The History and Development of Anping Wire Mesh Anping County in Hebei Province, which is located in the middle

of th North Chin a Plain, is in the center of Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang. It was set as a county in the reign of Gaozu Emperor of the Han Dynasty and has enjoyed a histor y of over 2,000 years so far. It's named Anping because of its flat topography a nd people live and work in peace and contentment. Anping is named "The Township of Wire Mesh". Walking in the county town of Anping, people are deeply impressed by ubiquitous wire mesh shops and plants. Various categories of metal wire mesh es have been the most unique scenery of this small county. Nowadays, metal wire mesh has been applied widely to every walk of life and fields. It's incredible t hat 80% of wire meshes in the entire China are from this small county. Over 150 countries in the world have established trade contacts with this country. Form kitchen wares to household appliances, from ordinary window screens to buil ding balustrades, from expressways to airports, wire meshes produced in Anping a re almost ubiquitous. It,s said that FU Xi, who is the humane ancestor of Chinese ened by the Phenomenon that spiders spun webs by chance, so ieves and taught people how to fish and hunt. From then on, ol used in agriculture, fishing and hunting, was born. It's ople's production and life and plays a crucial role. nations, was enlight he tied knots into s sieve, which is a to applied widely to pe

After thousands of years since Fu Xi invented the sieve, a young man in Anping a small county in Hebei, China. Is seeking for a category of sieve with great eff ort. He is Zhao Shifeng, who is 31 now. However, he has been engaged in foreign trade business for 12 years. From his grandfather, his family has engaged in the production and processing of horse tails and hairs all the time.However, what Z hao Shifeng wants to seek isn't medal wire mesh. which is developed popularly. I nstead, he wants to seek another sieves mode from special materials, namely, hor se tail sieves. Moreover, horse tail sieves are exactly the origin of wire mesh industry in Anping. The original from of wire mesh is sieve. The original meanin g of sieve in Chinese is a net used to catch birds. Later, people use it to clas sify things. The history of Anping had once been closely related to sieves. At t he very beginning,sieves were woven by silk, so they were called silk sieves. Such category of sieve body was extremely expensive, so people always wanted to replace it with a cheaper material. Therefore, another material of sieves drew t he attention of Anping people. That's horse tail. Smart people in Anping used ho rse tails to produce various kinds of tools. Zhaoshifeng introduced the good usefull of horse tail: The structure of horse ta il is invisible by our naked eyes. Its surface is of scale structure. It is comp osed ofprotein, just as the nature of human hairs. This is the shortest horse ta il. It's named Magaiwei. which is the most natural. It has a flexible end of the tail. It's used to produce Chinese writing brush because it is flexible. Then, hairs on the body of horse are used to produce make-up brush, eyebrow pencil or other similar things, which are liked and used by female especially. Due to the fact that horse tails are purely natural, nontoxic and similar to com ponents of human hairs, they are applied widely to the processing and filtration of foods and medicines. Moreover, flexible and ventilate horse tails, are highquality materials of clothes, interfacings, cases and bags, shoes and even pillo ws and mattresses. However, in Anping, horse tail are frequently applied to weav e sieves. For a long time, such small pedaled wooden weaving machines give out t he same melody in every household in Anping. Horse tail are used to weave sieve bodies, which will be produced into tools used to classify things after being pr ocessed.

Xu laoshan, Who made such a historical step in Anping wire mesh. Xu laoshan was a great figure among people in Anping. Before 1918. He was still a doctor who tr eated difficult diseases, macula and skin ulcer specially. Once, when Xu laoshan used horse tail sieves to sun medicines, he had an extraordinary thought, namel y, would medicines were classified more finely if sieves were made of more of mo re subtle wires? Therefore,he introduced wires form Japan and wove them into sie vers successfully. He also changed his profession accordingly and made metal wir e meshes especially. For Zhao Shifeng, who had just begun to do foreign trade business, 2500 orders s hould be a happy thing. However, after he knew the truth, the emotion of Zhao Sh ifeng fell immediately form the top of cloud to valley bottom, because instead o f being produced by machines on a large scale, horse tail sieves could only be p roduced manually. However, with the rapid development of wire mesh industry in Anping, manual labo r had long been replaced by large machines and horse tails were also replaced by various kinds of steel and cooper wires. What s worst, this ancient handicraft on w hich most of people in Anping had once lived. Had been almost lost. In that peri od, the main task of Zhao shifeng was to seek for the ancient weaving technique of horse this traditional handicraft, he should firstly find the weaving machine of horse tail sieves. If he wanted to recover this traditional handicraft. He s hould firstly find the weaving machine of horse tail sieves. After seeking for 3 years difficultly and travelling through all villagers in Anping, Zhao Shifeng collected over 20 weaving machines. Young people today are reluctant to learn this traditional handicraft because it 's painstaking to weave sieves while the profit is marginal. In over 10 year, so me of 10 old grandmothers who weaved sieves for Zhao Shifeng originally have pas sed away while some of them are too old weave sieves. Now, There are only 3 gran dmothers who weave sieves for Zhao Shifeng. It becomes more difficult for Zhao S hifeng to run, his horse tail sieves business. What sharply contrasts with it is the industry of wire sieves, which develops vigorously in Anping. The first step to produce wire mesh is to draw wires. Iron strips are drawn into wires of different standards after multiple processes, which will be woven into various categories of meshes according to different usages. The diameter of suc h wires is only 0.025mm, which is 5 times thinner than human hair. They can be w oven into compact wire meshes, whose holes are so small that even water can t permea te. The development of technology expands significantly the usage of sieves. Such wi re mesh is applied to the air bag in car while this is used to reduce the discha rge amount of vehicle exhaust. Moreover, some of them are used to exploit mines and gold while some others are used to classify military gun powders. Wire mesh can almost be seen in all walks of life. However, it s because of the vigorous devel opment of metal wire mesh that the manual technique of horse tail sieves, for wh ich Anping was well-known is on the verge of extinction. Bringing bodies of hors e tail sieves purchased from various places. Zhao Shifeng came to Tangbei Village, where sieves were woven at the earliest. J in Shujuan is one of the few who still process sieves now. He will process these sieve bodies into sieves finally. Jin said When I came to places where there we re horse tails, I would yell, "Weave horse tail sieves." Zhaoshifeng said "Peopl e who weave horse tail sieves are all from Anping. At the very beginning, they w ould carry a pole, on which their tools, horse tail sieves and sieve rings were hung, and walk through all towns and villages while they yelled "weave horse tai l sieves". This sound goes through the country in the way. Several decades have passed. Today, such a yell and sound of the shuttle in ever

y household have been replaced by the thunder of large machines. Anping, which p roduces lots of handicraftsmen capable to weave sieves, attracts people from var ious places in China and even the world to come here to seek business opportunit ies today. Now, the life of people in Anping is better and better and their business grows bigger and bigger gradually. However, they won t forget the traditional handicraft, on which generations of the past lived. They won t forget these handed-down handicra fts, because they are a kind of memories, warmth and culture.