Shanghai consular visit and classroom observations

Ostensibly the latest jaunt into Shanghai was focussed on submitting my wife's paperwork at the Hungarian consulate in order to obtain a Schengen zone visa for our trip scheduled in October. The whole process proceeded more smoothly than the wife was expecting despite my reassuring her that she was exactly the kind of Chinese tourist that was welcome into Europe. 

As usual we try to fill our our time while in Shanghai with new experiences unavailable in Nanjing. Mr. Chen Yonggang has been helping me find employment ever since we were both pushed out of Harvey Industries. I arranged with him to observe the courses that he had been teaching in order to see whether I could fill in as an English speaking instructor.

With Master Chen Yonggang in the SATA facility

The first observation was of a class in the Sata training and instruction center. The best way that I describe this event is as a team building activity for the sales staff during a training weekend. It was a bit chaotic. Mr Chen had reduced the actual amount of woodworking to a minimum, having fabricated all the wooden parts on a newly acquired CNC machine and the webbing from an contract supplier.

Proctoring the camp stool classroom

The salesmen simply had to round over the tenon corners in order that they be insertable into the round mortises. That and assemble components correctly in order to make a folding stool.  This style of stool, 马扎凳, Mazahdeng, horse tie stool, calls to mind a Han Chinese horse saddle.

Weaving a seat

Rounding a tenon with a rasp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't get any instruction as to how the stool was best assembled so that I like most of the other attendees just learned from experience as we progressed.

 

SATA sales training event

On a positive note, perhaps due to the dearth of clear instruction, there was ample amounts of cooperation and mutual support. I struggle to understand why a participant would bother to assemble a project and then abandon it before moving onto the next agenda item on the training schedule but as a result my wife got a free 马扎凳 to bring home.

 

Mr Chen explains the latest project

The second event, which I witnessed and to which I lent a greater hand, involved considerably more woodworking instruction with students who were there as eager participants in learning their craft. Possibly purposefully, I am kept unawares about the details of this ongoing course. The wife and I tracked down the CCP funded community center where the class was held on the third floor. This was a multipurpose building with a small courtyard for sports activities while nextdoor a film was being screened and a lower floor contained a lending library. 

A bowsaw, a miter square, and their owner/maker

When I observed some of the tools the students had in their possession, I recalled the prototypes from previous visits to Mr Chen's main workspace. He initiated the lesson by giving those who were ready to move onto the next step in the curriculum a length of pine which had a rabbet cut along its length. The plan was to cut four lengths with ends at 45 degrees, using the student made tools before somehow gluing them together in order to make a pictureframe.

Most of the students struggled with laying out the miters, using the miniature squares, and then with sawing to the pencil line with a bowsaw, especially one far too short for the task. The only holding device was a metal vise which clamped to the thick tabletops with a bit of struggle.

Seated woodworking in progress

The class was composed of mostly local housewives who evidently were getting their first exposure to handicraft instruction. The circumstances were far from ideal for instruction but the level of enthusiasm confirms that there is an as yet unrealized supply for this demand. 

The light-vented bulbul is a fairly common bird in many Asian urban landscapes and surprising friendly.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité aux oiseaux

 

Bonne fête natiionale à tous!