Artisan's passion for oil paper umbrellas一生一把油紙傘

四川 蔣建平

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In the late 1960s, when Li Zhenxia was 5, she dreamed of buying a beautiful, red oil paper umbrella in a store next to her grandmother's house.It was too expensive for her fam?ily to afford one at the time.

Today, Li is an entrepreneur（企業(yè)家）and an intangible cultural heritage inheritor（繼承人）,and she enjoys talking to her customers and passing on her techniques to her ap?prentices（學徒）.“The oil paper umbrella is like my lover; it has been with me my whole life and always makes me feel better,”the 58?year?old said.

The traditional Chinese handicraft, which is made of bamboo and paper coated in the oil of the tung（桐樹）nut for not letting water through, has been around for at least 1,000 years and was eventually adopted in other parts of Asia.Both ceremonial（用于禮儀的）and practical,it was used on rainy days,as well as during weddings and re?ligious ceremonies.It is often found for sale at tourist sites or in hotels as decorations now.

Li's store in Datong Ancient Town in Chishui City, Guizhou Province—a town where there is a lot of rain—welcomes tourists who buy her umbrellas to model in photos, deco?rate their homes or add to collections,and sometimes even to use for catwalks at shows and performances.“It's more a piece of art that adds elegance（優(yōu)雅）and grace than a means of protection from the rain,”she said.

Production involves over a hundred individual steps, from cutting the bamboo and threading the pieces together,to pasting on the paper shade,drying it in the sun and brush?ing it with oil.The whole process takes between 15 days and several months,depending on the umbrella's design,and this complexity means that it's still made by hand.

One of her regulars, a 38?year?old woman surnamed Cai, has bought eight oil paper umbrellas from Li since 2016.She uses them on rainy and sunny days,matching them with her outfits.“It is a classic item with great cultural meaning.I don't use ordinary umbrellas anymore,”Cai said.

Reading

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1.What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A.Handicrafts in Asia.

B.The use of the tung nut.

C.The importance of traditional handicrafts.

D.Materials and functions of an oil paper umbrella.

2.Which word can best describe the production of an oil paper umbrella?

A.Complicated. B.Impossible. C.Simple. D.Interesting.

3.What does Cai think of oil paper umbrellas?

A.They're similar to ordinary umbrellas.

B.They can rarely match her outfits.

C.They have great cultural significance.

D.They're mainly used on rainy and sunny days.

Language

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Difficult sentence

The traditional Chinese handicraft, which is made of bamboo and paper coated in the oil of the tung nut for not letting water through,has been around for at least 1,000 years and was eventually adopted in other parts of Asia.這種傳統(tǒng)的中國手工藝品，由竹子和紙制成，涂有可防水的桐油，已經(jīng)存在了至少1,000 年，并最終被亞洲其他地區(qū)所采用。

【點石成金】本句為主從復合句，其中which引導的是一個非限制性定語從句，先行詞為handicraft。