China'S Tang Shoes Are Facing Difficulties

A pair of polished "Nike" and "ADI" sneakers are popular among young people. Some of the hand-made shoes handed down by older generations are being forgotten. "Tang shoes" is one of them.

Yesterday, reporters in Liwan District, Guangzhou, Zhou Men street, a more than seventy old craftsman Liang Guangze, over 50 years of shoemaking experience has made it the only remaining handicraft of "Tang shoe" craftsman in Guangzhou. In the early years, Liang Bo began to worry that the craft of shoemaking would not be lost in the near future.

The old Xiguan people in Guangzhou may remember that there was a famous old shop, Baoan Zhai Tang shoes, on Baohua Road, 49. The shoes of this shoe store were all hand sewn, not only exquisite workmanship, but also very comfortable to wear.

Liang Guangze, the owner, was also known as the "Tang shoe king".

However, along with the relocation and pformation of the old city area, "foot safety Zhai" has disappeared for a while.

After many twists and turns, yesterday afternoon, the reporter finally visited the famous "Tang shoe king" at room 304, 148, Zhou Men street.

The process takes 5 hours from raw materials to finished products. Liang Guang Ze is 70 years old this year. Although it is already rare, it is very hale and hearty and talkative and hospitable.

The most noticeable living room in the small living room is the finished products of several black Tang shoes on the table. The soles of the shoes are clearly printed with a few hot stamping characters of "foot safety Zhai".

Liang Liang Bo said that he did "Uncle shoes" and the northern popular "old Beijing" cloth shoes are also cloth shoes, but the northern cloth shoes soles are white, and plastic or cloth "nano", and the South mainly uses dark rubber soles, "taking into account the wet weather in the south often rain."

I see the reporter is very interested in the production of Tang shoes. Liang Bobian introduced a process together: first, according to the number of feet, the selected tyre was cut into sole and grind on the grinding wheel; in order to prevent skidding, we should use shovel cone to shovel out the linear pattern on the sole.

If it is calculated from raw materials, it can be made after 5 hours of continuous work, but "every process is careless."

When talking about the situation of shoe making at first, Liang bo used "forced by life" to describe it.

My brother used to be an apprentice in shoe store and learn to make shoes.

In the mid 40s of last century, it was just the era when Tang shoes became more and more popular. Liang Bo's brother chipped together to open a shoe store in Baohua road and named it "foot safety Zhai".

Liang Bo recalled that in the 60s of last century, leather shoes suddenly sprung up, which greatly damaged the sales of Tang shoes. At that time, many shoe shops under the nine roads changed their faces to introduce machines to produce leather shoes, and most of them insisted on making Tang shoes. However, most of them had fallen due to the decline of their master's skills, and "foot Ann Zhai" was thriving in Guangzhou's Tang shoes production industry.

Today, no business is still insisting on shoemaking, Liang Bo. There are mainly three kinds of people wearing this kind of shoes: the martial arts players; secondly, the performers, the Cantonese Opera veteran, or the lion dance players. When Macao returned to Macao, the lion dance team specially invited Liang to produce more than 10 pairs of shoes for the performance of the return day, and then the old overseas Chinese.

At the beginning of the year, Liang Bo moved to the house at 148 of Zhou Men street, and sold the finished shoes as an extravagant hope.

"One thing is that the place has been changed several times, and people do not know. Two," Tang shoes "is really not popular.

Liang Bo said that since the Spring Festival this year, no one has come to order or buy "Tang shoes".

"I may be the only one in the country who insists on making hand-made Tang shoes."

Liang Bo sighed.

Although no one has ordered shoes to buy shoes, Liang Bo still insists on making shoes. He says that once he stops, his craft will be rusty. What worries him most is that nowadays no one is willing to learn the craft of making Tang shoes.