Beauty chopsticks, mandarin duck chopsticks, twist chopsticks, thousand layers of chopsticks, wooden chopsticks, tied rope chopsticks... These lacquer chopsticks (lacquer chopsticks) with a historical background of more than 2,200 years of craftsmanship are the intangible cultural heritage protection projects of Fujian Province and the Shanghai World Expo. Fujian Pavilion exhibits. However, these must-haves on the table of Fuzhou people in the past are now hard to find in Fuzhou. The lacquer chopsticks factories that once spread all over Cangshan, Fuzhou, are now only a few private enterprises. Tiantian Chopsticks Factory, located in Qi'an Village, Cangshan District, Fuzhou, is the largest chopsticks factory in Fuzhou with a history of more than 30 years. Most of the exquisite lacquered chopsticks produced are sold to Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. The picture shows that exquisite chopsticks were born from here, and after packaging, they entered thousands of households.

　　

 

　　Workers are pulling oil. Pulling oil is a very important process in the production of chopsticks. Five lines of oil should be pulled before and after a pair of chopsticks.

　　

 

　　Workers are making lacquer chopsticks. A pair of exquisite lacquer chopsticks needs to go through more than 20 large and small processes such as selection of blanks, painting, drying, and decals.

　　

 

　　Workers are manually processing lacquer chopsticks. It takes 15 days to make a pair of chopsticks, and more than a month for lacquer chopsticks with complicated craftsmanship.

　　

 

　　The factory has shrunk from more than 800 workers at its peak in the past to more than 300 workers now. There are no assembly lines in the factory, no young people, only skilled old workers.

　　

 

　　The production of lacquer chopsticks still relies on traditional manual skills as the core craftsmanship, and cannot be produced 100% by machinery, resulting in increasingly prominent problems such as brain drain and aging craftsmen.

　　

 

　　Making lacquer chopsticks is very hard work, one sitting is a whole day, and many young people are unwilling to do it for a long time.

　　

 

　　Zhang Guotian, who is over 60 years old, inspects the quality of chopsticks in the workshop. Zhang Guotian is the inheritor of Fuzhou lacquer chopsticks skills. He was born in a family of ordinary lacquer chopsticks craftsmen in Qi'an Village. Now it has been operating the largest chopsticks factory in Fuzhou for more than 30 years, Fuzhou Tiantian Chopsticks Factory, hence the nickname "The King of Chopsticks". After his painstaking research and improvement of the traditional lacquer chopsticks skills, the modern technology and the traditional Fuzhou reborn skills have been combined to create their own Zhang's signature.

　　

 

　　Workers prepare to send the finished lacquer to the workshop for packaging.

　　

 

　　In the old production workshop, there are fewer and fewer lacquer chopsticks masters. Nowadays, the masters in the factory are basically masters who have been working for many years. If they go, there will be one less. The lacquer chopsticks industry will face the dilemma of no successor.

　　

 

　　Workers are packing lacquer chopsticks for export. In the 1990s, the export of chopsticks was restricted because domestically produced lacquered chopsticks were easy to peel off and contained trace amounts of toxic elements. After Zhang Guotian spent a lot of money to invite experts to carry out formula experiments, it took 5 years to develop non-toxic, odorless and non-shedding lacquer species, which met international food hygiene standards.

　　

 

　　From here, exquisite chopsticks were born, and after packaging, they entered thousands of households.

　　

 

　　The various lacquer chopsticks produced are like works of art.

　　

 

　　Zhang Guotian displayed various exquisite chopsticks he collected from various places. He hopes that the relevant departments can cooperate with him to build a "Chopsticks Culture Museum" to better introduce the historical background, cultural heritage and technological process of Fuzhou lacquer chopsticks craftsmanship to the public, so that this craftsmanship can be passed on from generation to generation.