Exploring the Culture Behind Chinese Sugar Art
If you've ever visited a temple fair or been to a food or night market in China, then bets are you've probably seen sugar paintings or sugar figurines being sold off to eager passersby. Both are a form of Chinese sugar art, a traditional Chinese folk art with a long history dating back hundreds of years. So, let's take a closer look at the background, history and skills behind this intriguing edible craft.
Sugar Painting
Sugar painting (糖画 tánghuà) was part of popular street culture back in the olden days. Although much less common nowadays, you'll still find them at temple fairs during Chinese New Year, on sale in some parks and on sale at a few shops in Beijing.
These edible "paintings" are made from boiling saccharose and maltose, and the first key thing to making these intricate shapes is to control the temperature properly. If the temperature is too high, the syrup will be too watery to shape; if the temperature is too low, the syrup will become hard and difficult to stretch. The hot sugar syrup is drizzled onto a marble slab in the desired pattern and then becomes solid as the temperature cools, which means that another key part of making a perfect sugar painting is speed!
Sugar painting should be done smoothly in one continuous stream, and there can't be any breaks in the painting process. Sugar painters don't use stencils, and instead rely on images they've memorized in their minds.
The most popular patterns are dragons, phoenixes and the 12 Chinese zodiac signs, however these folk artists are also able to paint all kinds of animals and flowers. The paintings can be completed in as short a time as one minute! As soon as the painting is finished, a bamboo skewer is pressed and attached to the syrup. Once the sugar painting cools, it will be removed from the marble slab using a spatula-like tool.
Sugar painting can be traced back to the Ming dynasty when people used syrup to cast statues of Buddha figures for religious rituals. In the Qing dynasty, this was gradually simplified and popularized, with peddlers creating various patterns that represent good luck and fortune rather than Buddha figures, and the treat soon became a popular sought-after snack for children.
In 2008, sugar painting was listed as one of China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage items. Although it is not so commonly seen on the street now, the artistry continues to be passed down from generation to generation, and for many Chinese people, these edible paintings carry sweet memories of our childhoods.
Sugar Figurines
Sugar figurines (糖人 tángrén), literally meaning "sugar people," can also be traced back to the Ming dynasty. Sugar figurines are made by blowing air into sugar syrup. The syrup (usually made from sucrose and maltose) is heated up, and once it has reached the required temperature, the artist tears a lump of the syrup off and then kneads it into a ball. The artist makes a hole to insert a straw into and then starts blowing air through the straw to inflate the ball of syrup. As the ball becomes bigger, it can be pinched into different shapes by the artists' skilled fingers to create shapes like flowers, animals, insects, and even human figures.
According to one legend, sugar figurines originated when Liu Ji (also known as Liu Bowen), a minister during the Ming dynasty, escaped being sentenced to death by Zhu Yuanzhang (the first Ming emperor). Upon his escape he encountered an elderly man who carried a sugar figurine basket. They exchanged clothes, and from then on, Liu Ji lived under an alias, carrying the basket through the streets every day, selling the figurines to make a living. He began making figurines in the shapes of cute animals which became popular with children, and then many people asked him to teach them his skills. In this way the skill got passed down and is now said to have a history of over 600 years.
READ: Beijing's "Ghost Markets": A Brief History & Where To Find Them
Images: Canva
