Making cages a feather in his cap
Print Edition
IT used to be a common sight in Shanghai. Older people out walking their birds in the morning, gently swinging bamboo birdcages.
Although some senior citizens still raise songbirds as a hobby, dogs have become more prominent street-walking pets. Disappearing along with the birds are the artfully handmade bamboo cages that once housed them.
Only a handful of craftsmen still make them in Shanghai. Geng Jiming, 57, is one of them.
Geng lost his job at a paper factory in 1998 as modernization closed down many old plants. But instead of being downhearted, he saw his new freedom as a opportunity to revive his childhood hobby of making hanging birdcages. But could he make a living at it?
“I wondered about that at first,” he says. “So I decided to make one cage to test my new career prospects.”
The cage was quickly sold for 800 yuan (US$128). The money was equivalent to the monthly jobless benefit for a laid-off factory worker. It was also equivalent to a new lease on life.
In later years, Geng bought back that first cage for 3,000 yuan as a keepsake of his career.
Geng doesn’t have his own studio. He works at a desk tucked at one end of his apartment balcony. Most of the tools he uses were made by himself.
“The first tool I ever bought was a hand drill, which I still use now,” he says. “I was 19 and I used my first salary to buy it for 9.38 yuan. But I prefer to make my own tools.”
On his desk are sets of plastic patterns he uses to make sliding doors for the cages and sets of ruler-shaped saws with different depths.
“These tools help me achieve better accuracy in my work,” he says, his face breaking into a smile of pride.
Geng’s success in his new business exceeded the expectations of family and friends. Within two years, his cages were eagerly sought by serious bird-keepers. They were prized for their exquisite delicacy.
“I owe everything to my customers,” he says. “It’s they who gave me the chance to make a living after I was laid off. I feel grateful that they appreciated my cages so much.”
His cages were so popular, in fact, that prospective buyers went into a long queue, sometimes waiting for several years to get a cage handmade by Geng.
“I need 30 days to make a square Shanghai-style Thrush Cage (画眉笼) and 50 days for a pair of square Shanghai-style Blue Throat Cages (靛颏笼). So in a year, I make no more than 20 cages," he explains.
According to Geng, Shanghai-style hanging birdcages often adopt mortise-and-tenon construction, which uses no nails and requires great precision.
“It is the most time-consuming part,” he says, “because you need to be as accurate as possible in making every part.”
For his raw materials, Geng goes to a bamboo forest in east China’s Anhui Province every year.
“I choose and chop the bamboo myself and then carry it to the home of a farmer who is a friend of mine,” he says.
Processing the bamboo includes slicing, chopping, boiling and drying. Then the bamboo pieces are stored on shelves for at least two years before they are ready to be used in cage making.
In the mid-2000s, a customer asked Geng to make a cage using some precious cherry wood he provided for some of the parts.
“He came back the next year and said my skills had greatly improved,” Geng says. “Then he asked me to take the first cage apart and use the same wood materials to make a new one. He did the same thing a second year. The third cage I made for him recently sold at a price of 30,000 yuan, the highest any of my cages have fetched.”
Those who still raise birds in Shanghai like to gather in parks, teahouses or community activity centers. Discussing cages is often as serious as chatting about the birds themselves.
“Some of my customers now purchase cages for investment or for their own private collections,” Geng says of cages he sells for between 4,000 and 6,000 yuan. “The investors are usually under 40 years old. It’s a shame that many pensioners can’t afford to buy them anymore.”
Geng, however, could hardly be called mercenary.
He hasn’t changed his prices since 2004, even though the few competitors he has have raised theirs.
“Sometimes I even let buyers decide on a price they can afford if they truly cherish my cages,” he says.
Geng has refused suggestions that he open an online shop.
“I don’t want online buyers to keep messaging me and bargaining with me, making it impossible for me to sit down and focus on my work,” he says. “So I prefer to make all my cages on personal orders, from my friends and from two dealers I work with.”
Unlike many other craft masters, Geng has no apprentices.
“I learned my skills all by myself,” he says. “It’s all about loving what you do and training your eyes and hands to coordinate. Talent plays an important role in this.
“Most kids today prefer to play on their iPads rather than sit down and do craft work.”
Geng never used to inscribe his name on his cages, but he relented when fake copies appeared online.
“I want to protect my reputation,” he says. “Although many people online call me Master Geng, I am still only a lowly craftsman.”
Geng knows doing his art will someday become part of China’s cultural past.
“Purely handmade hanging birdcages will surely disappear with the advent of new technologies and changing habits,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it is a pity; it’s just inevitable.”
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