双语早读 | 扇子最早不是扇风用的？古人：可以挡脸，可以写小抄
The following article is from 中国日报双语新闻 Author 赵旭
Nearly three decades have passed, but Xu Jiadong still remembers the day when he went for the first time into a bamboo forest with his father, to “handpick the ones that he would later use to make the ribs of folding fans”, said the 57-year-old.
It was in early January, in the Anji county of eastern China’s Zhejiang province, where a special type of bamboo known a “yu zhu” or “jade bamboo” grow in abundance. That’s where Xu, in his late 20, was given lessons by the old man while breathing in the chilly mountain air.
徐家东在制作扇骨
“安吉多毛竹，我们每年都是正月过后就开始选竹，那个时候天气还很冷，而父亲总是让我找寻表面被一层白霜——老辈称之为‘冬瓜皮’——覆盖着的竹子，因为这层薄薄的蜡状物既可以保护竹子免受病虫侵害，也可以帮其保湿。”徐说道。
“For the purpose of fan-making, the bamboo can neither be too young nor too old - it has to be big enough and sturdy enough while at the same time fine-textured enough. Generally speaking, plants that have grown to five year old are the most desirable,” Xu said. “One thing my father always asked me to look for was the natural layer of white, waxy substance coating the plant.”
This bamboo wax, the scraping-off of which reveals the green color underneath - thus the “jade bamboo”, shields the plant from excessive moisture loss and pests, giving it a smooth, suave quality long admired by Chinese fan-makers including Xu and his father.
明代丁云鹏会前赤壁赋图扇 台北故宫博物院
竹成为制作折扇的首选材料，是有其深刻的文化根源的。古代中国的书画家，特别是那些生活在朝代更替的动荡时期的书画家，尤喜绘竹。竹经历风吹雨打，弯而不折，这种韧性，令到古人感动。同时，竹节的“节”与气节的“节”同为一字，这也使人们推崇竹，并以竹自比。
明 仇英 梅花山鸟成扇 台北故宫博物院
这也就不难理解，为什么明代沈德符在《万历野获编》中谈到扇骨的选择时，如是说：“凡紫檀、象牙、乌木皆为俗制, 唯以棕竹、毛竹为之者称怀袖雅物，其面重金也不足贵，唯骨为时所尚。”黄金象牙价值虽高，却少了竹的风骨，而竹的风骨，正是中国文人风骨。
苏州制扇大师徐家东制作的扇子
“Artists from ancient China, especially those living in turbulent times, often painted wind-swept or rain-slashed bamboo plants, inspired equally by their unbreakability and their bendability,” said Wang Yining, an ancient Chinese painting expert from Beijing’s Palace Museum. “It’s also worth noting that “jie”, the Chinese character for the bamboo nodes, also means integrity and rectitude.”
By the time the folding fan became hugely popular in the ancient Chinese society, no later than the early Ming dynasty in around the 14th century, the bamboo had long entered the Chinese visual and literary iconography, a powerful symbol for those who would like to think of themselves as men of virtue.
“Fans made of sandalwood or ivory may be called rare or valuable, but they are nowhere near elegant, and therefore not for one who’s aesthetically cultivated,” said Shen Defu, a man of words living between 16th and 17th century China.
折扇，被称为“怀袖雅物”，重点就在于一个“雅”字。从扇骨制作打磨雕刻到扇面上的诗书画印，一把可以称为艺术品的折扇的每一个细节，都体现出中国古代文人对“雅”的理解和定义。
徐家东认为，扇骨制作，关键在于造型，而造型的关键在于线条。婉转而不恣意的线条，是用一把普普通通的刀削出的。而用刀如用笔，最忌的就是反复，务必要“一刀成”。
徐家东所做扇骨细节
Aesthetic sophistication - it’s in that indefinable, even unfathomable concept that Xu’s ultimate challenge lies. “It’s all there in the lines and in each and every turn - some rather abrupt, some so gentle as to hardly perceptible - that the lines took,” said Xu, celebrated today as one of the country’s best makers of folding fan ribs. “As long as you get graceful lines, you get graceful forms.”
“One thing my father taught me was to think of the knife as a brush,” he said. “In fan-making, polishing is routinely done to the the carved ribs, but my father often reminded me not to overdo it. ‘Don’t gloss away all the traces of your knife’, he would say. ‘Because they are indicators of an authentic work of art.’”
当年徐父15岁开始在苏州的扇庄学习制作扇骨，建国后进入苏州扇厂工作，退休后仍然坚持纯手工制扇直至2020年以90岁高龄去世前不久。如何制出一把有味道的扇子，老人给儿子的建议很简单：多看老东西。
徐家东与父亲切磋制扇技艺
“My father first learned to make fan ribs in the mid 1940s, when he around 15. And he did so as an apprentice in a fan-making workshop in Suzhou - there were probably about 40 to 60 of them in the city those days,” continued Xu. The old man, who brought his own son into the world of fan-making when he’s 20, continued to make fans until his passing in 2020, at the age of 90.
扇骨既成，还要绘制扇面。在扇面上挥毫泼墨，讲究的是咫尺千里，当然梅兰竹菊折枝花卉也都是必不可少的。“诗书画”三绝，以扇面为载体展示出来，开合之间，为的不仅仅是在悠悠夏日“引微凉”“起风逍”，更是为展现持扇人的俊逸才情，不凡画品和诗品。
Throughout China’s Ming and Qing dynasties between the 14th and the 20th century, painting, calligraphy and poetry, dubbed ‘the three perfections’, were considered as sharing the same roots, and were required of a cultured man. All three made their way onto a folding fan, which, carried around by its owner, provided proof of the man’s taste in such matters.
据故宫博物院书画部的杨丹霞说，折扇的起源有可能是在日韩，明人的笔记中，常提到“倭扇”，所描摹的正是折扇形制。苏轼有一首《杨主簿日本扇》，其中戏言到：“扇从日本来，风非日本风。风非扇中出，问风本何从。风亦不自知，当复问太空。空若是风穴，既自与物同。同物岂空性，是物非风宗。但执日本扇，风来自无穷。”
杨丹霞说，无论是折扇还是团扇（宫扇），都从典章制度中来，扇风的功能反倒是其次的。团扇最初的长杆的，在皇帝面见群臣或是出行的时候用其遮挡面部，起到仪仗作用。“扇” 这个字从户从羽，而“户”本身即有“遮蔽”之意，这也就从材质和功用两方面很好的体现了早期中国的“羽扇”。
明 唐寅 秋葵图扇页 故宫博物院
至于折扇，古人称之为“箑”，竹字头点出其与竹子的密切关系。汉代刘安著作《淮南子》中记载楚人称“扇”为 “箑”, 可能是口音问题。还有一种说法是在古代日本，折扇起源于朝臣中手拿的类似“笏板”的木签或是竹签，一是避免直视君王，表敬畏之心；二是起到类似秦汉简牍的记事功能——朝向自己的一面略作笔记备忘录，以免向“领导”汇报工作时词不达意或有遗漏。而当一个人手里攥着穿在一起的几片木板或是竹板时，一把折扇的雏形就出现了。
According to Yang Danxia, another ancient Chinese painting expert from the Palace Museum, despite their modern usage, both the folding fan and the round-shaped palace fan probably have originated as items of etiquette. Held up to the face level, they served as small screens between a fan holder and another person who was most likely in a much-higher position, so that the former wouldn’t be looking up directly into the latter’s eyes during a meeting between the two.
“This was especially true when audience was given by an emperor to his subjects. And it is believed that in ancient Japan, court officials may have initially done so with a bamboo slip, with the side of the slip facing the official written with what he had planned to say to the emperor.
“Sometimes one need a few reminders to appear totally calm and prepared in front of the big boss,” says Yang. “And when you are holding more than one such slips and having them spread out in front of your eyes, you get a fan.”
还有一个故事：民国时期，著名京剧剧作家和学者罗瘿公（1872-1924）曾在去世前几年用“四十个金饼子”从官至直隶总督、北洋大臣的端方手中买下一副湘妃竹的扇骨，到琉璃厂配了扇面，又花重金请齐白石画了一对工笔蝴蝶，最后 “持与梅郎作生日”。“梅郎”就是梅兰芳，如此大费周章，就是为了在梅兰芳生日献上这份礼物。这把扇子2011年秋季在北京拍卖，成交价322万元。
而这把扇子的首次“亮相”，极有可能就是在今天位于中山公园内坛墙东南角的来今雨轩餐厅，这家始建于1915年的茶社，不仅是20世纪上半叶北京城最著名的宴请场所，同时也是包括罗瘿公和梅兰芳在内的名流雅士们“斗扇子”的地方。开合之间，彰显的是扇主的圈中地位。“设想一个人开着劳斯莱斯，风光停靠在一家豪华宾馆门口，扇子也可以起到同样的作用。”杨丹霞笑言。
梅兰芳的生日礼物：扇骨由罗瘿公从端方处购得，扇面一面双蝶和书法来自齐白石，另一面为罗所题
One day in early 1920s, Luo Dunrong (1872-1924), one of China’s most talented playwright-cum-Peking Opera impresario from the time, bought an unpainted folding fan from a powerful collector-official, with forty gold ingots.
Equipped with the fan, Luo then knocked on the door of the much-revered painter Qi Baishi (1864-1957), whose brilliantly-painted pair of butterflies would later appear on one side of the fan, alongside his calligraphic transcription of a butterfly-themed poem by another of his equally renowned contemporary.
There was now only one thing left to do: to record the whole event on the other side the fan, which Luo himself did, noting that the fan “was meant as a birthday gift for Mr. Mei (Mei Langfang (1894-1961), a master performer of Peking Opera)”.
Having written in the same inscription that “a thing (of beauty) will certainly be passed down across the generations”, Luo probably wouldn’t be surprised when the fan was up for bidding nearly 90 years later, during an auction held in Beijing in November 2011, where It fetched 3,220,000 RMB.
直到1976年，常州武进村前南宋墓出土了一件朱漆戗金三层莲瓣式人物花卉纹奁 （奁是中国古代女子盛放梳妆工具的化妆盒。）盖面为戗金仕女消夏图，两位风姿婀娜的仕女，一人怀抱团扇，一人手持折扇，其竹骨清晰可见。
南宋朱漆戗金三层莲瓣式人物花卉纹奁
In 1976, a multi-layered, red-lacquered make-up box was discovered in Changzhou city, eastern China’s Jiangsu province, in a tomb dated to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). In the design on its cover, highlighted in gold, two well-dressed young lady appeared in the middle of a manicured garden, waited on by an attendant. While the one on the left was holding a palm leaf of a fan, the one on the right, a painted folding fan whose bamboo ribs are clearly discernible.
皇帝中也不乏折扇的拥蹙，其中有实物较早的一位就是长于诗文精于绘事的明宣宗朱瞻基，故宫博物院今藏有其绘制的双面山水人物扇。松下高士的主题，足以说明在明代，折扇已为文人风雅代言。
明宣宗朱瞻基所绘扇面
酷爱汉文诗词与书画的金章宗完颜璟曾有诗云：“金殿珠帘闲永昼，一握清风，暂喜怀中透。忽听传宣颁急奏，轻轻褪入香罗袖。”从“怀中透”到“香罗袖”，道出了折扇被称为“怀袖雅物”的缘由。
杭州水墨画家李云雷的折扇作品
“This (the red lacquer box) is the earliest archaeological proof so far found for a folding fan, although it’s essentially a visual depiction. As to real objects, the earliest ones we have now are dated to the early Ming Dynasty around the 14th century,” says Yang, pointing to a fan within the collection of the Palace Museum that’s believed to have been painted by Emperor Xuanzong (1399-1435), the fifth emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
With a maximum width of 151 centimeters, this particular one is a lot bigger than an average folding fan, and was probably meant for the wall. On one side of it, the emperor painted a loosely-robed scholar-recluse reclining under a pine tree, a hand-scroll of writing lying on the ground nearby.
“The image was embedded in China’s literati culture, which celebrated a life lived away from all the chaos and trappings of the world,” says Yang.
多年来从事中国传统水墨创作的书画家李云雷，今年六月在杭州举办了一个小型的展览，展示他所绘制的一些扇面。“一把扇子半把伞，”是在雨水充沛的江南地区长大的李云雷从小就听过的一句话。
李云雷作品
20世纪80年代初，杭州本地制造的竹骨折扇被大量出口以换取外汇。然而，同样的扇子几年后才在当地的商店中售卖。在此前的几十年里，中国人用了千余年的折扇被认为是资产阶级生活方式的一部分，从人们的生活中彻底消失了。
而当它再次出现时，还是读中学的李云雷立刻买了一把。“我和一位同学煞有其事地扇动着扇子在校园里走来走去，引得同学们叫我们‘酸秀才’。”回忆起这段经历，李笑道。
One contemporary Chinese painter who has worked for decades with ink and brush and has often painted folding fans is Li Yunlei. “A fan is half of a umbrella,” Li remembers hearing this saying growing up in Hangzhou city in eastern China, where the rain is copious.
That was in the early-1980s, when locally-made folding fans with bamboo ribs were exported in large quantities in exchange of foreign currency. Yet Li had to wait for a few more years for similar products to be sold in local stores. (The previous decades, folding fans, considered part of “the trivialities of a bourgeoisie life”, had largely disappeared from view.) And when they did, Li the high-school student immediately bought one.
“I walked through the campus waving a fan, making myself the subject of ridicule for my fellow students,” he recalled, laughing.
李形容自己的风格是融合传统与现代的意趣。“我喜欢水，喜欢湿漉漉的感觉。当我在画扇子时，我喜欢看水在扇褶中微微汇聚起来。”他说。
“明年，我计划邀请一群艺术家到浙江省安吉县，当地的制扇业很兴旺。艺术家们可以用任何自己喜欢的材料和风格来绘制折扇，而不必局限于传统水墨。我想打开大家的创作思路，向他们展示中国折扇的各种可能性。”李说。
Having held a small exhibition for his painted fans this past June, Li described his personal style as “merging the traditional with the modern, with an element of fun thrown in”. “As an artist I’m very fond of water. When I’m painting a fan, I love to see water pool up a little bit within its pleats,” he says.
“Next year, I plan to invite a group of artists to Anji county, Zhejiang province, where there’s a local fan-making industry. There they’ll be painting folding fans, with whatever material they choose and in whatever style they prefer,” he says. “I want to open people’s mind a little bit, to show them the various possibilities with a Chinese folding fan.”
近年来，折扇在喜爱古典装扮的中国年轻一代中越来越受欢迎。“一开始，他们可能只是像高中时代的我，觉得玩儿扇子很酷，但是他们中的一些人，终会被扇子的细节之美所吸引，慢慢进入到它背后的世界中来。”他说。
李云雷作品
关于细节之美，一个例子是制作扇面所用的一种纸张，古人在洁白如雪的宣纸上遍撒细碎的银箔，并将其压入纸中，使后者呈现出微光闪耀，谓之“雨夹雪”。
With that being says, Li has noted the folding fan’s growing popularity with the younger generation, who find them perfect matches for their period costumes. “At the beginning they may simply find it cool to open a fan with a soft whoosh and then flutter it, like I did in high school. But eventually some of them would be drawn into the world behind it, where the beauty is in the detail,” he says.
Asked for an example, Li pointed to the soft crystalline shimmer given out by the papery surface of a fan. “The effect has resulted from sprinkling and pressing ultra thin flakes of silver onto the pristine paper,” he says. “People call it ‘rain and snow’.”
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