the formula is the core secret of the tobacco factory and the "handle". The recipe of each tobacco factory is different, but it is generally indispensable to have acacia flower, purple flower, alkali, alum, gypsum, clear oil, salt, turmeric, angelica, incense, mint, Sichuan chicken, atractylodes, borneol, cross-incense and other materials. In the 1990s, the tobacco produced by each factory tasted very different.

A cigarette factory with an annual output of 100,000 catties of tobacco usually brings two assistants to complete the above work. In the water industry. The status of "put the style" is pretended. Most of the "secret recipes of the formula" are ancient recipes, which are passed down from ancestors and are not easily revealed. For a craft, from the once extremely brilliant to the extremely wide now, the rise and fall of Lanzhou hookah, every craftsman who has done the "style" of the tobacco factory has a bitter account. "Handle" is hard to find.

In this last hookah factory, the boss is very vigilant and very opposed to the "handle" coming forward, "our "handle" is nowhere to be seen. He didn't accept CCTV interviews, let alone others. For the topic of craftsmen who avoid trade secrets, the boss also refused to let the "style" come forward.

The tobacco leaves are ready to go into the next one. [The first step is to press the loose tobacco leaves into a chimney, which is conducive to pushing the wire in the next link.] The person in charge of the pressure handle is called "club head" in the industry. In the past, the pressure bar had to be manually tied and pressed by a wooden oak crowbar, and the person who mastered the arubber head was called "club head".

In modern society, there is a new method of screw pressurization, but the person who picks the head is still called "rod head". The "club head" usually leads two assistants to complete the press work. The tobacco leaves are pressed into a one-meter-square chimney, and the iron frame is controlled, and it takes 1 day for two people to push the wire for one chimney. When pushing the wire, the bottom of the chimney supports the equipment similar to the gold top, the upper part pushes off the fixed thickness, and the bottom jacks the fixed size, and the working surface always conforms to the comfort of the human body standing operation.

The hookah with the depressed Gan character used to be the word "Gan". The gold-lettered signboard of Zhuzhou hookah. Most of the farmers in the courtyard took pride in smoking hookah in the eighties and nineties of the last century.

Even if the man-hours of cutting tobacco in the early stage are counted, the machine is at least 6 times faster than manual labor in the same two processes of pushing and pressing.

The production efficiency of machine application has been significantly improved, and people can be liberated from high-intensity labor, but the advantages of the machine are not all-round in the process of hookah processing. Artificial processing of hookah, a bundle of 100 pounds of chimney pier from the completion of the pressure handle, to all push into tobacco into a cigarette square, it basically takes 11 days. During these 11 days, the tobacco leaves and auxiliary materials continued to ferment and fully qualitative, and the molecules of various ingredients were completely combined with the tobacco molecules, with complete color, aroma and taste. As a result, hand-processed hookah is more humane to smoke.

The machine processes the hookah from batching, shredding to pressing, which takes only two hours. Manual tobacco pushing is to push-point pressure a little, the tobacco will not dry out, the machine processing must prevent the tobacco from drying out, breaking, shredding, pressing square are completed in the shortest possible time. In just two hours, it is difficult for the various accessories added to the hookah leaves to blend with the tobacco leaves. For old smokers, the taste of machine-processed hookah is far less than that of artificially pushed out.

During the Great Leap Forward, Liu Fujun's father Liu Deying once lost the opportunity to process hookahs, and he had to return to the countryside to re-operate iron paper and hoes. Machine processing has indeed contributed to the era of large-scale industrial production of shisha in Lanzhou, but practical tests have proved that the craftsmanship of hookah processing cannot completely replace manual labor. In this regard, Ru Fujun is indeed much luckier than his father.

Liu Fujun processed the cigarette square, pressed with a big "too" word, this is Lanzhou hookah big labor word cigarette is now the main brand of the enterprise, the new brand of the chemical army is mainly sold in the south of the Yangtze River, Xihai and East China. * And the Ganzi cigarettes that the workers pressed with machines are only used.

"The tobacco leaves of Taizi tobacco are carefully selected, and the leaves and good craftsmen are good cigarettes." Liu Liu Fujun has worked for 32 years in a row, and has followed countless bosses, no matter which boss operates, he knows everything about the production of hookah.

"Ganzi cigarettes used to be old brands, but then they fell back and forth, deceiving the gods, and now the Ganzi cigarettes of the machine system are far inferior to Taizi cigarettes."

The people who speculated about the newspaper were all forty or fifty years old, the oldest was 43 years old, and the oldest was six old men. "Young people are tired and don't learn at all, and after three or five years, I am afraid that the craft of pushing cigarettes will be lost." Liu Fujun's co-worker Zhang Shibo lamented that Master Wu is a native of Yuzhong, and although the people around him who can push cigarettes have chosen to flee the tobacco factory, he has no other skills and skills, and his education level is not high, so he can only choose to use old skills to earn some living expenses.

When the Cantonese ran the cigarette factory, there were a total of 50 people processing hookah, and Liu Fujun had to lead 30 people to Yuzhong every processing season. Later, there was less demand from the enterprise, and there were fewer craftsmen willing to follow him, let alone apprentices.

The 22 pushers, including Liu Fujun, smoked closely, and everyone smoked, but everyone did not smoke hookah, some said it was too choking, and some said that they were not used to the taste of hookah. In order to save money, they rarely smoke paper cigarettes, but generally choose early cigarettes. Will there be sales in the future of hookahs that processors are desperate for?

Without inheritance, one day when the craftsman disappears, the craftsmanship will cease to exist. "The hookah of the future can only dry machine-made cigarettes." Liu Fujun said.

The partners who push cigarettes are either father and son, or brothers, and there are still two children at stake. Actual recipients, Liu Fujun and his eldest brother teamed up in the years when he worked, can he cooperate well.

Liu Fujun clearly remembered that when he was angry, his face was red because of his fierce mouth. Some brothers on the side will also have quarrels and even fights because of poor cooperation.

Liu Fujun brought his wife Huang Yindi and taught her to pull tobacco in order to earn more money.

One year, Liu Fujun and his wife Huang Yin went back to Qingshui. Later, after some persuasion, in the process of Brother Quan's cigarette pushing, Liu Fujun sent ? The brand drove his wife angrily, and his wife returned to the workshop.

Every year at the beginning of spring, relying on pushing cigarettes, Liu Fujun and his family let their three come every winter, and their children have finished college.

In this last shisha crop, there are only 6 locals out of all the craftsmen. "Yuzhong is close to Lanzhou and has a high urbanization rate, and most locals go to Lanzhou to work, but they are not willing to do the work of pushing cigarettes, which is too tiring." The boss is very unfamiliar with the hard-working spirit of the craftsmen from Qingshui County.

Liu Fujun's 32-year career as a tobacco pusher has witnessed the rise and fall of the development of Lanzhou's hookah. He first worked in state-owned enterprises, and later after the reform and opening up, the number of socially-run enterprises and private workshops increased, and he worked in social-run enterprises and private workshops. In 1999, when the state tightened the hookah processing policy, a large number of hookah enterprises closed down, and Liu Fujun returned to the legal county hookah factory to push cigarettes.

After the restructuring of the enterprise, it was first transferred to the people of Guangdong, then to the people of Zhejiang, and now to the hands of the people of Yuzhong. No matter how the times change and how the hookah company changes, Liu Fujun insists on pushing cigarettes and never stops. His craftsmanship and personality have won the trust of successive bosses.

The craftsmen brought out by Liu Fujun obeyed Liu Fujun's words, and as the "team leader", he insisted on working every day and had no special rights. But he is righteous, and when it is critical, he will fight for everyone's rights. Every time he negotiated a salary with his boss, he was the representative.

A pair of craftsmen can process thousands of shisha in a day, and the boss of each shisha pays a salary of three cents and four cents, and a person's salary is 170 yuan a day. The welfare package is food and accommodation, and the labor insurance is a pound of tea and a towel per month.

Love to maintain a salary of 170 yuan a day, craftsmen must "get up at four o'clock, go to work at five o'clock, eat for 40 minutes, double a shed, start working, work until five o'clock in the afternoon, work 12 hours a day, every day, "piecework boss does not care." If you push a cigarette, you can't do it if the temperature is over 20 degrees, and if you don't work for 12 hours, no one can stand it. "March is over. Fortunately, this job is only done in winter for one season, starting from the eleventh month of the lunar calendar, and if Liu Fujun stands every day of the year in the next year, he is not very satisfied with the current treatment, but there is no way, "This is the salary determined by the previous Zhejiang boss during the operation, and now the price has risen, I have talked to the current boss for a good time, and people say that the work is high enough, and there is no way to open it again." "Liu Fujun has a good impression of the boss in Zhejiang." Every morning when I get up, I will say hello when I meet in the yard, and every time I go to negotiate the salary and propose a price increase, the other party promises to increase a few points, and I have never refused. ”

In 200, Huang Yindi, who was originally taking care of the children at home, also rushed to Yuzhong to process hookah in order to help her husband earn more wages. When school started, Huang Yindi took the shuttle bus back to Qingshui to take care of the child, and the shuttle overturned in Tongwei County, and someone in the car died on the spot. Huang Yindi "fractured his shoulder blade and two broken ribs, and it took half a year to recover, but he left sequelae. Huang Yindi can no longer push cigarettes, and he has followed Liu Fujun to cook for the workers in the workshop, and as a cook, he can also get some income every month.

There are no dust removal facilities in the mud house, and the working environment is very harsh. There are no large windows, and the lights are on during the day, and the smoke and flying dust are even more visible under the lights. The workers' work clothes are soaked with clear oil tobacco all year round, like leather clothes.

Entering the workshop before dawn, Liu Fujun and his workers have the craftsman spirit of one thing, and they really have to pay a silence that ordinary people can't understand. Behind each handiwork, there is the bitterness of the craftsman.

On the last day of 2016, walking through the courtyard where the main building of the enterprise is located, the sunshine filled his body. He stacked 500 pieces of hookah neatly on the display board, which was the result of his and Liu Fujun's half-day labor in the afternoon.

Hookahs accumulate in small quantities, stacked on elevated shelves, they are soaked in the hard work and sweat of craftsmen, and will go through a long period of drying in the expectation of the poor and good, becoming a gift from labor to labor.

The sun is rapidly setting in the west, and the afterglow squeezes through the many narrow window grids to the Tui Yantai, and settles into shadows on the white-painted earthen walls, and the houses are mottled with light. Liu Fujun washed his hands full of oil and turmeric, brought a large basin of noodles made by his wife from the canteen, and started dinner with his co-workers in the workshop.

After eating and drinking, Liu Fujun took off his work clothes with a leather-like texture, got into the soft quilt, and forced himself to fall asleep early.

A snow fell on the land of Longzhong in the middle of the night without warning.

At four o'clock in the morning, Liu Fujun got up and washed the car cup boiling water and a steamed bun was his breakfast, outside the house, when the mountains and rivers were silver and white, the grass and trees were closed, at five o'clock, there was almost no one on the highway in Jinya Town, and the snowfall made many people go out: But Liu Liujun and his co-workers walked into the workshop on time under the dim lamp, and were put forward with both hands to push the four wells. Liu Fujun opened a new day in the new year. Take a look at the latest chapters of "Dream Claw Book House in the Great Era" and read it for free for the first time.