He excels at bonsai: veteran Cheng Bing produces frequent fine works after leaving his job

[Bonsai enthusiast's reflections]

Text by @Pan Jiaguang, Jiangsu

When you are mentally exhausted, look at the world from a different angle; when you feel repressed, change your environment and take a deep breath; when you are confused, think from a different angle; when you hesitate, choose with a different approach; when you feel gloomy, change your environment and find happiness; when you are troubled, change your mindset and work through it; when you complain, change your method and look at the problem; when you feel inferior, change your thinking and face it. Change your angle, and the world becomes something else entirely!

Leaving his work unit to focus on bonsai

A veteran gives up a salary of over 200,000 yuan a year for his hobby

This article was reported with photographs by Zhao Mingyu, reporter for Xin'an Evening News, Anhui Net, Dawan Client

This article is selected from Xin'an Evening News and Anhui Net

I remember a certain philosopher once said that everyone with a simple heart should be a happy farmer tilling the earth, with no time to pay attention to the various troubles of this world. Over these years, for the sake of his hobby, Cheng Bing, in his forties, left a work unit with generous benefits and devoted himself to bonsai. After several years of struggle, he finally found his own happiness.

Fighting alone for his hobby

Even as a student, Cheng Bing was different from other children. Boys usually like all kinds of toy guns and cars, but Cheng Bing was fascinated by plants, and even his textbooks were covered with drawings of flowers, birds, insects, fish and all kinds of trees. After joining the army, the driving squad had a small courtyard, and he gathered lots of bottles and jars and kept a whole lot of flowers and plants, slipping in whenever he had time to tend to them. After being transferred from the army, Cheng Bing entered a provincial-level work unit. This unit offered generous benefits and easy work. But Cheng Bing could not muster any enthusiasm at all for this kind of office life. Once, when he finally had a chance to go out and help the unit purchase things, Cheng Bing bought two large banyan trees and planted them at the entrance of the unit. From then on, pruning and tending the large banyan trees became Cheng Bing's exclusive task.

In 1998, by a chance opportunity, Cheng Bing came into contact with bonsai. From then on, he was hooked, immersed in it and unable to extricate himself. In 2015, he decided to leave his work unit and focus on bonsai. As expected, Cheng Bing's decision met with unanimous opposition from relatives and friends, and his parents even sulked with him over it for more than a year.

After running out of his work unit, Cheng Bing discovered that some things were not easy at all. Because he had just entered this industry and was still a "green recruit," he had to learn and figure out many things bit by bit. For this reason, he subscribed to many professional magazines, reading them over and over every day and studying other people's techniques.

The return of funds in bonsai is quite slow, and at first he was only putting money in. Seeing his savings about to run out with no sign of making money at all, he still had to grit his teeth and say "It's fine," afraid his family would worry. Once, a friend went to see him and, after learning of his predicament, bluntly called him foolish: "You had an easy job with a salary of over 200,000 yuan a year, and you didn't want it, and now you've run off to suffer like this?" He smiled and said nothing.

Once established, he never changed his original aspiration

No effort is ever wasted. The art foundation from his childhood drawing came in handy, and the bonsai Cheng Bing made gradually gained some fame in the industry. Two years ago, he rented 12 mu of land in Gangji, Hefei, and had his own garden. In the garden, he set aside a plot for his elderly father, and the old man grew vegetables and raised chickens. The father and son each kept busy with their own things, each finding their own joy. In the garden were rows of small pine trees, the raw material for Cheng Bing's bonsai. Every day he buried himself in the garden making bonsai, and when he got tired he would go to a nearby room to drink some gongfu tea and work out. Though far from the bustle of the world, Cheng Bing's reputation had already spread, and from time to time like-minded people would come to his garden to observe and exchange ideas.

Some of the bonsai he made could already fetch a high price. But for some, no matter how much money was offered, he was unwilling to sell. "In choosing to make bonsai, the hobby came first; whether I make money or not doesn't matter, as long as I can support myself." Not long ago, Cheng Bing, who had already left his work unit for 3 years, met his former colleagues, and his first sentence made them all stare wide-eyed: "How are those two large banyan trees of mine doing?"

The process of shaping Cheng Bing's Chinese juniper bonsai

Cheng Bing, from Hefei, Anhui, has pursued bonsai as a hobby for nearly 20 years. In the early years he only tended them in his spare time; in the past two years, he has devoted all his energy to the art of bonsai and built his own bonsai material base. Cheng Bing is a man of few words, and his understanding of bonsai art is based on practical work, focusing on the care of each piece of bonsai material and patiently observing the characteristics of different materials at different stages. His understanding and observation of Chinese juniper are especially unique, meticulous and patient, and he can achieve juniper shaping that ordinary people cannot.

Mr. Cheng Bing chose this slanted-trunk large-tree-style Chinese juniper material, a garden Chinese juniper with a broken tip, which has been cultivated in a pot for more than ten years. Through careful selection, following nature as his teacher, and the most delicate treatment of the water lines at the broken surface, it looks as if naturally formed, with scarcely any trace of carving. Now the shaping and wiring are shared with everyone.

The dead shari face of the trunk was gradually perfected through years of carving; in the process of making the dead trunk, the natural grain in the wood tissue fibers within the tree's structure was skillfully used, and through fully artificial thread-carving techniques, fine polishing, weathering over time, and anti-corrosion treatment, the dead shari trunk is made to look as if naturally formed, with no trace of carving.

The shari at the apex of the right trunk is carefully carved using the hollowing-and-separation method, making it resemble the tree's natural broken surface and expressing the ancient ruggedness of the cypress.

During wiring of the positioned and separated pad of the cascading branch on the lower right of the front.

The first main branch on the left side of the trunk face is laid out in corresponding position, and the branch support pads are wired in graded levels.

The main branch forming the crown apex has its point of emergence on the lower right of the dead tip of the trunk, forming a 45-degree angle with the dead tip of the trunk; the trunk tends to lean left, and the root base forms a 90-degree orientation with the treetop, making it an ideal main branch for the apex.

According to the overall layout of the tree's momentum, wire the crown branch pads.

After the basic wiring of the shaping operation is completed, make appropriate adjustments between the various branch supports of the overall tree posture and carry out branch pad pruning.

The tree posture on the left side after completion.

The tree posture on the right side after completion.

The effect view from the upper right after completion.

The tree momentum from the back after completion.

The effect view after the shaping of the Chinese juniper bonsai, once the shaping operation process is finished.

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