Artisan promotes ancient craft in Ningbo

Pan Lei, an artisan in Ningbo, repairs a broken ceramic bowl. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Pan Lei, an artisan in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province, has spent many years learning and promoting the art of gold repair, an ancient craft.

Gold repair is a kind of lacquer art which consists of gluing broken objects, such as ceramics, gold and silver works and furniture, with raw lacquer and then decorating them with gold.

The whole process takes both patience and artistic ability. As raw lacquer needs to be kept within a narrow range of temperature and humidity, it takes two to three months to repair a single work, while repairing large items takes even longer.

"The magic of this technique is adding new elements to the once broken items when repairing them,"  said Pan.

Pan began to learn the craft in an elective course at college. "Lacquering is one of the earliest crafts in China, with a more-than-8,000-year history," said Pan, "but it was developed in Japan and South Korea." Pan pursued his lacquer studies in South Korea in 2006 after graduating from college.

In 2017, he got his doctoral degree in lacquer art and decided to start his own business in Ningbo, one of the art form's birth places.

To promote gold repair and lacquer culture to the public, Pan has been developing the traditional craft with modern technology and design by making cultural and creative products featuring lacquer art and offering courses at universities and colleges in Ningbo.

After documentaries on traditional craftsmanship such as "Masters in the Forbidden City" and "The Great Shokunin" became popular online, more attention started being paid to the restoration craft.