Eucalyptus went to Hainan for a trip and took a fancy to the coconut carvings sold at the stalls.

Coconut carving is made of coconut shell, coconut palm and coconut wood as raw materials, and is hand-carved into a variety of practical products and plastic artworks. Coconut carving is one of the specialties of Hainan Island. Coconut carving because the officials in the old days often used it to pay tribute to the imperial court and got the reputation of "Tiannan tribute".

The coconut carving handicraft style is novel, the shape is simple, the picture is elegant, the texture is light, the ornamental and practical are integrated, and it has a strong Hainan style. The carving process includes plane relief, three-dimensional relief, flower relief, as well as brown three-dimensional carving and shell inlay carving and other techniques. Coconut carving is an important part of Hainan tourism handicrafts.

Hainan coconut carving has a long history. The first to use coconut shells should be the earliest ancestors of the Li people on Hainan Island. The ancestors of the Li nationality knew how to make pottery and canoes very early, but compared with the complex pottery-making technology, the coconut shells available in the wilderness are resistant to acid and alkali, and it may be more simple and casual to make containers.

However, the appearance of the prototype of coconut carving can only be traced back to the first year of Xuanzong in the Middle Tang Dynasty (847). According to the Tang Dynasty Liu Sui's "Ridge Table Record Difference": "The coconut tree, also like sea palm, is as strong and big as an ou bowl, with a rough skin such as a big belly, and a hard shell, solid and hard, two or three points thick. There is a round like an egg, that is, cut off a head, sand and stone grinding, to remove its wrinkled skin, its spotted brocade, with platinum to fill it, thought to be a water jar, rare and lovely. ”

At that time, there was a folk legend that the coconut shell had the characteristics of "poisonous that is cracked", and the Tang Dynasty poet Tortoise Meng still left the poem "The wine is full of coconut cups to disinfect the mist, and the wind follows the banana leaves to the boat". "Notes on Eastern Guangdong" also records that when Li Deyu, a minister of the Tang Dynasty, was relegated to Yazhou, he sawed coconut shells into scoops, spoons, bowls, and cups for eating and drinking.

After that, clues about Hainan coconut carving began to frequently appear in the historical materials and literati sentences of the past dynasties. Ming "Zhengde Qiongtai Chronicles" uploaded, Song Shaosheng four years (1097), Su Dongpo lived in Dan'er, once took a coconut shell to ask local artists to carve a coconut hat called "coconut crown", and then in the poem "Hezi by the coconut crown" swaying pride: "Self-scarf to invite drunken guests, but also the empty shell to pay the crown master."

The poem "Wine" of the journal also describes the vivid scene of paying tribute to the imperial court coconut carved wine: "Picking fences and choosing tributes to support Shangtian Street". By the time of the Song Dynasty, the exquisite coconut bowls, coconut cups, and coconut pots had been popular in the banquets of scholars.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, coconut carving was often used by officials as treasures to pay tribute to the imperial court, so it also had the nickname of "Tiannan tribute". In the materials of the milk tea bowl of the Qing Palace, records of coconut carving were also found. The Qing palace drinking milk tea needs to be accompanied by a royal bowl with excellent quality and fine workmanship.

At that time, Guangdong paid tribute to the milk tea bowl made of coconut shell, the outer wall of the bowl is coconut shell, the craftsman on the thin coconut shell surface, skillfully carved pine, bamboo and plum ornamentation, the inner wall is embedded in silver.

The coconut silver bowl is simple and lightweight, it is one of the few milk tea bowls in the Qing Palace, and the emperor not only used it in small and medium-sized banquets, but also preferred drinking utensils when drinking milk tea. In the book "Haigong Case" in the Qing Dynasty, "coconut carved ink cartridges" also appeared many times. As for the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, it was very common to use coconut carving as gifts and supplies.

Successive generations of coconut carving artists have perfected the coconut carving skills, and gradually formed handicrafts with unique national styles and local colors.

It is necessary to go through several processes such as material selection, molding, carving, flowering, inlay, planing, modification, etc., and the carving techniques have sunken carving, relief carving, through carving, palm carving, round carving, collage, oil paint, etc. In addition to the original green shell carving, coconut carving is also combined with other carving materials and crafts to create different alternative beauty, the more common ones are tin, silver, shell carving, gypsum inlay, sandalwood inlay, ceramic collage, etc.

The products include small and exquisite fruit plates, rice bowls, wine cups, decorative boxes, coconut bead necklaces, as well as rich and elegant tea sets, wine sets, vases, table lamps, trophies, as well as all kinds of high-end hanging screens, sitting screens, screens, etc.

The coconut carving process is divided into three categories. One is coconut shell carving. Using the natural form of coconut shell, the coconut shell and shell inlay are combined, and spliced into handicrafts according to the design shape, and the products include coconut bowls, tea boxes, toothpick holders, ashtrays, vases, erhu, collage craft paintings, etc. The second is coconut palm carving. According to the natural texture effect of coconut palm, it is processed into various characters and animals such as coconut monkeys, coconut pigs, and coconut girls by cutting, cutting, and scalding. The third is coconut wood carving. Coconut wood has always been used by Hainan folk to process into wooden beams to build houses, and later craft factories began to use coconut wood to process into chopsticks, hairpins and other products. However, the most used by people is the coconut shell carving.

The carving techniques of Hainan coconut carving include plane relief, three-dimensional relief, flower relief, and many types such as three-dimensional carving with palm and shell inlay carving. The varieties of coconut carving handicrafts have developed to more than 300 kinds, including tableware, tea sets, wine sets, smoking sets, vases, as well as various types of hanging screens, seat screens and so on.

Its style is novel, the picture is elegant, the shape is simple, the texture is light, beautiful and practical. Coconut carving, is a handicraft carved from coconut shell, the shape is novel and diverse, the tone is simple and elegant, with a unique artistic style and strong Hainan color.

The "Coconut Girl", "Lion", "Monkey", "Rabbit" and other series of products created by using all coconuts are novel and strange, depicting animals and characters vividly, and have won the first prize at the National Tourism Arts and Crafts Fair. Especially popular in the United States, Europe, Japan.

The production areas of coconut carving are mainly distributed in Haikou and Wenchang, Hainan. There are only the Wen family and the Gao family left in the lineage. After the Wen family passed away, it was inherited by Wen Shu and Wen Chuan, and Wen Shu passed on to his son Wen Jiafu, and also passed on the apprentice Wu Mingju and others, and the Wen family mainly made molds (blank tires).

The Gao family takes Gao Yusheng as a representative figure, proficient in design and carving skills. According to the genealogy of the Gao family, the ancestor Gao Keren had a close relationship with Su Dongpo, and it is still a good story among the people of Hainan. Gao Yu left a large number of works during his lifetime, which had a wide influence. His skills were passed on to a large number of heirs such as his daughter Gao Jizhen and his proud disciple Zhang Xingfu.

While the makers of coconut carving are developing the market, they inevitably encounter many obstacles.

First, in accordance with the traditional carving techniques, the manual completion of a coconut carving work takes a long time, the process is complex, the natural output is small, the price is high, and the market is good is the mass production of processed products, resulting in the imbalance between the process production and market sales, the folk artists are difficult to rely on this skill to support their families, and the traditional craft is facing a crisis.

Second, most of the products produced by local artists are mainly operated independently, and due to insufficient funds and limited market development, it is difficult to form a leading industry. The Haikou Coconut Carving Craft Factory was disintegrated in the restructuring more than ten years ago, and the workers had to find other jobs.

Coconut carving products are bound to go to the market, and the traditional craft production techniques have become the "bottleneck" of production. In the face of such a contradictory reality, the two voices of the inheritors express their own thoughts.

One point of view is that for the coconut carving skills of the national intangible cultural heritage protection project, inheritance is the foundation, and it should be an active inheritance, because the times are progressing, people's aesthetic taste is also changing, so it is necessary to keep pace with the times. It is impossible to rely on carving one by one as in the past, which is far from meeting the market demand.

Another voice believes that since it is an intangible cultural heritage, it should strive to maintain its traditional state, let alone use machines to produce it. Otherwise, the meaning of "intangible cultural heritage" will be lost. Coconut carving focuses on the word "carving".

On the premise of protecting traditional skills, it is necessary to achieve the organic combination of tradition and modernity, manual and machine, high-end and low-end products. High-end products are naturally traditional and handmade; The low-end mass production of products may wish to cooperate with machining, so as to seek balance in the market, and the traditional skills have also been protected and inherited.

Hainan has been an island with a unique geographical environment and humanistic atmosphere in the Chinese territory since ancient times, and the historical civilization created and accumulated by the Hainan people after thousands of years is not only inherited in the deep cultural psychology of the local people, recorded in the rich ancient and modern local literature classics, but also inherited in the distinctive folk crafts. There are many coconut trees in Hainan Island, known as "Coconut Island". Qiu Jun, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, praised in "Nanming Qidian Fu": "Coconut is one thing and ten are appropriate".

Hainan people in thousands of years of production and life, invented the coconut carving process, with coconut shell and coconut wood to make a variety of exquisite daily necessities and handicrafts, its shape is simple, the picture is elegant, the texture is light, the ornamental and practical in one, with a strong Hainan style.

Hainan coconut carving has a long history, and the original use of coconut shells should be the earliest ancestors of the Li people on Hainan Island. The ancestors of the Li nationality knew how to make pottery and canoes very early, but compared with the complex pottery-making technology, the coconut shells available in the wilderness are resistant to acid and alkali, and it may be more simple and casual to make containers.

The prototype of coconut carving can be traced back to the first year of Xuanzong of the Middle Tang Dynasty (847). Hainan coconut carving "Qiongzhou Mansion Chronicles" contains: "When Li Weigong conquered the barbarians in the Tang Dynasty, he often carried a coconut cup in his arms. In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Sui's "Difference in the Records of the Mountains" contains: "The coconut tree, also similar to the sea palm, is as strong as an ou bowl, has a rough skin such as a big belly, and has a hard shell, solid and hard, two or three points thick. There is a round like an egg, that is, cut off a head, sand and stone grinding, to remove its wrinkled skin, its spotted brocade, with platinum to fill it, thought to be a water jar, rare and lovely. “

In the Tang Dynasty poet Tortoise Meng's "Fenghe Raid the United States to send Qiongzhou Yang Sheren", there is a verse: "The wine is full of coconut cups to disinfect the mist, and the wind follows the banana leaves to the boat". It is believed that wine glasses made of coconut shells have the effect of disinfection and miasma. This effect is also recorded in the "Qiongzhou Mansion Chronicle": "There is a hard shell in the coconut, the big one is a bowl, the small one is a cup, and the white one is expensive, and the wine is boiled when it is poisoned." "This coconut shell wine glass is said to be made from an old coconut shell the size of a fist, and it will crack when exposed to highly toxic substances such as mercury, so you can tell whether the wine is poisonous or not.

"Notes on Eastern Guangdong" also records that when Li Deyu, a minister of the Tang Dynasty, was relegated to Yazhou, he sawed coconut shells into scoops, spoons, bowls, and cups for eating and drinking.

Ming "Zhengde Qiongtai Chronicles" uploaded, Song Shaosheng four years (1097), Su Dongpo lived in Dan'er, once took the coconut shell and asked local artists to carve a coconut carved hat, called the "coconut crown", and then in the poem "Hezi by the coconut crown" swayed pride: "Invite drunk guests with self-scarf, and pay the empty shell to the crown master." The poem "Wine" of the journal also describes the vivid scene of paying tribute to the imperial court coconut carved wine: "Picking fences and choosing tributes to support Shangtian Street".

Huang Tingjian also wrote a poem to thank a friend for giving him a coconut carved tea set: "The fruit does not eat the cold forest, and the cutting and apparatus are like hanging full." The old people see each other poor and sick, and they can cook tea as wine and food." It can be seen that the literati of all generations have liked this kind of utensils with simple materials and exquisite coconut carving supplies. By the time of the Song Dynasty, the exquisite coconut bowls, coconut cups, and coconut pots had been popular in the banquets of scholars.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Hainan's coconut carving skills have reached a considerable level and become a tribute to the imperial dynasty, so it has the reputation of "Tiannan tribute". In the information of the milk tea bowl of the Qing Palace, there is also a record of coconut carving. The Qing palace drinking milk tea needs to be accompanied by a royal bowl with excellent quality and fine workmanship.

At that time, Guangdong paid tribute to the milk tea bowl made of coconut shell, the outer wall of the bowl is coconut shell, the craftsman on the thin coconut shell surface, skillfully carved pine, bamboo and plum ornamentation, the inner wall is embedded in silver. The coconut silver bowl is simple and lightweight, it is one of the few milk tea bowls in the Qing Palace, and the emperor not only used it in small and medium-sized banquets, but also preferred drinking utensils when drinking milk tea. In the book "Haigong Case" in the Qing Dynasty, "coconut carved ink cartridges" also appeared many times. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was common to use coconut carving as gifts and supplies.

In 1894, Miss Skelford, a missionary from the United States to Hainan, wrote about Hainan coconut carvings in her essay "The Cottage Industry of Hainan": "Coconut carvings are used to make all sorts of practical or decorative utensils, and when they are painted with beeswax paint and become dazzling, or decorated with gilded words, they become genuine works of art." ”

During the Republic of China, due to the impact of the war, Hainan coconut carving was silent for a while. According to relevant records, before the Anti-Japanese War in the thirties of the last century, Hainan coconut carvings have been sold well in the Nanyang Islands and European countries. At that time, there were more than 100 artists in the production of coconut carving, with an annual output of more than 20,000 pieces, of which more than 10,000 pieces were exported for export. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the war spread rapidly to all parts of Hainan, coconut carving artists were displaced, there was a shortage of coconut carving raw materials, and export sales were interrupted for a time.

300 years ago, there was a coconut carving craft factory in Daofu Village. In 1956, the Haikou Municipal People's Government established the Coconut Carving Craft Factory. In 1958, the old coconut carving artist Wen Bide of Daofu Village participated in the Beijing Heroes Meeting, and was received by party and state leaders such as Premier Zhou and Premier Zhou.

In the 60s of the last century, Hainan coconut carving has nearly 100 kinds of exhibits to participate in the international specialty exhibition, and some artists have also been invited to Africa and South America to train local apprentices and help build factories.

When Macao returned to the motherland in 1999, the Hainan Provincial Government presented the Macao Special Administrative Region with a souvenir of Hainan coconut carving vase inlaid shells. The vase has a maximum diameter of 0.8 meters, each weighing 80 kilograms, and the height of the bottle body and the hollow lotus base is 1.999 meters. The vase took 30 craftsmen 10 months to complete, and is a miracle in the history of Hainan coconut carving.

Hainan coconut carving production skills are exquisite, the style is simple, the shape is beautiful, and the local characteristics are strong. Successive generations of coconut carving artists have perfected the coconut carving skills, and gradually formed handicrafts with unique national styles and local colors.

On June 7, 2008, the coconut carving was approved by the State Council to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

In 2008, the coconut carving in the eastern suburbs was included in the list of provincial intangible cultural protection heritage.

In 2014, it was successfully selected into the world's "Outstanding Handicraft Badge Certification".

The land of China, the treasure of nature. The beautiful land of Hainan is rich in charming coconut trees, raising simple, hard-working, intelligent and intelligent Chinese children.

In Haikou City, roughly Po Town, Jindui Village Committee, Meitie Village, there lives a coconut carving handmade art family, the male owner is called Zhu Fan, he carefully focuses on handmade coconut carving for more than 20 years, has created many exquisite coconut carving works, is a famous coconut carving craftsman.

With his unique simplicity, understanding, and persistent ingenuity, he carves the beauty of his ingenuity with a carving knife.

On weekends, when the sky sometimes rains and sometimes stops, we come to My Thep Village.

My Thep Village is a beautiful village, with green waves in the pond in front of the village and ancient trees in the back of the village.

There are the ruins of the former residence of Feng Hao, a Jinshi in the Ming Dynasty, and it is also the hometown of Feng Jisheng, a patriotic poet in the late Qing Dynasty.

We walked into Zhu Fan's house, a traditional residential yard with a large yard with trees and leafy foliage, and free-range farm chickens foraging for food.

Just like Tao Yuanming's pen, "under the collection of the east fence, leisurely see the South Mountain." "Mood.

Zhu Fan stopped what he was doing, took out his precious works for us to enjoy, and introduced them one by one, so that we could truly understand the meaning of each coconut carving craft.

From his words and his coconut carving handicraft works, I feel Zhu Fan's pursuit of perfection and excellence in the art of coconut carving; It expresses that Zhu Fan is intoxicated in the world of coconut carving, describing life with his heart, and creating coconut carving with life.

Hainan coconut carving refers to a variety of handicrafts made by Hainan artists using coconut shells, willow palms and willow wood as basic raw materials. Since Hainan is the main production area of coconut in China, coconut carving has become a unique handicraft in Hainan.

Hainan coconut carving is mainly spread in Haikou, Wenchang and other places in Hainan, and was selected into the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008. The national-level project protection unit is the Longhua District Cultural Center of Haikou City, and the provincial-level project protection unit is the Wenchang City Cultural Center.

Coconut is a specialty of Hainan Island. Hainan Island, also known as "Coconut Island", is the main producer of coconut in China, accounting for more than 99% of the country's output.

Coconut carvings made of coconut shells, palm and wood have a long history. There are records of coconut carving in the Tang Dynasty. Tang Liusui's "Differences in the Records of the Mountains" recorded: "Coconut trees are also like sea palms...... There is a round like an egg, that is, cut off a head, sand and stone grinding, go to the wrinkled skin, its spotted brocade, with platinum to fill it, thought to be a jug, rare and lovely. ”

"Zhengde Qiongtai Chronicles" records that when the Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo degraded Dan'er (that is, Zhonghe Town, Danzhou City), he once took coconut shell and coconut palm and asked local artists to carve hats and wear them, and named them "coconut crowns". At that time, because the coconut shell has the function of detecting poison, it was favored by the scholar class, and the coconut bowl and coconut cup with exquisite craftsmanship have been popular in the banquet of the scholars.

The Song Dynasty poet Huang Tingjian replied to a friend who gave a coconut carved tea set poem: "The fruit does not eat the cold forest tops, and the cutting and apparatus are like a hanging barn." The old people saw each other with poverty and diseases, and they could cook tea as wine. ”

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, coconut carving products were used as treasures to pay tribute to the imperial court, with the reputation of "Tiannan tribute", when entering the mercury milk tea bowl, its outer wall is coconut shell, embossed pine and plum ornamentation, the inner wall is inlaid with silver sheets, simple and lightweight.

During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, the coconut carving modeling and carving techniques have been very exquisite. By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, coconut carving utensils have become gifts and supplies in people's daily life. Before the Anti-Japanese War, Hainan coconut carving had been sold well in the Nanyang Islands and European countries, and also won the first prize at the International Specialty Expo in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Fudao Village, Longquan Town, Longhua District, Haikou City, is a famous coconut carving village. During the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods of the Qing Dynasty (1736-1820), every household had a coconut carving workshop. There are more than 100 people in the village, more than 1,000 coconut trees are planted, and the man is proficient in coconut carving.

After the liberation, in 1953, Haikou City established a coconut carving cooperative, absorbing 9 artists such as Daofu Village Wen Bide to participate, at that time the coconut carving has been in short supply. In 1956, Haikou Coconut Carving Craft Factory was expanded, and the coconut carvings produced successively participated in the exhibition of the Soviet Union, the Czech Republic, Poland, Ceylon, Indonesia, Japan and other national specialty expositions.

He also won a commemorative medal issued by the GDR, and the old artist Wen Bide also went to Beijing to participate in the National Heroes Meeting, and was received by party and state leaders such as Premier Zhou.

Hainan Wenchang is the hometown of coconut, "Hainan coconut half Wenchang", Wenchang coconut carving has a long reputation. After the liberation, Wenchang coconut carving skills have been further developed and improved. In 1956, the Wenchang County People's Government supported the establishment of the collective ownership of the "Wencheng Carving Society", focusing on the development of coconut carving technology, with 7 coconut carving masters. Production of ash ponds, coconut shell bowls and other products, sold inside and outside the island.

In 1978, Wenchang County Coconut Carving Craft Factory was established, with more than 100 employees, making more than 100 kinds of coconut carving products, which are exported to Japan, the United States, France, Indonesia, Russia and other countries. In 1978, the "Carp Spitting Bead Table Lamp" participated in the National Arts and Crafts Exhibition and won the "Four New Products of High Quality Award".

In 1986, the state selected Feng Dejian, the coconut carver of the factory, to Tanzania to teach coconut carving skills, and was received by the head of state. Since the reform and opening up, more than 30 family-style coconut carving craft factories such as Fu Shiqiong in the eastern suburbs of Wenchang City have been established, and their skills are exquisite, producing coconut monkeys, coconut girls, buttons, handbags, etc.

There are three kinds of coconut carving crafts in Hainan: coconut shell carving, coconut palm carving, and coconut wood carving:

1. Coconut shell carving. Hard coconut shells are used as raw materials, and they are made into handicrafts through polishing, carving, inlay and other processes. The carving techniques include plane relief, three-dimensional sunken carving, general carving and sunken carving, as well as inlaid decoration with gold, silver, tin, horn, stone, bone, sandalwood, rosewood, shells, etc.

The carved patterns include human carvings (such as the eight immortal figures, etc.), animal carvings (such as peacock birds, phoenixes, etc.), plant carvings (such as coconut trees, betel nut trees, flowers and plants, etc.), natural scenery carvings (such as Wuzhi Mountain, Wanquan River, etc.). The finished products of coconut carving include teacups, teapots, vases, cans, bowls, cups, plates, spoons, bags, buttons, etc.

2. Coconut palm carving. With coconut palm (coconut skin) as raw material, handicrafts and daily necessities made into human and animal shapes through cutting, cutting, carving, polishing and other processes, such as coconut baby, coconut girl, coconut father-in-law, coconut mother-in-law, coconut monkey, coconut pig, coconut dog, coconut cat, coconut palm hat, coconut palm brush, etc.

3. Coconut wood carving. After sawing, carning, ironing, connecting, polishing, carving and other processes, it is made into tables, chairs, columns, beams, bottles and other utensils, on which dragons and phoenixes and various flower and bird patterns are carved.