(Crafts made from straw by artisans - handmade products)
It refers to the folk toys for children to play with. Traditional Chinese children's toys, such as: kite, noodle doll, pottery dog , jigsaw puzzle, the Chinese Rings, Six-Piece Burr, etc.
As early as in the Chinese Han Dynasty history, there are records of revolving scenic lantern, noodle doll, dolls, clay car, pottery dog and other toys. In the Tang and Song dynasties, ceramic toys became popular, and silk-made human toys appeared. During the Tang and Song dynasties, ceramic toys were popular, and humanoid toys made of silk also appeared. Toys can be divided into the following categories according to the production method: kneading and sculpting, such as noodles, sugar man, clay sculpture, etc. Sewing category, with fabric, feathers, fur, paper and other materials, with silk, thread, nails, paste and other sewing adhesion. Weaving category, woven with palm silk, wheat straw, bamboo gabions, corn husk, bark.
The earliest kites were not toys, but were used for military and communication purposes. Kites were made of thin bamboo strips as skeleton, pasted with brightly colored paper or silk, and painted with pictures. By the Song Dynasty, kite flying became a kind of our favorite activity in the Tomb-sweeping Day.
In ancient times, whenever the Dragon Boat Festival, the elders of the family with cotton, silk and other materials made of incense packets, filled with scented herbs, worn on the chest of children or hung over the bed, wish to get rid of disease and seek good fortune. After the Dragon Boat Festival, the sachet perfumed medicine bag will be thrown away, indicating the abandonment of disease.
Shadow play is a folk art form in China. Gansu in northwest China Longdong shadow mainly distributed in Pingliang, Qingyang counties, more concentrated for the east of Shaanxi, Ningxia triangle. Longdong shadow play about in the Ming and Qing dynasties (14th century -19th century) has been very popular, shadow modeling handsome and generous, the outer contour of the upright general; engraving fine and smooth. Longdong shadow production selection of young, black hair bull skin, this kind of cowhide thickness is moderate, firm and flexible, green in transparent. Cowhide scraping clean, drying to the net bright transparent when you can make. First, the sample will be lightly drawn on the cowhide, and then use various types of knives or carve or chisel. After that, coloring with transparent water color, the color is generally not mixed, so it is pure and gorgeous, strong contrast. After carving and chiseling, coloring is ironing, which is one of the most critical and most difficult hurdles. After the water comes out and then dries, the binding combination can be performed on stage.
Devil on two stick is a famous folk toy. Two small bamboo sticks are tied to a thread and wrapped around a wooden shaft to shake the bamboo, which spins at high speed and makes a sound. As early as the end of Ming Dynasty, Beijing's devil on two stick became a spring toy, and people shook it in the hutongs and courtyards, and the melodious sound was heard all over the city.
Cloth tiger is a kind of handicraft that has been widely circulated in Chinese folklore since ancient times, and it is also a good children's toy, indoor decoration, gift and personal collection. It has a wide variety and has been widely circulated, and is a kind of folk craft with a very local flavor. In the hearts of the Chinese, the tiger is a symbol of warding off evil, peace and good fortune, and also protects wealth. It is a symbol of people's desire and pursuit of a better life, and therefore has been widely loved by people to this day. During the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, it is popular to make cloth tigers for children, or to draw tiger faces on children's foreheads with male yellow, which means health, strength and bravery. There are various forms of cloth tiger, including single-headed tiger, double-headed tiger, four-headed tiger, mother and son tiger, couple tiger, cloth tiger pillow, set of tiger, etc.. Cloth tiger is a traditional folk art in China, which is widely spread in Chinese folklore. The existence of cloth tiger originates from the folk people's worship of tiger.
The pottery rattle ball is an important primitive musical instrument, and is also the earliest sound toy. The unearthed ceramic rattles are all ceramic spheres, hollow in the middle, filled with bullets or sand, clattering when shaken.
Originating from ancient folklore, in the Qing Dynasty, women and children enjoyed playing with the Nine Linked Puzzle. The nine linked puzzle are considered abroad as one of the most ingenious toys invented by human beings, and its mystery is the ingenious and complicated method of opening and solving them.
The rattle was originally an ancient musical instrument, but later lost the role of playing music and became a toy for children. The rattle is a small drum, tied to the sides of the small ball hit the drum to make a sound. The shape of the rattle varies from region to region, from long like a waist drum, to flat like a large drum, to four drums stacked on top of each other, with high and low sound, loud and pleasant.
Waist drums, gyroscope, tumbler, slingshot, kaleidoscope, sugar figure blowing art, Hebei New City mud rooster, spin wood doll (Shandong Tancheng), carved gourd (Gansu ), white glaze painted pottery cat (Shanxi Yuncheng)
For thousands of years, agriculture has been the foundation of the country. Therefore, a great deal of attention has been paid to the agricultural seasons, which are used throughout people's lives and have formed a relatively fixed folklore of the seasons. In all kinds of annual folk activities, the participation of folk toys is indispensable.
Spring Festival: It is the most lively festival of the year, and various folk toys start selling nearly a month before the New Year. Spring Festival temple fairs are the most concentrated hot selling place for folk toys. In Beijing traditional temple fairs, there are nearly 100 kinds of traditional toys, such as windmills, lanterns, firecrackers, gyroscopes, wood-cutting toys, kites, paper flowers, educational toys and so on.
February 2: Henan people ancestral temple will sell "mud dog" all kinds of mud toys.
Beginning of Spring: Folk have spring chickens (mostly cloth and clay whistles) and spring cows (pinched clay toys).
Qingming: Kite flying. Hanshi Festival (Originally, it was the first or second day before Qingming. Later, folklore combined it with the Qingming Festival, which is a festival of tomb sweeping and sacrifice.) (The festival is celebrated in the north with a flour sculpture (made of white flour).
Dragon Boat Festival (the fifth day of the fifth month): various kinds of sachet.
Tanabata: On the seventh day of the seventh month-the Begging Festival, the Song Dynasty sold clay toys such as "Mohelo".
July 15: The custom of sending "noodle sheep" (noodle sheep is made of flour) is common in the Yellow River region in the north.
August 15: During the Mid-Autumn Festival, people use mooncake molds and fruit molds to make mooncakes and snacks.
Beijing and Nanjing have clay sculptures and other toys.
October to the end of the year: Start preparing for the New Year's Eve, including various toys.
The rituals of life are experienced at all stages of a person's life, from birth to death, and even before a person is born, women begin the activity of "Begging to get a child”. Toy art accompanies this series of life rituals from birth to the full moon and the first birthday, to adulthood, love and marriage, birthday celebrations, and funerals.
1.Begging to get a child: Women who wish to have children go to local temples such as the temple of the goddess to burn incense and worship, and buy clay toys such as "Mud Dog", which symbolize children.
2.Birth and baby get one month old:This is an important beginning stage of life, when the child is born, friends and relatives will send congratulatory gifts, grandma is even busier, the most of these gifts is the child's daily necessities and toys, such as children's clothing, children's shoes, cloth tiger, child pillow, etc..
3.One year old: This is an important moment in the growth process of children, Chinese folk from the south to the north have the custom of "draw lots", allowing children to grasp any object placed around them, including children's toys.
4.Bar mitzvah: Children in the process of growing up, can play with many toys, and even used to calm the soul of the stone lion have become toys for children. Cloth dolls, cloth pockets, chain of toys, pottery mold and so on are inseparable playthings for children. In some places, when a child reaches the age of 12, a rite of passage is held to show that the child has grown to adulthood.
5. Wedding: The newlyweds will be presented with a large number of gifts on their wedding day. Eager friends and relatives will send items and toys for children to express their wishes for the couple to "have a baby early". Cloth monkeys and cloth tigers are the most common of these; a pair of male and female cloth monkeys serves as a hint of male and female marriage. Other decorative items such as face sculpturesare indispensable.
6.Funeral: as early as in prehistoric times in the original burial, there is the custom of using toys to accompany the burial. Later, it evolved into a funeral where people brought in face sculptures (northern China) and paper figures, which were prepared for the "happy funeral" family, and it is still customary in Shanxi to place paper clay dolls in the coffin for the person who died. If a person dies a violent death, a troupe is invited to perform a shadow play to invoke his soul.
7. Whole life, childhood is the main period of using toys, toys are also mainly made for children, but these toys from the hands of adults, but also accompanied the adults and the elderly.
Toys are everywhere in people's daily lives, especially children's lives. Play activities are where the role and style of toys are shown. Sports activities such as Cuju (soccer), shuttlecock and rope skipping, which originated from ancient times, as well as children's games such as "play house" (a game that imitates adult production and labor, with children playing different roles), "bamboo horse riding" (a child's game in which a bamboo pole is used as a horse and is ridden on the hips. (the idiom of "childhood friendship"), "jumping jigsaw puzzle", "jigsaw puzzle", "playing war" (a group game for young boys to imitate combat, small weapons are the main props of this game), swinging, playing brochettes (small wooden sticks sharpened at both ends are used to hit play), glass ball, playing with mud, catching robins, wrestling pickups (cards of triangles or quadrangles made of waste paper), touching the blind (one person blindfolded to catch other playmates), pulling out crabs The folk toys are used on occasions such as catching dragonflies, swimming, and so on.
