{"id":15686,"date":"2019-12-13T20:40:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T12:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=15686"},"modified":"2021-06-23T17:16:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T09:16:27","slug":"emerging-from-the-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2019\/12\/emerging-from-the-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"Emerging from the Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Varsity talks to one of the few Kintsugi practitioners in Hong Kong, Enders Wong, to know more about the spirit behind such artistry. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Lambert Siu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Tools and materials needed for Kintsugi art: item to be fixed, water, a glass plate, a small brush, a spatula, a small spoon, wheat flour and Urushi lacquer.\r\n<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    First, put several drops of water and a small amount of wheat flour onto the glass plate and mix them well. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Second, add a little bit of Urushi lacquer and mix them again until the mixture becomes sticky. Add more Urushi lacquer during the mixing process if the mixture is not sticky enough. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Third, paint a layer of the mixture along the crack with a brush and glue the fragment back to its main body. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Fourth, remove excessive mixture with the brush when necessary and leave the item idle to dry. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Use sandpaper to smoothen the joint when it is dry. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Lastly, colour the joint for decoration. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Enders Wong demonstrates how to embellish a final product to his students.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    A completely shattered bowl being restored back to its original form with its cracks painted in gold. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Another Kintsugi product coloured in gold. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    A Kintsugi bowl painted in silver embedded with a silver ring. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n
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    Kintsugi bowls with different repairing styles. <\/div><\/div><\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Emerged in Azuchi-Momoyama (\u5b89\u571f\u6843\u5c71\u6642\u4ee3)\nperiod, Kintsugi (\u91d1\u7e7c) is a traditional Japanese repairing art that mends wreckage of\nceramics with glue made from Urushi lacquer combined with water and wheat\nflour. The connecting joint is then coloured in gold or silver. After several\ncenturies of development, this Japanese artistry spread to\nother parts of the world including Hong Kong under the promotion by Kintsugi practitioners\nlike Enders Wong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Wong\nlearnt Kintsugi in Japan\nten years ago and he currently organizes Kintsugi tutorial workshops in Hong\nKong. Wong\u2019s first exposure to Kintsugi was when he attempted to fix his self-made\nbroken bowl. He then decided to visit Japan on his own as a Kintsugi apprentice,\nas not all materials required for the repair were available in his kits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Many reports available online describe Kintsugi as a mere repairing method,\nbut it is actually an art,\u201d he says. Wong recalls that one of his students once\nrepaired a\nseemingly insignificant plate of Gudetama, a popular Japanese anime character,\nbut it in fact carries precious memories of his parents. He thinks Kintsugi is more\nthan just a repairing\ntechnique, since it bears unique meaning that is special to every individual who practices the skill.\n  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Kintsugi is often interpreted as a way to restore broken\nobjects to their original forms by reconnecting broken fragments. Yet, Wong\nthinks there is something more to this craftsmanship that encourages creativity.\nHe recalls his experience\nof designing a whole set of tea ware specifically to fit the shape of a piece\nof broken glass, instead of gluing the fragment back to its main part. He\ncites a student of his as an example. The student used crystal to fill\ngaps between a broken wine cellar instead of simply colouring\nthe crack with gold or silver, challenging the traditional boundary of Kintsugi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Wong also draws differences between the philosophy behind Chinese and Japanese repairing.\nWhile Chinese repair things aiming at recovering functionality, Kintsugi advocates the aesthetic of wabi-sabi\n(\u4f98\u5bc2) , which highlights the appreciation\nof imperfection and recreation from the broken. Embracing the flaws in order to\nsurvive, especially during natural disasters, has become one of the key elements\nmanifested in this art form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cAfter\nthe March 11 tsunami\ntragedy in 2011, people collected broken fragments by the sea and returned them\nto their owners after mending\nthem\nas they think it is a way to bring hope to victims by reminding them there is\nalways a way to heal their wounds,\u201d he explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Wong thinks Hong Kong should\ndevelop her own Kintsugi with a\nspecial character. \u201cHong Kong is Hong Kong. You have to be aware of your unique\ncharacteristics and be yourself,\u201d he says. He also realises that some Hong Kong Kintsugi artists copy\nthe Japanese style directly without infusing the work with their own elements.\nHe reckons the way out is to spend more time tracing back to where they grow up\nfrom and dig out the essence of what belong to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cI want to create\nKintsugi of Hong Kong,” he says. He believes Kintsugi in Hong Kong can bring a sense of peace\nto individuals as they can stay focused when mending broken objects for a few hours without any distraction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cAmid troubled times\nlike this, it [Kintsugi] should evoke calmness from within and lead us to have faith in the chance of\nrebirth,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It may seem unrealistic\nto talk about Kintsugi in Hong Kong right now, as protests\ncontinue.\nBut Wong sees it in a\ndifferent way. To him, Kintsugi is a line that joins the past and future\ntogether. Through Kintsugi, a broken past is repaired and metamorphoses into a\nnew form of future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Edited by Scarlet Shiu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Varsity talks to one of the few Kintsugi practitioners in Hong Kong, Enders Wong, to know more about the spirit behind such artistry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1802,11,18],"tags":[1355,1354,1356],"class_list":["post-15686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-154","category-photo-story","category-vchoice","tag-enders-wong","tag-kintsugi","tag-tai-kwun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15686"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15772,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15686\/revisions\/15772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}