Written by: Nian Xinhong
Posted on: September 25, 2018 | 
| 中文
Gui Huanlan
In an inconspicuous lane beside the Da Guan Commercial Street of downtown Kunming City− capital city of Yunnan Province, China, Zhang Xuecheng Brush Pen Store is managed by Gui Huanlan, who sits behind the counter with pen holders full of different brush pens. She is eighty-eight, with grey hair, and a frown on her face. Gui is known as one of the few who knows the complete procedure of hand-made brunch pens in Kunming, and is known to student customers as the "Brush Pen Granny."
Zhang Xuecheng Brush Pen Store was actually set up in Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China, and has maintained traditional brush-pen making techniques in South China. Gui’s husband, Zhang Mingjie, was the grandson of Zhang Xuecheng, founder of the store. Ever since she got married to the Zhang family, Gui started to learn the techniques and procedures, and made her own pens for more than seven decades. In Kunming, praised as the Spring City for its warm weather throughout the year, Zhang's Store used to be very popular and welcomed by the literati. However, with the passage of time, usage of brush pens has decreased, because of which the store has had to give up its two-store house at Wucheng Road. The store moved several times after that, eventually settling in a small lane of Xi’an Ma Road.
Though small in size, the store never limits its procedures for brush pen making and style. At the store, Gui sells more than 80 different pure hand-made brush pens, each of them made after several dozens of procedures, which need to be carried by makers with qualified skills, patience and peace of mind.
Material selection and matching, pole making, brush cutting, character curving; with an increase in her age, the complicated procedures become more and more difficult for Gui. Luckily, her four sons joined the family business after their retirement. Though, the younger generation is not as good as her, she still comes to visit during the Spring Festival.
Zhang Yaoren, the second son of Gui, is in charge of material purchase.
He said, “The materials for making brush pen poles need to be brought from Zhejiang Province and I go there twice or thrice every year. The materials for brush tops (animal hair) need even more careful selection; wool, hare or weasel hair can be found in the three provinces of North China. My mother used to join me before for the purchase journey, but now she cannot travel so far and still controls the whole selection procedure while she stays at home in Kunming.”
Zhang Yaoren is quite confident in the quality of their brush pens.
"What we use are all fine materials. On the other hand, they increase the cost of every pen. We cannot make big money high cost and we only do it upon our mother’s insistence. Otherwise, we brothers would not have come to join the business."
Zhang Chongshan, the third son, is responsible for brush clearing-up which needs skill to get rid of all the uneven hair out of the head of the brush and make it smooth, mellow and full. To Gui Huilan, this is the key of Zhang's brush pen, for the smoothness of the brush depends on it all.
The whole process is in great need of caution and focus.
“It hurts the eye-sight indeed, for you have to do it one by one and little by little. Normally, you have to take a break after 4 or 5 brushes, and it takes the whole morning to make thirty to forty of them. My mother worries that I can be hasty and casual. The slower I am, the happier she is,” Zhang Chongshan said.
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