Sugar Maker cover

Sugar Maker

Rating 3.7
Word count
93K words
Chapters
41
ISBN
9787520531207

Tags

Summary

This series is the fruit of the author's decades of fieldwork, gathered from the mouths of craftsmen and presented to readers as oral history. It recounts the entrepreneurial stories and work ethic of numerous craftsmen rescued and documented from various periods in Jilin Province, including blacksmiths, carpenters, leatherworkers, noodle-makers, and sugar-makers, and is of significant historical value.

The series offers a fairly comprehensive record of people's economic life—and even spiritual life—in the past, in areas such as food, medicine, commerce, handicrafts, manufacturing, and processing. These are the indispensable "shop names," and their founding, birth, development, and even their closure or failure are all microcosms of history.

Each "point" of a craftsman here is a record of that family's forebears' entrepreneurial achievements in history, beginning with a "case" and developing into a craftsman, presenting a full and vivid cultural force.

Editor's review

The value of The Sugar Craftsman lies not in grand narrative but in turning the oral accounts of individual artisans into a tangible history of everyday life. Grounded in decades of fieldwork, the author uses oral history to record the entrepreneurial stories and professional dedication of blacksmiths, carpenters, leatherworkers, noodle-makers, sugar craftsmen, and others, letting readers see from concrete cases the operational details and family memories of handicraft and processing industries across different historical periods in Jilin. The book's strength is "seeing culture through individual cases": each craftsman's point is a record of his family's forebears' entrepreneurial achievements and also reflects the historical microcosm of a shop name's birth, development, and even closure or failure. Reading it, one gains knowledge of economic life in food, medicine, commerce, and manufacturing, and also feels the artisans' professional ethics and the force of local culture. It suits readers interested in Northeast local history, folk crafts, and oral history methods, and also serves as a reference for intangible cultural heritage and local culture research.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • General readers interested in Northeast local history and Jilin folk customs
  • Cultural workers engaged in research on intangible cultural heritage, folk crafts, and oral history
  • Readers who enjoy stories of artisans, the rise and fall of family businesses, and family memory
  • Teachers, writers, and curators in need of local cultural material

Not a good fit for

  • Readers seeking systematic theory or macro-level industrial history
  • Readers who prefer plot-driven novels or fast-paced narratives
  • Those who only want sugar-making technical recipes and process parameters

Reading tips

  1. Start with the sugar-maker section, then expand in the order of blacksmith, carpenter, leatherworker, and noodle-maker to build a sense of a craft lineage.
  2. Note down craftsmen's names, shop names, and regions as you read, and trace the timeline of family enterprises and their closures.
  3. Read the oral stories alongside local gazetteers and old photographs to strengthen the sense of historical presence.
  4. After finishing, choose one craftsman for further inquiry and practice the questioning and organizing methods of oral history recording.

About the publisher

China Culture and History Press China · Founded in 1980

China Culture and History Press has long devoted itself to modern and contemporary literature and culture-and-history reading matter, with publishing directions centered on classic works, social novels, prose and miscellaneous writings, and Eastern philosophy, alongside culture-and-history periodicals such as Zongheng. Among the more than 1,500 titles in the collection, representative books include Zhang Henshui's Ti Xiao Yin Yuan, Lu Xun's Complete Classic Works (10 volumes) and Wild Grass, and Lao She's Four Generations Under One Roof series and the boxed set of Lao She's Classic Works (10 volumes), while its author resources are concentrated on figures such as Zhang Henshui, Lu Xun, Lao She and Sima Qian. Its publishing character lies in solid editorial work on culture-and-history source texts and in issuing famous authors' works in sets, balancing the readability of individual texts with the systematic presentation of complete collections for focused reading and collecting. Beyond these directions, public information on the press's contemporary original publishing is limited, so it is not elaborated here.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 作者简介
  3. 序 心怀东北大地的文化人——曹保明全集序
  4. 前言
  5. 第一章 糖作坊的祖师
  6. 第二章 东北糖匠
  7. 一、马国俊
  8. 二、康守仁
  9. 三、苏传武
  10. 四、蔺松林
  11. 第三章 糖作坊的生产过程
  12. 一、主要人员
  13. 二、生产过程
  14. 三、规俗
  15. 四、常用术语
  16. 第四章 糖作坊的故事和传说
  17. 一、王三冰糖葫芦
  18. 二、灶王与灶糖(之一)
  19. 三、灶王与灶糖(之二)
  20. 四、灶王与灶糖(之三)
  21. 五、灶王与灶糖(之四)
  22. 六、灶王奶奶与灶糖
  23. 七、祭灶为什么供糖瓜
  24. 八、糖瓜、年糕祭灶的来历
  25. 九、雪衣豆沙
  26. 十、满族与灶糖
  27. 十一、吉林城百姓的吃糖往事
  28. 十二、吉林九站新中国糖厂
  29. 十三、吉林城糖果的神奇过往
  30. 十四、糖标文化
  31. 十五、糖与灶神
  32. 十六、东北大块糖
  33. 十七、糖灯影
  34. 第五章 糖画作品名录
  35. 一、糖匠制糖
  36. 二、糖画作品
  37. 三、糖画纸质版
  38. 附录 糖作坊歌谣、谚语
  39. 一、糖作坊歌谣
  40. 二、糖的俗语
  41. 后记 总会走进一个甜的故事里边

FAQ

Is this book an academic work or a collection of oral stories?
It is closer to oral history compilation: the author organizes content heard from craftsmen during fieldwork into text, which has historical value while retaining its storytelling quality. You need not hold it to the annotation standards of an academic monograph; treat it as an oral record of local craftsman culture.
Does it only cover sugar-makers? Why is the title Sugar Maker?
The material shows that this series includes blacksmiths, carpenters, leatherworkers, noodle-makers, sugar-makers, and others, and Sugar Maker is the title of one volume in the series. It does not write only about sugar-making; rather, it uses the sugar-maker as an entry point to present the entrepreneurial stories and work ethic of similar craftsmen. As you read, note the commonalities among the different trades.
Can I understand it without experience of life in Northeast China?
Yes. The oral stories center on people and shop names, and the regional background does not affect basic understanding. If you encounter dialect, old trade jargon, or local implements, it is advisable to look things up or make notes as you go—this can actually deepen your understanding of economic life in various parts of Jilin.

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About the author

曹保明 Author

Cao Baoming is an author about whom limited public information is available; what can be confirmed is that seven of his works are listed on this site. Judging from their subjects, he has long focused on traditional handicrafts and the regional culture of Northeast China. Paper Craftsman, Blacksmith, Leatherworker, Noodle Maker and Confectioner each portray artisans in a different trade, documenting their techniques and working lives. Retracing the Northeast Asian Silk Road deals with regional history and geographical exploration, while Nianhua of the Chuang Guandong Migration focuses on folk art. His writing sits between industrial technology, history and art, favouring field-research-style records and accessible narration, offering general readers a readable entry into folk crafts that are fading from everyday life.

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