[Itinerant] Chinese Tinkers

http://staff.hum.ku.dk/dbwagner/tinkers/tinkers.html


03 Aug 2009

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen, Denmark.

"Hello - Some of you may be interested in this short article about the itinerant Chinese tinkers who repaired cast iron woks, melting iron in a tiny furnace and applying it to holes and cracks. - Regards, Donald B Wagner, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen."

Self-description:
"The cast iron wok is one of the wonders of traditional Chinese technology - to see how they they were cast, see here. [The casting of iron woks in Guangdong, China, in 1840', Poster presentation Founders, smiths and platers: International Conference on metal forming and finishing from the earliest times Oxford, 20-24 September, 1999, http://www.staff.hum.ku.dk/dbwagner/wok/wok.html - ed.]. With its use follows another wonder: the itinerant tinker who repairs broken woks with molten iron from a small furnace.
The tinkers were a fascinating sight for foreign visitors in China, and we have some excellent detailed descriptions of their work from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. I have copied the best of these below.
In Guangzhou in the 18th and 19th centuries several large studios mass-produced souvenir paintings for sale to foreign visitors. The painting reproduced immediately below is a gouache from one of these studios showing a tinker at work.
I was amazed and pleased when my friend Liu Peifeng recently showed me the photograph by Pei Chishan shown further below, which shows a tinker with his equipment in 2006."

Site contents:
* [A tinker at work] - a gouache painting by an unknown Chinese artist in Guangzhou, mid-19th century.
* [A tinker at work] - a colour photograph by Pei Chishan in Zezhou, Shanxi, April 2006.
* The earliest description of the traditional technique of wok-repair - a 1795 account by the Dutch diplomat Van Braam.
* 'Chinese Mode of Repairing Cracked or Broken Vessels of Cast Iron' - an account by the American Consul in Singapore, Joseph Balestier, in a letter published by the United States Patent Office in 1850.
* 'Chinese method of mending cracked cast-iron vessels' - an account by John Percy, Metallurgy: The Art of Extracting Metals from their Ores, and Adapting them to Various Purposes of Manufacture. [Vol. 2:] Iron; Steel, London 1864.
* 'Mending of Cast Iron' - an account by Rudolf P. Hommel, China at work: An Illustrated Record of the Primitive Industries of China's Masses, whose Life is Toil, and thus an Account of Chinese Civilization, New York 1937.

URL http://staff.hum.ku.dk/dbwagner/tinkers/tinkers.html

Internet Archive (web.archive.org) [the article was not archived at the time of this abstract - ed.]

Link reported by: Donald B. Wagner (dwag--at--alum.mit.edu)

* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Study
* Publisher [academic - business - government - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Academic
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
V.Useful
* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000
- under 300 - under 100 - under 30]: under 30

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