Shadow Weaver

Chapter 16 Make an Assumption
As the little Loli said this, she stretched out her hand and gestured in front of Xu Yichi.

“People who have developed some interest in velvet flowers because of surfing the Internet or watching TV dramas, but are just following the trend or are worried that they are not good at making things, do not plan to buy finished products, nor are they prepared to formally learn and make velvet flowers for a long time. They are likely to choose to buy some cheap, large, easy to make twisting sticks as substitutes, and make their first attempt at the velvet flower craft.”

“Most people stop exploring the craft after their first attempt because the heat and trend have passed, their curiosity has been satisfied, their goals have been achieved, and so on.”

"This is a very normal phenomenon." Yang Yan'an walked to the side of the coffee table, lowered his body, put his elbows on his back, and supported his chin with his fingers crossed. "After all, most people really just want to join in the fun and follow the slogans of 'national trend revival' and 'Chinese trend is the top trend' to be 'fashionable' so as not to seem out of touch with the current hot spots. They don't have any other thoughts."

"But at the same time, there are also a small number of people who, after their first attempt, really gained new fun and a sense of accomplishment in the process of fiddling with the twisting sticks, and developed a new and stable interest in the real, traditional velvet flower making process, which is different from 'following the trend' and 'purely impulsive and short-lived'."

"And within the next short period of time, these people will be divided into two intersecting factions."

"Some people still feel that their hands are not flexible enough to make qualified velvet flower ornaments step by step from splitting silk and combing velvet, so they choose to directly buy finished velvet flowers made by craftsmen in the market."

"Rather than buying finished products, I would rather study the correct production process of velvet flowers from scratch, work hard to find information, find guides, read tutorials, and purchase the relevant tools and materials needed for production, and make a second attempt."

The little girl was leaning on the coffee table and talking slowly. Xu Yichi leaned forward slightly when he heard her words: "What about the intersection between these two factions?"

"...Xiao Xu, I wonder if you are really stupid today." After hearing this, Yang Yan'an fell silent uncontrollably for a moment, then gave the little girl an ungraceful roll of the eyes with disgust.

"The intersection of these two groups is, of course, the group of people who feel that they are clumsy or too lazy, but still want to give it a try, so after purchasing a full set of tools and materials, they also buy other people's finished products as a reference!"

"Oh, oh, yeah, that's right. Indeed, there are many people who like to buy both finished products and raw materials!" Xu Yichi clapped his hands as if he had suddenly realized something. "Senior, look at my brain!"

"No, I won't look." The little girl pouted, "Because the top of your neck is empty - you don't have a brain at all."

"Boo." Xu Yichi pretended to cry - she was spurned by the top senior again.

"Okay, I won't talk to you about that nonsense... I'll continue talking to you." Yang Yan'an, who had insulted the little girl, waved his hand, "Those who are willing to buy relevant tools and materials and try to learn and make velvet flowers can be regarded as potential excellent seeds that may inherit the intangible cultural heritage velvet flower craft in the future."

"The subsequent development process is similar to the previous one. Many people will stop after buying tools and trying to make velvet flowers a few times. They will be satisfied with the current technical level, or feel that velvet flowers are not suitable for them, and turn to study other crafts - such as the winding flower and heat shrink we mentioned before, the cloisonné enamel that has emerged in the past two years, or other things that are not related to accessories - only a small number of people will choose to continue their studies."

"After understanding the more traditional velvet flower production process, they will have two completely different but not contradictory directions for further study. It doesn't matter which comes first. The first is to move towards a formal and professional direction that can truly inherit the velvet flower skills, and find relevant intangible cultural heritage inheritors for more systematic and in-depth learning." "The second is to conduct independent exploration and research in the direction of improvement, technology, and subject matter innovation. The products in this direction may not be professional enough, but they are novel and interesting enough to attract more people to understand and become interested in the velvet flower craft. Together with the above points, they form a complete and virtuous cultural communication cycle."

"So..." Xu Yichi seemed to be thinking about something, and after a while he twisted his body and moved closer to the coffee table. "Well, then, then, senior, if you say that the improved and innovative products themselves may not be professional enough...then these products, and the craftsmen who made these velvet flowers, can they still be regarded as part of the inheritance of velvet flower craftsmanship?"

"And, according to what you said, after so many people have gone through layers of natural selection and elimination, wouldn't there be too few people left who can truly become legitimate inheritors of intangible cultural heritage?"

"No, Xiao Xu, you have an obvious misconception here." Yang Yan'an shook his head, "That is, a person's interests and hobbies are not static throughout their life."

“Something you didn’t like at first, you may suddenly like it one day later; a skill you had no interest in learning in detail at first, may one day become a skill that you can rely on to make a living.”

"Xiao Xu, let me use the example of 'velvet flower' that I just explained to you."

"China currently has a total population of 10.92 billion, and the number of Internet users has reached billion, accounting for nearly %." At this point, the little girl paused, "We assume that among these % of Chinese people, about half of them have seen news about 'Ronghua' while surfing the Internet or watching TV series, and learned that China has such an intangible cultural heritage as 'Ronghua'."

"So at this point, the spread rate of the word 'Ronghua' has gone from being 'almost unknown' to being 'known' to nearly 40% of Chinese people."

"Among the 550 million people who have seen the news about 'Ronghua', let's assume that only 1% of them are curious about Ronghua and are willing to try it out - that's 5.5 million people."

"We calculate the remaining steps in the same proportion - 5.5 million people have initially learned about and tried the simplified production method of velvet flowers through various channels, and 1% of them have further developed a stable and lasting curiosity about the craft, which leaves 55,000 people."

"If we take 1% of the 55,000 people, that's 550 - we assume that after formally understanding the cultural skills of 'velvet flower', 550 people are still willing to continue to learn and study more traditional and formal production techniques, or improve and innovate existing themes and techniques."

"So, the intangible cultural heritage velvet flower, which once had only a dozen or even single-digit inheritors, has evolved into having more than 500 potential inheritors now."

　Peak continues to expand

　　
　
(End of this chapter)