[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
I have loved painting since I was a little girl.
My family is the Man minority group.
The last dynasty in Chinese history
was formed by this minority group,
and they reigned for more than 200 years.
My ancestors used to be part of the royal family,
and they were all good at the four accomplishments
of a scholar, lyre playing, chess, calligraphy,
and painting.
Influenced by them, I fell in love with painting.
I dreamed of being a great painter
or artist for a long time.
I love Western oil painting more than Chinese traditional brush
painting.
When I was in junior high school,
I did not attend classes for half a day
because I went to the Russian oil painting show.
I remember clearly that the show was
held in the Beijing Exhibition Center, which
was called the Russian Exhibition Center at the time.
At the show, I happened to see a live class
given by a professor from the China Central
Academy of fine art.
After following the students to the classroom,
I stayed in the class for so long,
I forgot to go back to school.
The school supervisor asked my dad
about why I did not show up at school.
My painting class teacher was trying
to protect me by telling them I had a good excuse.
The supervisor could not accept that excuse,
and she wanted to discipline all the students better.
This is just a story from my childhood,
but it shows that I was deeply in love with fine art
since I was a little kid.
I did show great talent and potential
in both watercolor and oil painting back then.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
By the time I was ready to go to senior high school,
I was considering the high school
affiliated with the Academy of Fine Art
because if I could get in, it would be possible
for me to pursue an oil painting degree later at the academy.
But due to my obsession with all fine art,
I did not do well in my math class.
Algebra and geometry were so mysterious to me
that I could barely understand any of them.
Although I luckily passed all the tests
in junior high school, I did not pass
the exam which would determine whether I could
be accepted by my dream high school.
There was another, newly formed high school affiliated
with the Central Academy of Arts and Design.
When I submitted my art work before the exam,
I submitted not only some pencil sketches, watercolor,
and oil works, but also some patterns that I had designed.
Fascinated by the wall patterns from the Mogao Caves,
pattern design is another favorite topic of mine.
Teachers from this high school liked my designs a lot,
so I was not accepted by my dream school, but by this one.
When deciding whether I wanted to go to this school,
I asked them only one question.
Would it still be possible for me
to go to the Central Academy of Fine Art when I graduated?
After I received a positive reply, I accepted the offer.
This was a new school, and I picked the precious metal
direction.
What I learned there was some shallow knowledge
and skills about how to make cloisonne,
which is also called copper padding thread weaving enamel.
One outstanding thing about this school
was that it gave you plenty of opportunities
to practice what you learned.
In addition to the classrooms, there
were multiple art studios on campus.
Many old fine art and design masters
were still working in those studios.
Each fine art had its own studio,
such as enamel art, ivory carving, and some other fine
arts like stitching.
Almost all eight of the local fine arts
originating from the Beijing area
were included in this school.
Because historically, these traditional crafts only
served the royal family, this indicated
that this school was focused on innovating the traditions.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
After school, I was assigned a full time job
at the Research Institute of Fine Art and Design,
focusing on jewelry design.
Shortly, the Cultural Revolution took place.
I could not work in this institution anymore
and ended up working in a fine art factory.
Ever since, I have worked in the same field for 51 years,
until August of this year.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
The first jewelry design competition I participated in
was the 1983 Southeastern Asian Jewelry Design contest.
Although it was my first try, I got an award
for outstanding design.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
If you've looked at the filigree products in our guild store,
you'll find almost all of them are
imitations of historical masterpieces.
The reason for this is that China
applied a traditional craftsmanship protection
law about 10 years ago, which facilitated
the renovation of these skills and arts.
Recently, a lot of young people began
to be interested in these heritages again
and wanted to devote themselves to this field.
Most of my students are college graduates
who majored in gemology or jewelry design.
Some of them even came back from overseas to learn this.
They got to know filigree from media exposure of our brand,
and they are passionate about learning it.
They usually come to Zhaoyi showing their fascination
and passion about this craftsmanship.
If I said no to them, they would come to my door to beg me.
I seldom said no to them because they
were so interested and very obsessed.
This is how I got into this industry.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
Because I am from a minority group,
my family loved this type of artwork a lot.
It's very unbelievable that all these fine art
pieces used to be controlled and appreciated only
by royal families.
Oriental people have always paid a lot of attention
to the details of their fine artworks,
especially the royal family members.
They were not only wearing them, but also playing with them.
When they were playing with these artworks,
they got a feeling of satisfaction.
In history, everything used by the emperor
or his close relatives had special quality requests.
Let's take one item as an example.
When the Palace Museum had its 80th anniversary,
people made an imitation of the cup called Jinou Yonggu.
The historical piece was made in the Qianlong period of the Qing
Dynasty.
The emperor worked together with the designers
when it was first made.
The goldsmith who finished this cup was assigned a government
position after the work was done.
This is how much attention our ancestors
paid to their fine artworks.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
The Ming and Qing dynasties are the golden age
of filigree inlay art.
Its peak in history was during the Qing Dynasty,
which was ruled by minority group.
These people added some elements of their own culture
to this fine art.
Because it was the last dynasty in China,
people mingled the essences from all previous fine arts
into the filigree inlay to make it the finest artwork ever.
It is a totally different concept
than that of Western contemporary art.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
The brand Zhaoyi and I have a subtle connection.
We call this yuanfen in Chinese.
Back in 2007 and 2008, the whole world
experienced economic depression.
This also hit the jewelry industry in China.
The jewelry industry in Shenzhen, Panyu, and Hong
Kong all experienced a downturn.
Jewelry at that time was mostly mass produced by machines.
All jewelry pieces looked similar to one another,
to mean nothing stood out in that market.
I always think jewelry should be personal and have
its own personality.
If I have a piece of jewelry, and I wear it,
I do not want someone else wearing the same thing.
Likewise, if I wear these clothes,
I do not want to see the exact same outfit on another person,
so I go to places to find clothes
that are not mass produced.
Jewelry should be even more unique than fabric.
During the downturn, jewelry design in China
had no personality, and plagiarism was everywhere.
At this critical moment, some businessmen
started to look for a way to get out of the slump.
Many of them came to me.
I happened to be at Shenzhen as a national level
judge for a jewelry design contest.
Many of them wanted me to join their company
and add some elements of filigree inlay art
to their old designs to activate their brands.
It was also the time the country started
its intangible cultural heritage in China project.
Many people were supporting this project.
I know something about the jewelry industry,
and I told them I wouldn't go to southern China personally.
I was not young anymore, and I had my own career
here in Beijing.
I did not want to give that up.
After coming back from Shenzhen, I was on record
for talking to seven big bosses within five days.
Many fine art schools were trying
to collaborate with me as well.
If I wanted, I could open a studio anywhere
to get the nation's support based on its policies.
First of all, I do fine art design,
not for money, but for personal growth
and to pass on these heritages.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
I am not a businessman, and I have
no understanding of it either.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
I refused all of them at the end.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
The last one who came to me was President Wang from Zhaoyi.
The first thing, she assured me she was not expecting my work
to bring endless profit to her company.
She told me that she was in the jadeite business
and wants to use the money she makes from it to help me pass
this heritage onto the next generation.
I loved what she said.
[SPEAKING MANDARIN]
She suggested that she invest some money
to help form a studio.
She wanted me to be in charge of the studio,
and I could do whatever I want.
Later, I told her that much of the traditional craftsmanship
has already been lost, and what I want to do
is make imitations of all these historic pieces.
Through this, we should be able to pick up
a lot of these skills, then we can
start to promote our products, both in the domestic and
international markets.
This will help us to promote our oriental culture
to the rest of the world, and at the same time,
we make progress in developing skills.
I went to Europe before.
In the 1980s, I visited Italy.
Italian jewelry designers told me that jewelry design in China
was at least 20 years behind the Western world.
President Wang heard similar comments when she went abroad.
Some of them even denied that China has a real jewelry
industry.
We had similar experiences here, but this is not quite true.
China has a very rich history of jewelry production.
In old China, even poor families would spend money
on a pair of gold bracelets or earrings
for their daughters who were going to be married.
No one would let their daughter get
married without a piece of jewelry from her family.
Historically, jewelry worn by people
from different social classes was strictly different.
Royal families, royal relatives, governors,
and normal people all had their own jewelry
to represent their social status or ranks.
The filigree inlay art we saw today
only belonged to the royal families.
This craftsmanship was created by the ordinary people,
but for a long time in history, they could not appreciate it.
Later, the products gradually went back
to the ordinary people's life, so we can still
see some filigree pieces not from the royal family,
but these pieces usually do not use dragon or phoenix themes.