Interviews of the Manufacturer and the Tuner

This is the longer one, about 15 mins, lots of reading for you non-Chinese speaking people, but trust me, it will worth every single minute!!

<0:02>
(Feng's Xun) ← [The Manufacturer I got my Xun from]

(The Memory of Xun)
(Premiere: 4 Jan 2008)
(Replay: 5, 8, 9 Jan 2008)

(ChangAn Art Gallery of Clay)

<0:15> (Feng's Xun)
(ChangAn Art Gallery of Clay)
Art & Artist
(The People)
XI'AN TV
channel 6

<0:22> This is 棗園村ZaoYuan Village located at 臨潼斜口LinTongXieKo, 西安Xi'An, 陝西ShaanXi Province.
It's not a big village, every household is now making clay Xuns for a living.
This is where 王盛祥Wang ShengXiang (Xun Tuner) is currently doing a job that he's passionate about.
After he retired from the Food Bureau, he started to experiment and develop clay Xun.
The Xun that him, his investor Feng BaoQing, and clay artist Ji QingFeng developed and patented now has a significant respect and importance in the Chinese folk music community.

And every year, over 10,000 completely hand-made fine tuned Xun became a unique cultural brand of ShaanXi (the Province where my grandparents were from).

<0:57> (R=Reporter, W=Wang ShengXiang)
R: What do you find to be the most interesting thing about this job (making and tuning Xuns)
W: The Xun we make here is for performing, it's an instrument. It has about 7,000 years of history by now; therefore, when held by any person who loves the Xun, they can feel the historical bitterness in it. And I as the maker of this Xun, I feel really proud!!
R: All the tools you have here I'm guessing should be considered very professional grade, right? For tuning the instrument.
W: Ya, sort of, I use a digital tuner.

<1:44> (Narrative)
Since 2004, Wang ShengXiang has been experimenting and developing methods to tune the clay Xun before it's being baked, which in turn significantly improved both the quantity and quality of the Xuns produced by the Feng's Xun. Although Wang ShengXiang never had any formal musical training, but he was born with great sensitivity to pitch, along with his experimental personality, he managed to start his second career at the age of 60.

<2:33> W: Nowadays, in all of China, there aren't many companys that make performable Xuns. On average, there is about several hundred thousand Xuns made in China every year, but only less than 20,000 out of 7-800,000 of these Xun are performable, the rest of them are mostly decorative Xuns, those are basically novelty items, just for show. The Xuns we make here are specifically for performing.
R: Can be used as an instrument.
W: Yes, and it can be played along side other, all sorts of musical instruments.

<3:15> 
W: This kiln is where the clay artists got married.
R: Awww~
W: Back in those days we got him married here in this kiln.

<3:29> (shows the oven where they bake the Xuns till they set their shapes)
W: (For) Baking the Xuns...
R: Seems like quite a primitive approach, eh~ a very traditional method (that you guys are using).
W: This is a traditional kiln...
R: The fire and temperature has to be...?
W: From low to high, it is a very skilful step (of the Xun making process) is to control the temperature of the fire.
R: So if you didn't get it right it would all be destroyed?
W: Ya
R: Is that another kiln over there?
W: Ya, there's another one over there. It's also in use, these 2 kilns, because there's a lot of Xun makers in this village; even though we said this is just one workshop, we are actually just one big family, and that we have a lot of people working together.

<4:08>(J=姬慶豐Ji QingFeng, the clay artist at the Feng's Xun)
R: That bigger kiln back there had 30 years of history you said? (W: Uhuh) And you said it was originally for making flower pots?
J: At the very beginning we did clay pots and barrels, big flour tanks we use in the village, that's what we baked at the very beginning, but now, that [the making of pots and barrel] has been eliminated.
R: Does that also uses the red clay?
J: Ah ya! First made flower pots, made flower pots for a while and then started making Xuns.
W: What we do here is a craft of art on its own. After I came here, I heard them say, "in the past, a girl would rather marry a clay mason than a gold or silversmith" why is that? To become goldsmiths and silversmiths you need a lot of overhead costs, you have to fork out the money to get the gold or silver before you can work on it and make jewellery out of it. But for clay, it's everywhere, you can just dig it up from the ground, so the cost (to get started) is really low. So that's why they had that saying.
R: So the next saying would probably become "a girl would rather marry a Xun maker than a gold or silver smith. Haha...
Everyone: Hahaha...

<5:12>
W: There's actually a difference between baking (making Xun) and red clay (making regular red clay flower pots). Red clay requires strong, high temperature baking the entire way through, at about 1200°C. This thing (the Xun) only needs up to 6-700°C, at most not more than 800°C, and then there's this process called "smoking black"

"Smoking black" is when we use asphalt, there's a specific "smoking black" craft, when you do that, you need to close the kiln door and seal it tight, plug the two chimneys on top of the kiln, block the front of the kiln completely with mud, at this point there's nowhere for the smoke to go, it can only go into the Xuns that are being baked inside the kiln. The longer the Xuns are in there, the "deeper" the smoke goes. Therefore, the Xuns we make here are also called "Dark Skinned Clay", that is there's only a surface layer of the clay that's black, so that when we're engraving or carving patterns, flowers and such, there's more layering and texture (to the piece).
R: Because the red from inside would show...
W: Right!! But if you smoked the Xuns completely black, then the flowers (or any other engravings) would not have any texture and would not look nice. To Feng's Xun, we demand (our products) to be baked till slightly harder than those regular decorative Xuns; because the Xuns we make here are for performing, especially for when it's very cold or hot out, or during rapid climate changes, if the Xun is not hard enough, or if it wasn't baked enough, it's not tough enough, when you play it in the cold, it might crack.
R: What are the differences between the Feng's Xun and some other conventional Xuns? I heard you guys have applied for a patent (for your Xun).
W: Ah yes. Because what we make here are Xuns specifically for professional performance purpose; therefore, when we make the shell for the Xuns, we have to take into consideration the comfortableness of the hand-held position. Decorative Xuns usually just sit there for people to look at so they don't need to be comfortable for holding in the hands. Uh...
R: So they are fine as long as they look like the shape of a Xun.
W: Ah ya, therefore when we pick this shape, we called it a bullet shaped, for say, (bends down to get the Xun) this Xun, it just looks quite similar to a bullet, this kind of Xun, you hold it up, and your fingers would naturally sit flat on its surface, it's very convenient for each finger lift up and put down, so the transitions is a lot smoother when performing on it.

Another thing is that the Feng's Xun, structural-wise, it's classified into single-chamber Xun, dual-chamber Xun (mine), and triple-chamber Xun, the best Xun we make here is the triple-chambered one. From the outside they all look the same as one piece, but there are variations on the structure inside. It is divided into three chamber, the air flow inside a triple-chamber is different from the air flow in a single-chambered one. This affects the range and the tone quality of the Xun a lot.

Starting from last year (2007), the Feng's Xun had developed Xuns that can perform up to two octaves. This Xun can go up to "re" (I think he meant the Xun can play a 12th)
R: So just a regular, average one.
W: It can also play overtones, let me try it. (Plays Xun) This is its basic tones, it can play one overtone. (Plays Xun)
R: Dealing with Xuns since 2000, your 60 some odd years old now, doing what you do at this age, what are you working for?
W: Ever since I fell in love with the Xun, it's like I'm being possessed, I became obsessive. I originally played the 笛子DiZi (the Chinese Flute), after I started playing the Xun for two months, I didn't wanna do anything else, and I recently discovered that a lot of people who play the Xun have the same problem that I had.
R: So what do you think is the charm of this instrument?
W: There's no other instrument that is comparable to its (the Xun's) tone quality. And there's no other instrument that can substitute the Xun. Ever since I fell in love with it, I have a wish, I hope that for the time I'm still alive, I make 100,000 Xuns, erm, I want to let everyone in China who loves the Xun, can play on reasonably-priced, good quality Xun, that's made by me.

<10:55> (Narrative)While developing the Feng's Xun, Wang ShengXiang also started composing. 漢城謠HanChengYao (The Song of the Han City), the Xun music he composed and performed himself, caught a lot of attention at the 陝西民樂大賽ShaanXi Folk Music Competition in 2007, and won first place in the "Xun Music - Amateur" group; and got the approval of a several high level authorities including the Chief of the Cultural Bureau Liu KuanYin. To Wang ShengXiang, who had never studied a day of composing, a piece like that has to have be brewing at the bottom of his heart for quite a few years [or even decades]

<11:42> (Narrative)
To Wang ShengXiang, there's one person in this career of his, who he really admires, that is the founder of the Feng's Xun, a "young fella" who only wanted to promote the culture of the Xun, 馮柄中Feng BingZhong (this doesn't sound like the one they said in the video, the one in the video is 馮寶慶Feng BaoQing, but I believe the video was wrong, this is the name I put down is on a lot of information I found on the internet about this company. I have sent a message to the manufacturer to verify, I will update this piece of information once I hear back from them.)

<12:07> (F=馮柄中Feng BingZhong, founder of the Feng's Xun)
R: We've been chatting all morning, Master Wang (Chinese call every knowledgeable person a "Master" out of respect) told me a lot about the destiny between him and you. Can you tell us more about how you two get to meet and know each other?
F: Actually we met about 3 years ago, I was selling (my Xuns) over there, Master Wang is really passionate about music, it was the tone of the Xun that moved and inspired Master Wang, and we became friends. It is truly a friendship over the generations, he's 60 something, and I'm only 30 something, and we wanted to pursuit this career of (promoting) the culture of the Xun.

Before I was 30, I don't know music, don't know nothing about 123 (Numbered Musical Notation) or do-re-mi, I only started slowly learned how to play the Xun after I was 30. When a person has the will to learn, he can slowly learn just about anything.
R: At the beginning, how did you establish this close relationship with the Xun?
F: Back in the days when I had a store near 大雁塔DaYan Tower (a tourist destination in 西安Xi'An, 陝西ShaanXi Province), I brought several Xuns over to the 書院門College Doors (another tourist destination), at that point there were no Xun merchants at the College Doors, I brought 10 - 20 of them, for say, the cost was $1 each (Chinese dollars, at current exchange rate that is $0.18 Canadian dollars, or $0.16 US), I can sell it to a foreigner for $10, I thought the profit was alright, so that's how I slowly started to sell Xuns, and eventually learned how to play them.

I went to the 鼓樓Drum Tower (of course another tourist destination) to learn more about the Xun culture. A lot of tourists from out of town came up and mentioned the introduction about Xun music in the book 廢都FeiDu (Abandoned City), written by Master Jia PingWa, and Chief (of the Cultural Bureau) Liu KuanYin, which really promoted the Xun to everyone in China. But back then I was selling these decorative Xun (which is where I got my first one).
R: You can make a sound out of it but there's no tuning and you can't perform a song with it.
F: Yah, they can be used for performance, and they also tried to pass these decorative Xuns on as performance Xuns, which then misled the consumers. Therefore, we had a common belief, Master Wang know how to tune it, I know how to play it and sell it, so I summoned the few of us and say "why don't we popularize the Xun? And we can bring wealth to the people in the ShaanXi Province!!" Because this Xun we have in ShaanXi, came from 半坡BanPo, ShaanXi, so this is a thing with a very long history, it is also a tourist cultural brand name for ShaanXi Province.

So we figured we name this brand of Xun after my family name [Note: Chinese family names are put in front of the given name], invited Master Wang, and our clay artist, the three of us work together sincerely, hoping to promote this Xun culture as our cultural career for the rest of our lives.

<14:32> (Narrative)
They did another big thing in 2007, that is they fork out their own money and published the first DVD tutorial set in all of China (which is a gift they give to their customers, and I have a digital copy of it). Feng BaoQing, Wang ShengXiang, and the clay artist Ji QingFeng, all wish that one day Xun music can be written into the University curriculum, and become a profession, so that this ancient musical instrument can prolong its life, and they want to put in their effort in that process.

--- End of Video ---

Legend: the information in brackets - ( ) are things that are not actually said in the video but implied meanings between the lines, or are information that I know and I filled in the blanks.

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Reflection:

After watching this video for no less than 100 times, accumulated over 7 hours of work, plus another hour of reviewing and revising my work, I finally finished what I now call "the translated/interpreted transcription" of this interview, meaning I did not just translate directly what was said, but I also added the implied but un-spoken words from my understanding. It was a lot of fun but really exhausting, yet at the end, it's even more rewarding!!

The thing that touched me the most about this video is that the three main characters in this lovely story are all very passionate about the Xun, and I think this passion is highly contagious, and I, fortunately understands their language and got "infected" by their enthusiast!!

I didn't exactly know how the Xun is made, but I can tell it is a very complicated and delicate process. From what the clay artist and the tuner said, it really seem like a fine art to be able to properly make and tune a Xun, I am now more fascinated by this beautiful instrument than ever!!

Please stay tuned for my next translated/interpreted transcription project, where I will translate and transcribe the interview of just the tuner Mr. Wang.

P.S.: The mandarin that the clay artist Mr. Ji, and the founder Mr. Feng was speaking had a very strong ShaanXi accent, which I am glad  that I had a lot of training from my grandparents or this translation process would have taken even longer!!