The Fuding Binghua craftsmanship is a traditional Han handicraft technique in Fuding City, Fujian Province. Binghua is a unique painting style with local characteristics initiated by the local folk artisans of Han nationality in Fuding more than 200 years ago. It is a special kind of decorative painting affixed to the mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

"Binghua" is a unique painting style with local characteristics initiated by the local folk artisans of Han nationality in Fuding more than 200 years ago. It is a special kind of decorative painting affixed to the mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival. The content of Binghua is mainly based on themes of operas and its forms are very novel, including beauty style, eight-view style, eight-fruit style and round style. With rich and lively colors, mainly red, yellow, green and pink, and clear lines, the Binghua reflects the Han culture and the strong local characteristics. It is very popular among folks, especially in Xiapu, Fu'an, and Zherong of the eastern Fujian, and in Pingyang and Cangnan of Zhejiang. People in those places are accustomed to putting pieces of Binghua on their hall walls or room walls for decoration and appreciation when the childern have enjoyed the moon and mooncakes. It becomes a special festival style in Fuding and other Binghua-prevailing areas.

Binghua means authenticity of mooncakes for Fuding people in their eighties or nineties; a beautiful artwork worthy of enshrinement for Fuding people in their fifties or sixties; the fuzzy childhood memory for those in their thirties or forties; and nearly nothing for those in their twenties.

Craft History

Binghua was generally developed through the stages of paper-cutting, hand-painting and wood-carving. In the late wood-carving stage, the form of Binghua gradually went standardized and formalized.

There are no written documents left about the historical evolution of Binghua. It has been passed on by the generations of craftsmen. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, the "Baizihua" (a hundred of children), a representative of the paper-cutting form, showed up, followed by the hand-painted round-style. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, there were groups of Han folk craftsmen, who created the unique beauty-style, eight-fruit style, eight-view style and others, rarely seen in the whole country. When it came to the Republic of China, Lin Tongling, a puppet show artist, engraved the hand-painted Binghua on wooden plates, indicating the beginning of wood-carving stage. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Shanghai version of the play-script pictures, which was popular on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, hit the Fuding Binghua market. After the Cultural Revolution, the mid-autumn Binghua divided into paperbacked and hardbacked. The original versions were replaced. And the mooncakes turned into social gifts, not simply a cate for children.

The county of Fuding was established in the fourth year of Qianlong reign. With population increased and economy developed, the culture there began to show prosperity after the establishment. The number of county temples increased, and consequently the temple fairs and folk custom activities were also diversified. The Baizihua was firstly seen in the Qianlong reign of Qing Dynasty. It is cut with red, white and green colored paper, white for hands and face, red for jacket and green for trousers (or green for jacket and red for trousers). Then paint the five features with ink before collaging all those parts into a whole. The characters on Baizihua are children ("Zi" in Chinese) in most cases, so it is called "Baizihua" indicating "a hundred of children". Since it is as small as a fist ("Quantou" in Chinese), it is also called "Quantouhua". Each mooncake can only be attached with one Baizihua.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, some craftsmen skilled in writing, painting and figure-composing created the hand-painted round-style Binghua. The name of "Tuanhua" came from the roundness (indicating "Tuan" in Chinese) of paintings on the paper. It is usually round, with four-cun or six-cun diameters. There are one or two figures on the smaller type and two or three figures on the larger type. The content is dominated by operas, and the characters are surrounded by colorful propitious clouds. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, with the development of drawing techniques and forms and the emergence of Han folk artisan groups, the meticulously colored "Nijin" Binghua was created, on the basis of "Tuanhua", pushing the development of Fuding hand-painted Binghua to the boom.

Craft Features

"Nijin" Binghua is painted with exact delineation and enriched colors. Added with golden color, it looks magnificent and refined. The figure's face is colored pink (including heavy and light colorings, knows as "Chaolian" among Han folk artisan). The clothes are in different colors, robe in golden, background in green or blue, flowers and fruits in pink. These enriched colors make it much more lively than the round-style. Moreover, it is in varied forms, including "beauty-style", "eight-fruit style", "eight-treasure style", "baby-style" and so on, greatly increased the variety of Binghua.

Binghua can also quantify the weight of mooncakes by its number of characters, with one character for four liang, two for a half jin, three for twelve liang, four for one jin, and sixteen for four jin as the maxmium (one jin equals to sixteen liang at the time). The craft is several times dearer than the mooncakes. It was priced one to five jiao of silver dollar then. Some large families also made orders in advance.

Craft Development

"Nijin" Binghua experienced its peak during the 10^th to 25^th years in the Republic of China and was later replaced by the wood-carving style. According to legend, in the early years of the Republic of China, there was a puppeteer called Lin Tongling in Fuding, who identified the large demand for Binghua from the neighboring counties of Xiapu, Zherong, Taishun and Pingyang. He collected some scripts for wood-carving. The wood was printed with ink and then colored on the basis of the ink lines. The five features of a figure were, instead of printed, painted with pigment. This was also called a "Xilian" Binghua by Han folk artisan. Soon afterwards in Fuding, the wood-carving Binghua was successively produced by Chen Houzan of Wenchengtang bookshop in Chengguan and the Nanyang Panji near Chengguan. These two shops' works were relatively complete. The coloring was generally standardized, painted in carmine, dark green, purple and yellow with liquid pigment by their women family members.  Later, the Yexin Dashi Printing Bureau in Wenzhou and the Panzong Luanshi Printing Bureau in Fuding developed the craft furthur by making Binghua on stones. And the Zhu Yuansheng and Zhu Yinggui in Xuncheng Fuding, by imitating the effects of watermarks, created the color-processed and watermark-like wood-carving Binghua, in heavy or light colors. The color-processed Binghua could also be seen in Wenchengtang. Chen Jiren and Lin Bi from Wenchengtang, influenced by the emerging wood-carving skill, adopted the engraving based on lines. These are all the improvements of Fuding Binghua.

The craftsmanship of Fuding Binghua has been incorporated in List of Provincial Nonmaterial Cultural Heritage.