Revival of ancient gourd craft revitalizes local economy in Pujiang Town village
About Pujiang Town
The town stands in the southeast of Minhang. It is noted for its historic Zhaojialou ancient town where Shanghai's agriculture originated, and is home to part of the refreshing and eco-friendly Pujiang Country Park. Pujiang also excels in its biomedicine, artificial intelligence, new energy, low latitude technology, and quantum communication sectors.
Editor's note:
Alice Walker, the African American writer, wrote her short story "Everyday Use" (1973) by threading the plot on a patchwork quilt. In Minhang District, craftspeople have made a patchwork map showing the geography of the district by crocheting each of its 14 towns, subdistricts, and industrial zone with a different color and pattern, then joining them. The map is dazzlingly beautiful and suggests good connections. In this column on community and home, we introduce stories of people collected from the 14 towns, subdistricts, and industrial zone in Minhang, which we hope will help residents there and readers elsewhere cherish their homes.
Mature gourds dry against the sunset
Where the Huangpu River bends at its first curve to the north, three rivers converge – the Huangpu, Dazhi and Jinhui. Tracing the Dazhi River to the east as it cuts through the east part of Minhang District, one comes to the rural Pujiang Town.
"I like the river that is so clear," said Li Guohong, who recently moved from her home in the downtown Hongkou District to Huidong Village in Pujiang.
The banks of the Dazhi river offer a peaceful area to relax.
Li is now a new member of the village's "Grand Gourd" rural revitalization project.
Growing gourds in Shanghai might first seem unlikely by those in the know about the city's alkaline soil condition.
"Gourds has been widely planted globally, so why not in Shanghai?" said Guo Haiyang, leader of the gourd project in Huidong and an intangible culture inheritor on the local sheathing plate gourd.
"You just have to take care, and you can do it. Gourds have an underdeveloped root system. The root penetrates into the soil for only 20 to 30 centimeters. Yet it is a water-pollinated plant, which makes it both need water and at the same time need to not soak in too much water.
"So we take care of both watering and dredging water," Guo said. "To cope with the alkaline soil condition in Shanghai, we use more potash fertilizer. If we'd like the gourd to grow with healthier skins, we apply fermented soybeans to the land."
'Calabash Village'
Huidong Village, now nicknamed "Calabash Village," is said to be a habitat village of the descendants of Qin Yubo (1296-1373), the City God Lord who is worshipped at Shanghai's City God Temple in downtown Yuyuan Garden.
Eighty percent of the current villagers of Huidong are surnamed Qin.
The intangible culture heritage of sheathing plate gourds, usually featuring four mahogany plates with intaglio engraved patterns or characters, connected by traditional Chinese tenon and mortise joints, then cupped upon a calabash seedling until it fully matures, is said to have originated from the descendants of Qin Yubo.
The plates that are attached to the gourd until it matures were originally made of mahogany but plastic cases are now used.
The craft was lost around the late 19th century.
Guo, a traditional Chinese realism painter artist from the north who married a woman from Shanghai, was the first in the contemporary era to revive the craft.
"I used to paint inner-paintings inside snuff bottles, then someone introduced me to the lost sheathing plate gourd," Guo said.
He was in his 20s at the time and worked in the arts and crafts and exhibition-related field, which for the majority of time took him on many global touring trips.
After the couple's son was born, Guo refused all trips abroad and remained in Shanghai, where his research into the gourd culture began seriously.
"When we talk about gourds in China, we are talking about gourds with two orbs and a waist. This type of gourd is called the Asian waist gourd. In France they have a totally different gourd – the Big Lump gourd, a kind of gourd with lumps on its surface," Guo said.
A French Big Lump gourd is shown against a background of Asian waist gourds.
Globally, there are more than 300 kinds of gourd. Gourds are used to make instruments, such as in India people play tambura at special rituals to feel connected with their gods, and in Brazil gourds are used to make maracas for the amusement of babies and young children.
"Americans hold gourd festivals annually and their gourd associations nationwide have a membership of more than 300,000 people. In Japan, people hold their nationwide gourd lovers association festival every four years. People in Africa continue to use gourd utensils in their daily lives," Guo said.
Gourds made noticeable changes to the lives of prehistoric people who relied on hunting and gathering to live. The gourds were used as vessels for fetching water from the river, and as kettles during hunting forays, which largely empowered the people's hunting capabilities by expanding their range.
The gourd culture in China is highly significant.
"In Chinese Taoism, a Taoist monk is usually portrayed as carrying a gourd, which stores his food or medicine for treatment. Occasionally, in a traditional Chinese medicine pharmaceutical store, pharmacists will hang a gourd outside, which symbolizes the determination of treating sick people," Guo said.
Gourds were hung outside the room of a woman delivering her baby, since its auspicious connotations and orb shape resembling a protruding belly could wish both mother and baby safety and good fortune.
In 2023, the village of Huidong set up a gourd cooperative, appointing Guo as its head. It allocated 2.8 mu (1,867 square meters) of land for the group at an annual rental fee of 2,800 yuan (US$386) per mu to plant gourds, rented old factory houses from poorly performing village companies, and lent the village community committee office as the cooperative's office building and product exhibition hall.
An artwork is created on a gourd.
Gourds are ideal canvases for art.
Financial benefits
Villagers benefit from the cooperative. Fifty-nine households from its total 312 households joined the gourd planting and harvesting project in the first year in 2023. They were given the gourd seedlings for free and planted them in their yards. During the harvest season, the cooperative collected the mature gourds. Each household earned about 3,000 yuan from their gourd harvest last year.
At the end of the year, the cooperative launched a Gourd King competition, with the villager who grew the biggest gourd awarded 3,000 yuan, the runner-up receiving 2,000 yuan, and the third-place getter getting 1,500 yuan.
Huidong Villagers win prizes for growing the largest good-quality gourds.
The harvested gourds were used to make student handcraft lesson packages, and gourd crafts such as sachets, tea strainers, rice spoons and gourd pyrography, or poker work.
The Gourd King competition will continue this year with more villagers participating.
"We are also developing gourd lights: string lamps, table lamps, pendant lamps, and night lamps which are able to project beautiful shadows from carved gourds on the ground; and Christmas lamps which we intend to export to American and European countries for decorating their Christmas trees," Guo said.
On average, the annual yield of gourd per mu is estimated to be around 8,000 yuan, compared to 3,000 yuan for rice.
The profit on sheathing plate gourds are higher. Every mu planted in sheathing plate gourds can generate more than 10,000 yuan in income.
"This year we have prepared 999 sets of sheathing plate gourds for market-oriented purchasing. The packages, with different components, are sold at 800 yuan, 400 yuan and 200 yuan each. Customers who purchase the 800 yuan or 400 yuan packages will have the chance to witness the growth of sheathing plate gourds and own them. Thus far, about 200 people have applied for this limited purchase event," Guo said.
"Our villagers should make breakthroughs on crafting gourds. We're planning on launching free training lessons for them, on gourd pyrography, carving and embossing. Gourd embossing and sheathing plate gourds are the gourd crafts that promise the greatest economic value," Guo added.
Guo Haiyang is a Minhang sheathing plate gourd intangible culture inheritor.
The village is also planning field study tours for children, and a gourd lantern festival in October, and useful experience from its burgeoning gourd economy is expected to be applied to the other five villages in Pujiang in the south of Dazhi River, according to village officials.
The gourd project is now benefiting both villagers in Huidong and people with disabilities in Pujiang and other towns and subdistricts of Minhang who have joined the gourd processing.
"Sometimes college students join us as interns," said Li, who seems content with her life in Huidong. "Working with the young people, I feel as if I am young again."
Gourd seedlings having outer space living experience
Gourds hang on arches at the cooperative.
Villagers in Huidong appreciate their gourds, which have auspicious cultural connotations, and paint pictures on gourds on the walls of their yards.
Huidong Village now considers itself a village of gourds.
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