Green-Retaining Bamboo Carving: a Traditional Style in China

When it comes to bamboo, you may think of giant pandas eating bamboo. However, bamboo is a very cheap material, the technique and artistry of bamboo carving is the most brilliant. And the Frenchman Sebastien Puydebois showed a deep interest in green-retaining bamboo carving and learned from a master. Just look at how he made it!

Green-retaining bamboo carving is a traditional carving style in China, which features carving images on bamboo’s thin green surface. Green-retaining bamboo carving is one of the three amazing crafts in Changzhou’s history.

In 2015, Sebastien Puydebois passed by Changzhou on a business trip. He went directly to Bai’s Green-Retaining Bamboo Carving Museum in that city and learned from Mr. Bai Jianren. Sebastien Puydebois was taught the most basic skills. His first task was to carve a Chinese character “Yi (one)” onto a bamboo chip. He chooses bamboo first. After he has chosen the bamboo, Sebastien cut off the bamboo nicely. The chopped bamboo chips need to be boiled over high heat. He also needs to add alum to the boiling water to remove the carbohydrates from the bamboo and kill potential parasites and their eggs. Finally, he keeps it heating for another two hours after the water boils.

So Sebastien Puydebois finished carving the Chinese character “Yi (one)” and then he decided to carve a cherry flower.

Mr. Bai gave some suggestions on how to carve a flower: First, make the middle part higher and the surrounding part lower, so as to show the flower stamens. As to the stamens, you also need to carve them. Carve from here in the normal direction. After that, carve it in the reserved direction. Start with this point and then reach the point down here. Now we have this image. You have to do it like that. Or else it won’t be so smooth.

Since the day when he dropped into Bai’s Green-retaining Bamboo Carving Museum without invitation in 2015, the 45-year-old Frenchman Sebastien Puydebois has been carving landscapes, human figures and his experiences in China onto bamboo chips bit by bit. He has finally become an inheritor of the Changzhou-style green-retaining bamboo carving techniques.

Copyright: MY STORY ABOUT LEARNING CULTURE IN CHINA, China Pictorial Press