Miscellanea of Pandanus - 3 : Huqin

Huqin is a kind of two-stringed bowed musical instruments. My granddad was a huqin player. Usually he made the huqin by himself. It’s amazing and interesting to watch him made a huqin out of a pandanus trunk.

Once I followed him to the pandanus forest. He looked around to choose a proper pandanus trunk. Then he sawed the trunk, and then brought this section of trunk back home. I didn’t know what he was going to do then. I just kept watching the magic he done upon this pandanus trunk.

We both sat on the doorsill. Granddad sawed the pandanus trunk to about 15cm long. Then he used a knife to shave off the rough skin of the pandanus trunk. He lit up a cigarette while he worked. His hands were trembling while exerting all his strength on the knife.

Then he excavated a hole on the transection. This hole was excavated bigger and bigger. Eventually the hole ran through the transactions. The section of the trunk looked like a bobbin. Then granddad used sandpaper to polish the bobbin. He did it with a lot of efforts, after impetuously rubbing, he’d give a strong puff to blow away the wood flour. He raised the bobbin to watch carefully; now the surface of the bobbin has a camber. Then he drilled 2 holes near the edge of the bobbin; a long wood stick prepared beforehand was plugged into the holes. Now I knew he is making a huqin.

However, the polishing job still lasted for another few days, while he watched TV; he chatted with the others or when he just felt nothing to do, he’d take out sandpaper and the semi-finished huqin to polish. After he was satisfied with the meticulously polishing job, the other jobs would be continued.

The left miscellaneous jobs were not so effort taking: the two knobs, the strings, the bridge, the bow, the varnishing job and finally some drops of pitch. Done! Sometimes granddad would add some decorations on the top of the wood stick. Once I saw him add a dwarf doll, which is usually seen on the cartoon Snow White. The decoration job maybe completed during another episode of soap opera watching.

Ten years ago, granddad passed away. He left some self-made huqins, one was kept by me. I didn’t play it for many years. I have to recall where it is……

PS. This is the end about my memories of pandanus.