Baotou Yellow River Ballad Craftsman Museum： A piece of ＂Yellow River Ballad＂ Craftsman’s Love is Unfinished.

　　It is said that the Yellow River has 9,999 bays, one of which flows through Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

　　This bay is not turbulent. In Halingeer Town, Jiuyuan District, beside the quiet Yellow River, is the Yellow River Landscape Avenue. Next to the avenue, a tall waterwheel keeps spinning in the warm breeze. Dry-laid foundations, original wooden stakes, stone fences, old houses and rafters, and old objects that were once busy but now quiet tell the passionate life of people on both sides of the Yellow River for thousands of years, and tell the history and legend of ancient Yellow River craftsmen. This is Baotou’s "Yellow River Folk Culture and Creation Park", and the most famous one in the park is the "Yellow River Folk Craftsman Museum".

　　Like a rumor, not a rumor.

　　Through a loess arch, you step into the "Yellow River Ballad". Being here seems to be back to the farming era. The typical elements of the Yellow River basin, such as old fishing boats, original wooden stakes and Yellow River stones, are integrated with the natural landscape, which adds a heavy and vicissitudes to the whole scenic spot under the contrast of the original ecological design techniques.

　　Here, everything is restored to the most primitive rural appearance, and the scenery everywhere is aimed at showing the farming culture along the Yellow River and the history of nomadic culture in the north, and creating a home of craftsman spirit.

　　The whole park was designed and supervised by Li Tiandong himself, and some processes were even completed by himself. His son Li Sha was responsible for assisting the museum with multimedia and model display, integrating reality and virtual technology, so that the exhibits could be displayed and interacted synchronously online and offline.

　　"The really good ecological landscape construction is not how excellent architects do it with drawings, but an obsession with culture and injecting their own efforts into construction. I have lived in Baotou since I was a child. Now the design here is my childhood memory, and I think it is also the memory of most people. " Li Tiandong said.

　　The core area of the park is the Yellow River Folk Craftsman Museum.

　　When you enter the lobby of the Museum, you are greeted by the Yellow River fish flying above the museum. This lifelike yellow river golden-winged carp is a symbol of the Yellow River. There are 28 craftsmen’s workshops in the museum, such as real oil mill, wine shop, carpet workshop, old mill and weaving workshop, with more than 20,000 old objects collected by Li Tiandong from all over the country. Loom, camel bell, wickerwork oil basket and other daily necessities that are hard to see now are all gathered here. These old objects used by ordinary people on both sides of the Yellow River in the past have passed through more than 200 years of history.

　　The whole park, including the craftsman museum, actually has not a long history.

　　Construction started in September, 2015, and it was put into trial operation in July, 2016. After three years of painstaking efforts, the Yellow River Ballad Park was completed. In July 2017, the "Yellow River Folk Craftsman Museum" was officially opened.

　　Every exhibit in the museum has an indissoluble bond with Li Tiandong.

　　Although this museum is "young", for Li Tiandong, who is 64 years old and has gray hair, the hobby of collecting old things has almost spanned his whole life.

　　40 years, the Yellow River craftsmen love.

　　Li Tiandong is a native of Baotou.

　　"I am the second generation of Baotou Steel." Li Tiandong came to Baotou with his parents since childhood and lived in Baotou Steel since childhood. People come and go in that factory, and the towering steel-making blast furnace is branded into his childhood memory.

　　At that time, he lived in an environment with a relatively high degree of industrialization and modernization, and he didn’t know much about the crafts and craftsmen in rural areas.

　　22 years old is a turning point in his life. In that year, Li Tiandong, like many young people at that time, went to the countryside to go to the pasture of Baiyun Obo mining area in Baotou and became an educated youth. He changed from a "second generation of steel" to a carpenter on the ranch.

　　Since then, Li Tiandong has been dealing with farm tools and old craftsmen in all walks of life throughout his lush years, thus starting a journey of understanding crafts and craftsmen.

　　"When I went to the countryside, the pickaxes and palladium of more than 400 educated youths were all installed by our four carpenters. It is precisely because I deal with these appliances every day that I like to collect various farm tools and folk objects over time." Three years’ experience in the countryside made him have a strong feeling for the land under his feet.

　　In addition to the carpenter’s tools, as well as the dazzling array of "things" in the blacksmith’s shop, the "gadgets" in the master’s hand, etc., all opened his eyes.

　　Work has also made this young man from the "Steel City" begin to understand the labor on the land and the labor tools in his hands.

　　He said that from then on, he began to realize that "craftsman" represents a determined spirit and the strength to persist.

　　"I have a special fascination with craftsmen and their old objects!" At the age of 27, Li Tiandong began to collect all kinds of farm tools and folk objects for more than 30 years. In the 1970s, the "eighteen weapons" of different old craftsmen in the adobe houses built of loess in rural areas of Baotou opened another door of his life.

　　In 1978, Li Tiandong became interested in photography and was admitted to the photography major. After graduation, he worked in landscape planning and design.

　　Today, Li Tiandong has become a well-known original landscape and architectural designer in rural style in China. Over the past decades, his collection of handicraft tools and folk products has become more and more huge.

　　Set up a monument for "outdated" labor tools

　　Collecting old objects was entirely due to my own interest at first, but more than twenty years ago, because a foreign friend questioned that there was no museum related to folk farming culture in the Yellow River, he vowed to build a folk museum in his lifetime.

　　At the end of 2014, Li Tiandong participated in the construction planning of beautiful countryside in Baotou City, which made him feel that the time was ripe. With the support of Baotou City and Jiuyuan District Government, with the help of his son, he finally realized his dream of "Yellow River craftsman" in a swamp and an abandoned brick factory blocked in the west of the Yellow River.

　　Before the establishment of the museum, in fact, many people did not quite understand his "collection". Most of Li Tiandong’s collections are not precious jade, porcelain, gold and silver treasures and the like. Some people say that he collects rubbish.

　　Half a century ago, the oil jugs, ironware and farm implements used by the working people, the camel bells that can still make a crisp sound, the wood saved from the burning wood factory, and the pottery cups dug out of the ashes of the closed pottery factory … … Everything that has long been of no use value to outsiders has become a work of art in Li Tiandong’s hands.

　　In addition to the folk collections he collected from villages along the Baotou section of the Yellow River in the past 30 years, there are also precious handicraft tools he collected from 27 craftsmen of the Yellow River, all of which are presented in the museum.

　　This over-60-year-old artist finally placed his "Yellow River feelings" and the entrustment of many Yellow River craftsmen on his hometown land beside his mother’s river.

　　The simple and heavy traditional culture has attracted tourists from all corners of the country. Since its operation, the "Yellow River Ballad" has driven more than 1 million passengers every year.

　　In addition, the park also provides vocational training and jobs for surrounding villagers. On the one hand, it directly provides more than 50 jobs for surrounding farmers. On the other hand, through passenger flow driving, technical guidance and other ways, it has increased income by more than 20 million yuan for surrounding industries such as planting, breeding, processing and distribution of agricultural products, catering and accommodation.

　　Many times, some elderly people were too excited to speak for a long time after visiting Li Tiandong’s museum. Li Tiandong knew the taste when he saw them gently stroking the adobe low house with tears in their eyes. He said that the mission of the Yellow River Ballad is to tell stories and legends about the Yellow River one by one and make them pass on.

　　"Baotou has been a flood and drought wharf since ancient times, and the craftsman spirit carries history and culture. With the progress of the times, these processes are facing disappearance. " Li Tiandong said that the reason why history is called history is that people have innovated the old mode of production, but it is undeniable that history cannot be forgotten, and cultural inheritance cannot be forgotten. "Tools can be innovated, and the spirit of old craftsmen should not be lost."

　　When talking about the original conception of the Yellow River Ballad, Li Tiandong said that the craftsman museum is based on the Yellow River culture, and the craftsman spirit and the soul of the Yellow River are integrated. "The Yellow River Ballad is a reproduction by the hand of a craftsman, so that everyone can know that the soul of the Yellow River that people have been looking for is actually around." He said that when the museum was built, the craftsmen on both sides of the Yellow River were the main line, and the purpose was to set up a monument for the most common labor tools and to set up a monument for the old craftsmen on both sides of the Yellow River.

　　Reporter Rand Huawen/map