What is Foshan Woodblock New-Year Prints?

Are you interested in Chinese traditional culture? Have you seen any movie about ancient China? Did you notice the door-god prints on double doors? That is one of classical themes of Foshan woodblock New-Year prints. The Foshan woodblock New-Year prints have strong and simple figures with bright colors, the main theme is often about mythical creatures, historical personage, opera stories and living scenes of Lingnan people. As one of China’s four famous woodblock New-Year prints, and just like the Spring Couplets and Fu character, Foshan woodblock New-Year prints were must-have in Pearl River Delta families, and it used to be exported to Southeast Asia in large quantities in Ming Dynasty.

Feng's Woodblock New-Year Prints

Although the Foshan woodblock New-Year prints have such a long and proud history, but the current situation cannot be compared with past. Due to the Cultural Revolution, Foshan woodblock New-Year prints were forbidden, ancient woodblocks were destroyed.  The former “Woodblock New-Year Prints Street” has gone, there is only one woodblock prints workshop, Feng Jun Ji, preserved there. Feng Jun Ji was a big name in woodblock prints in the past, and Feng Jun was the best craftsman of making Door-God prints, so people called him "Door-God Jun". Feng’s is the sole descendant of Foshan woodblock New-Year prints now, Feng Bingtang, the Door-God Jun's son, is the only person who know the whole production process，With the increase of age, he is anxious about the inheritance of Foshan Woodblock New-Year Prints craftsmanship.

The Outlook of Foshan Feng’s Woodblock New-Year Prints

Although this traditional manual craftsmanship is unknown and unsung in nowadays, it is fortunate that Feng Bingtang’s son Feng Jingqiang gave up his own business in order to inherit the woodblock prints craftsmanship and spread the woodblock prints culture, and the young descendant brought lots of reform to Foshan Feng’s Woodblock New-Year Prints. In the TVS’s documentary film “Folk Culture Inheritance People”, Feng Bingtang said that he follows the line of a long-standing shop, but his son follows the line of collection. They have the same wish to bring Foshan Woodblock New-Year Prints to a great height of development, but with very different management philosophy, Feng Jing Qiang brought lots of change to Feng’s woodblock prints. Feng Jingqiang developed some modern style woodblock prints and side-line range of products to fit in with the change of customs.

When you have read up to here, you may wonder why we create this blog and just talking about some boring stuff. Do not give up in half way, the keystone is coming. “Ask any Fortune 500 executive what their most effective form of marketing is, their answer, without hesitation, is Word of Mouth.”  Yes, when my relatives or friends recommend some products to me and tell me why they like it, I would be willing to try it, but this can be slow to spread. The social media could be a convenient platform for “Word of Mouth goes to World of Mouth”.

 According to the Foshan Urban Reconstruction Scheme, the century-old shop will be pulled down, that means the birthplace of Foshan Woodblock New-Year Prints will be vanished.  Feng Jingqiang is negotiating with the municipal government to build a Foshan Woodblock New-Year Prints Museum on the site of century-old shop, and develop the Pujun road to a tourist district. Then more people could understand the culture of this amazing manual craft and do a woodblock by themselves. And Feng Jingqiang contacted with Guiness committee and plans to build the biggest woodblock new-year prints in the world. For spreading the woodblock prints culture, Feng Jingqiang started a tour speech in Pearl River Delta universities, the next station is BNU-HKBU United International Collage, and you would get more information if you follow our blog. Feng’s family did a lot to spread the manual craft culture and is continuing to make effort in it, but the word of mouth is too slow for saving this traditional culture, our blog is helping the Feng’s story go “world of mouth”. If you want know more about Foshan Woodblock New-Year Prints, please follow our blog, if you like this crafts and want to help us, please comment and contact us~