Lishui Traditional Flower Arrangement

Name and category

According to the public notice of January 2024, Lishui Traditional Flower Arrangement Craft is one of the new inscriptions in the recommended list for the fourth batch of district-level intangible cultural heritage items, in the traditional fine-art category. The title of this entry follows the batch list and reads Lishui Traditional Flower Arrangement, which differs slightly from the wording of the notice; both forms are recorded as they stand and are not merged.

Applicant and locality

The applicant unit named in the notice is the Yongyang Subdistrict Office, and the recommended guardian unit is the Yongyang Subdistrict culture and sports station. Two fine-art items in this batch were submitted by Yongyang Subdistrict; the other is Cloisonné Enamel Craft.

An article by the Jiangsu Provincial Local Gazetteers Office says that Yongyang has a wealth of intangible heritage, with "paper-cutting, traditional flower arrangement, cloisonné enamel and embroidery passing down from generation to generation". Its short form "traditional flower arrangement" presumably denotes the same craft as this item, and thus confirms the locality. The article's wording is abbreviated, and this entry records both forms without merging them.

Bearer

The same notice lists Zhu Yubi as a bearer in this batch, for Lishui Traditional Flower Arrangement. No source in this library gives Zhu Yubi's teachers or line of transmission.

Local transmission

According to a March 2025 item of subdistrict news from the Yongyang Subdistrict Office, the Lishui District Cultural Centre and the Yongyang Subdistrict culture and sports station jointly held a flower-arranging activity at the Qinhuai Road Community; the instructor taught the "basic principles of flower arrangement and the choice of materials", demonstrated the basic steps and techniques, and participants "trimmed, pruned and combined" fresh flowers. One of the organisers is the Yongyang Subdistrict culture and sports station, the recommended guardian unit in the notice, which corroborates the locality. The report names no project and no bearer, and the steps described are the general steps of flower arrangement, not the processes of this project.

Points in doubt

First, the notice uses two slightly different forms of the name: the project list adds a word for "craft" at the end, while the list of bearers does not.

项目名录作「溧水传统插花技艺」，传承人名单所涉项目作「溧水传统插花」。

Translated: the project list gives the name as Lishui Traditional Flower Arrangement Craft, while the list of bearers gives it as Lishui Traditional Flower Arrangement.

This entry records both forms as they stand and follows the wording of the project list.

Second, the techniques are largely unsourced. No source directly describing the flowers, vessels and shaping methods of this project was found, and the community activity report gives only the general steps of flower arrangement, so it serves merely as evidence of local transmission.

To be added

• the flowers and vessels used;
• the techniques of cutting, fixing and shaping;
• the occasions on which arrangements are made, such as seasonal festivals, weddings and offerings;
• the line of transmission, the teaching premises and the safeguarding measures.

All of the above remain absent after searching this library's seven source layers, namely official web pages, published notices and lists, the local-gazetteer system, academic papers, classical full texts, media reports and maps; this entry adds nothing by conjecture.