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Xiong Shumin is a 12-year-old Miao ethnic boy who loves drawing
but had never touched a Chinese ink brush in his life. He could
never afford it.
Xiong and his friends, from the Miao and Tujia ethnic families,
live in the remote mountainous area in Fenghuang County, in Hunan's
Xiangxi Tujia/Miao Autonomous Prefecture, where the average per
capita income is than less than 500 yuan (US$62.9) a year. A
traditional ink brush is not the highest priority item on his
family's shopping list.
His fortunes, however, changed earlier this month when two new
teachers arrived at the Laershan Hope Primary School where he has
studied. Volunteer art teachers Zhao Yanping and Chen Zhihua from
the Zibo Children's Arts Centre in Shandong Province were equipped
with fancy brushes, rice paper and color paints and started playing
the ink game.
The class of 30 was divided into small groups and each was given
a paint brush and a sheet of rice paper. "Draw or paint whatever
you want in whatever way you can figure out," the teachers
ordered.
The teachers offered some guidance, but mostly they let the
pupils develop their own works. When students struggled for ideas,
Zhao and Chen encouraged them to focus on an ethnic pattern used on
a bag or handkerchief.
The results were very exciting and gratifying for both the
teachers and students. "I used to draw people and animals with a
pencil," said Xiong, whose ink paintings won special favor from the
two teachers for his artistic talent. "I have had more fun drawing
with a bamboo brush on a rice paper," Xiong said.
Each child won praise from the two teachers for every piece of
the work.
"For the beginners, encouragement from the teacher is vital.
Otherwise, they may lose interest," Zhao said.
The works by Xiong and his classmates also won kudos from some
120 artists, researchers, art teachers and headmasters from at
least 10 provinces, regions and municipalities, who observed the
week-long workshop as a part of experiment in arts and cultural
heritage education.
The students grasped, to different degrees, the aesthetic
concepts and basic skills in Chinese ink painting, said Hou Bin,
head of Zibo Children's Arts Centre. According to Hou, the
co-operation between the centre and the primary school is but the
first step to explore better ways for children's art education
which could combine the command of artistic knowledge, skills,
cultivation of the students' imagination and creative potential,
and inheritance of rich local cultures.
"The intensive course lends me another dimension to art lessons.
I am looking forward to more experimental courses like this in
collaboration with teachers, schools from other parts of China,"
said Long Junjia, the only art teacher for Laershan Hope Primary
School.
The newly created ink paintings cover local villagers,
landscapes, portraits, Miao and Tujia ethnic costumes and
headdresses.
Rich heritages fading
The children did not only work on rice paper, they also used
bark and made straw-woven characters, animals and insects. Their
creations also included paper cuttings, clay figures and embroidery
pieces.
While helping the children improve their artistic skills, the
teachers hope that these young art prodigies will be able to use
arts to help preserve and pass down the local ethnic minority
cultural heritage.
Xiangxi, with local Miao and Tujia ethnic history going back
thousands of years, remains mysterious and attractive.
Over centuries, the locals have developed diverse folk culture
and art, featuring paper-cuts, silver ware, embroidery, brocade,
batik and carvings.
However, many people believe that modern and foreign cultures
and the market economy, especially the boom of tourism in the
increasingly globalized world, are eroding the indigenous ethnic
culture.
Wu Xiangying, a paper-cuttings folk artist, used to travel to
Japan in the 1980s to show his crafts. But now, Wu is only able to
make end's meet by selling shoes at a fair. "Only those
craftspeople living close to tourism centres such as the city of
Fenghuang proper benefited from the flow of visitors," said Liu
Yuxin, a local researcher in art education for children and folk
art with the prefecture's education research institute.
In Xiangxi, more ageing folk artists pass away each year. Many
others, like Wu, have to give up their beloved art for economic
reasons.
The younger generations of local Miao and Tujia people are more
interested in making money in urban centres far away from their
hometowns than continuing the time-honoured traditional folk and
ethnic art and skills. Many of them have abandoned their ethnic
costumes and adornments and are more willing to wear sports shoes
and jeans, Liu said.
"Today, locals wear their traditional costumes and accessories
only on very important occasions and for tourists photo taking
sessions," Liu said. "If no effective measures are taken in time,
Xiangxi's folk fine art will disappear very quickly."
To reverse the trend, local researchers and educators have
introduced a series of new programs to foster in young students
respect and love for their tradition and ethnic arts and help them
develop skills to preserve their own ethnic traditions.
Laershan Hope Primary School has been engaged in the "Dandelion
Action" from as early as in 2003, which set its goals to rescue
local heritages while improving art education for kids in the
isolated areas.
More important objective
With the program, the researchers and teachers also hope to go
beyond the current conventional art education by creating
diversified art teaching ideas and methods that suit the needs of
the children from different locales and of cultural heritage
preservation.
"The success of the school sets a good example for other primary
schools in different parts of China," added Zhang Yao, a researcher
from Tianjin.
Arts education is an important component in China's compulsory
education, as stipulated in national curricula for primary schools,
said Chen Weihe, an art professor with Guangzhou Academy of Fine
Arts in Guangdong Province.
However, primary schools in rural areas, particularly in remote
areas, have difficulties in implementing decent art education, as a
result of the shortages in fund, trained art teachers, practical
textbooks, and effective teaching modes.
"Most existing textbooks and teaching plans for fine art classes
are compiled by teachers and researchers who live and teach in big
cities like Beijing and Shanghai or in the provincial capitals,"
said Wang Dagen, a researcher from Shanghai. "They do not know what
the teachers and students in villages and the mountains really need
for their fine art classes."
Paradoxically, teaching materials such as mud, straw, bark and
leaves that can easily be found are ignored in rural areas, whereas
for urban students who need them, they are in short supply, Wang
said.
In the past, the pupils in Laershan only had picture drawing
lessons, with simple pencil and sheets of white paper.
"My students are unfamiliar with the teaching and learning
materials listed in the textbooks, such as metal flip-tops, foamed
plastics, paper containers for milk products," Long said. "So it
has long been a big headache for me to follow the textbooks to
teach the class.
"But now, we find better ways to conduct the art lessons and
these have yielded fruits."
Some of Long's students have had their works exhibited last
summer at the China Millennium Monument and won prizes from
audiences and art researchers.
(China Daily August 30, 2006)
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