The Cult of Craftsmanship in China: The Industrial Hand and the Artisanal Hand in the Age of High Technology

The figure of the craftsman has become a popular national symbol in the past decade with tremendous discursive power. This essay explores the cult of craftsmanship and its meanings in contemporary China by examining two widely-known TV documentary series, The Artisans of the Superpower (Daguo gongjiang, 2015 ) and Masters in the Forbidden City (Wo zai Gugong xiu wenwu, 2016 ), as well as its film version under the same title (2016). The Artisans of the Superpower demonstrates the “industrial hand,” which showcases how handiwork is used to symbolize the strength of a rising China and present a self-reliant, creative, and technologically advanced nation. Masters in the Forbidden City presents the “artisanal hand,” which presents another form of labor, restoration, bringing antique national treasures closer to viewers in a quotidian working environment. Despite their differences, I argue that these two representations of craftsmanship — the industrial hand and the artisanal hand — jointly constitute a form of nation-crafting that presents China’s hard and soft power. Moreover, the notion of “one profession, one life,” promoted as a virtue in both documentaries, establishes a form of solid, stable values in response to China’s intense hyper-capitalist working culture characterized by precarity and flexibility.