Craftsman's Spirit Archives - understand-culture

Masters in the Forbidden City

In January 2016, CCTV’s documentary channel broadcast Wo zai Gugong xiu wenwu, I Restore Relics in the Forbidden City. Its three parts follow the Palace Museum’s restorers of bronzes, court clocks, ceramics, woodwork, lacquer, inlay, embroidery and paintings. The clock restorer Wang Jin is shown repairing a large clock from the Qianlong period. His attitude was summed up as “choose one thing, and do it for a lifetime.”

The series became an unexpected hit on the video site Bilibili and reached a rare score of 9.5 on Douban. A film version followed in December 2016.

The Luban Award

The Luban Award, founded in 1987 and named after the ancient master builder Lu Ban, is the highest award for construction quality in China. A winning project must show no quality defects or hidden risks after a year in use. Inspectors read the files and check the quality of the work on site.

The China Sports Museum, built for the Asian Games and completed in 1990, received a special Luban Award for Asian Games projects. Within 15 years it had become a dangerous building. Experts found that the wall mortar did not match the design and lacked the required strength. Work had started late and was rushed, but the building passed acceptance and opened in time for the Games.

The Vocabulary of Craft

精益求精 Already fine, and seeking finer still. From Zhu Xi’s note on a line in the Analects: those who work bone and horn cut and then file, those who work jade and stone carve and then polish, “already fine, and still seeking finer.”

一丝不苟 Not careless by a single thread. Conscientious down to the smallest detail. The dictionary cites the novel The Scholars: “When the superiors learn of it and see that he is not careless by a single thread, promotion is near.”

推敲 Push and knock. The poet Jia Dao could not decide whether his monk should push or knock at the gate under the moon. Han Yu told him that knock was better. The word now means to weigh words with care.

Cook Ding

In the chapter Nourishing the Lord of Life in the Zhuangzi, Cook Ding cuts up an ox for his lord. “What I care about is the Way,” he says. “It goes beyond skill.” (臣之所好者道也，進乎技矣)

His knife passes through the spaces between the joints. “The joints have spaces, and the edge of the knife has no thickness,” he explains. “Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years, and its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone.”

Being Earnest

On November 17, 1957, Mao Zedong spoke in Moscow to Chinese students and trainees studying there. “What the world fears is the word ‘earnest,'” he said, “and the Communist Party insists most on being earnest.” (世界上怕就怕”认真”二字，共产党就最讲认真。)

Quality Month

China’s national Quality Month began in 1978. The first national mobilization meeting for it was held in Beijing on August 31 of that year, with seven vice premiers of the State Council present. In 2017, People’s Weekly wrote that the government had “always attached great importance to quality work” and had set up the month especially for it.

The Oil Seller

In a short piece by the Song writer Ouyang Xiu, the archer Chen Yaozi has no equal in his time and is proud of it. An old oil seller watches him hit eight or nine shots in ten and only nods slightly. “Do you know archery? Is my shooting not fine?” Chen asks. The old man answers: “Nothing special. Only a practiced hand.”

Chen is angry. The old man sets a gourd on the ground, covers its mouth with a coin and pours oil through the hole in the coin without wetting it. “I too have nothing special,” he says. “Only a practiced hand.” Chen laughs and sends him away.

The Oil Seller is in the Chinese textbook for the second half of seventh grade.

Great Craftsmen of the Nation

During the May Day holiday of 2015, CCTV first broadcast the series Da guo gongjiang, Great Craftsmen of the Nation. In March 2016, Premier Li Keqiang’s Government Work Report used the term gongjiang jingshen, craftsman spirit, for the first time.

One worker the media call a great craftsman is Gao Fenglin, who had worked as an aerospace welder for 35 years by 2015. He calls his job “welding the heart of the rocket.” People’s Daily wrote that he can watch a tiny weld seam for ten minutes without blinking.

The Tongrentang Pledge

Tongrentang, the Beijing pharmacy founded in 1669, keeps an old pledge: “Though the preparation is laborious, we never dare to save labor. Though the ingredients are costly, we never dare to reduce materials.”

Smashing the Refrigerators

In 1985, Zhang Ruimin, head of the factory that later became Haier, found that 76 of the more than 400 refrigerators in the warehouse had quality defects. He ordered them smashed. He took up the hammer himself and struck the first blow, and the workers who had made the faulty units smashed the rest.

“If I allow these 76 refrigerators to be sold,” he told them, “it is the same as allowing you to produce 760 more like them tomorrow.” The hammer was later taken into the National Museum of China.