Kong Lingli is one of the few sugar blowers who still practice this age-long craft in Beijing. This forty-something year-old Chinese artist also makes figurines in flour paste.  Let's meet this artistic master.

Burning. Kong Lingli still remembers the feeling he felt the first time he made an animal out of sugar. He was 10 years old. This 42 year-old man from Shandong, in the East of China, is a sugar blower, just like his father and his grandfather.

Every morning, accompanied by his wife Wang Huilin, Kong Lingli crosses the entire city in order to set up his stand on the Street of Snacks (Xiao Chi Jie), in Wangfujing, Beijing's most important shopping street.   

Wearing a typical Chinese embroidered shirt, the sweet seller first sets up his gas cylinder. Then, he places a bowl filled with mixture of white sugar, honey and a bit of water under the heat. The mixture is cooked for two to three hours. "The most difficult part is to control the heat," explains this former cabinet-maker. "I have burned myself many times," he adds while showing his palms full of blisters and callus.

"What's your horoscope sign?" he asks the passers by who stop in from of his stand to admire the different caramel animals and gourds that he makes. "Rabbit," answers a young girl shyly. "It's 10 RMB," responds Kong Lingli. He takes out a bit of caramel from his pot, rolls it into a ball, and mauls with his fingers. Then, he stretches the paste.

Gracefully, he gives shape to the ears and legs leaving a little hole that he puts to his mouth and blows. "It's not as easy as just blowing," he explains before placing the figurine on a bamboo stick. "It's ready! You can either eat it or keep it for up to 10 years," he assures her.

A whole day

Besides caramel figurines, Kong Lingli also makes figurines in flour paste (see the frame), a technique that he has taught his wife who is also originally from Shandong. "When we first met, I told her: ‘You have to do what your husband says'," he jokes. His wife, a former farmer with smiling eyes and a welcoming face, makes us one of the mascots for the Olympic Games in Beijing, using a plastic knife with a round tip. Twenty minutes is enough to make the blue "Fuwas" (the nickname in Chinese for the five Olympic Games mascots).

In comparison to the relative ease of making an Olympic mascot, a human figurine would need at least a whole day to make once all the accessories (the embroidery of the clothes and the expressions of the face) have been made with the paste. And after that, the figurine has to be varnished and placed in a glass. Many precautions must be taken. "If the paste is soft at the beginning, later it will become as hard as a stone and, therefore, be very fragile," notes Wang.

These two forms of handcrafts, like many other traditions, are being lost.  Kong Lingli tries to be understanding: "There are fewer and fewer people who do this craft because it's so easy to get burnt. My son also knows how to make caramel figurines, but he doesn't want to work as a sugar blower. It's normal. He wants to go to school," he says. "For me, this is a passion. I will keep doing it for 20 or 30 years, until I can't do it anymore." To conclude, he adds: "In the meantime, I am happy to teach my art for free to whoever is interested in it."  

Xiao Chi Jie (小吃街) : Metro Line number 1, Wangfujing Station. Walk about one hundred meters Northwards, then turn to the left at the first corner, heading towards the West.

Price of the figurines in flour paste: from 20 to 120 RMS.

Text : Aurélie Palancher
Photos : Wang Zhuo
October 2007