What is seaweed?

The so-called Hainan Huang Huali old materials can be divided into two types:

One is the residual limbs of Ming and Qing furniture, such as chair legs and desktops. The furniture in Huang Huali in Ming and Qing Dynasties had broken legs and beams because of its age and poor protection. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1960s and 1970s caused unprecedented havoc to China's historical relics, and ancient furniture in Ming and Qing dynasties was no exception. For example, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, there were mountains of Ming and Qing furniture in the backyard of imperial academy in the north of Beijing, and quite a few of them were excellent Huang Huali furniture. Some of them are intact, and some have been broken or dismantled. These furniture have been piled up outdoors for several years, unattended and exposed to wind, rain, sun and freezing. Due to political reasons, many furniture here were burned down. At that time, people with brains and calculation secretly took home some residual limbs of Huang Huali and rosewood furniture and hid them, which have been preserved until now for decades. What I mentioned above is just an example. These old materials, which have experienced hundreds of years of vicissitudes and countless disasters, have absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, and their wood properties are quite stable, so it is absolutely impossible to deform and crack. Because this old material is very rare and hard to find now, it is very precious. Even if it exists, it was discovered at least 20 years ago and preserved to this day, and it will never be used to make new furniture. Now every real piece of Huang Huali furniture in Ming and Qing Dynasties is regarded as a treasure by the world, and the transaction price at domestic and international auctions reaches tens of millions of yuan. In addition, the restoration of old furniture now emphasizes "repairing the old with the old", that is, using the old limbs and old materials of old furniture to repair damaged old furniture. Then I ask you to think about it. How can you easily see this old Huang Huali material in today's furniture market? It is almost impossible to make a new imitation Huang Huali furniture with it. At present, 99.99% of the old materials such as tables, chairs and legs of Huang Huali in Ming and Qing Dynasties displayed by some large and powerful furniture manufacturers in the market are worn-out fakes. The reason why they do this is to attract customers, make their goods sell at high prices and earn high profits from them.

Another ancient material can be called Huang Huali Tree in Hainan Island, which was cut down by local Li people and placed in the natural environment. In decades or even hundreds of years, its sapwood has rotted and mottled after repeated insect erosion by termites and soaking in rain, and the exposed heartwood surface has formed lines and tiny patches similar to the broken tempered glass, which is a time trace formed under natural conditions and cannot be imitated artificially. Then, after the unique seasonal changes of rain, heat, drought and cooling in Hainan Island, the bare heartwood of Huang Huali directly undergoes repeated drying, humidification, humidification and re-drying, which makes the color of heartwood of Huang Huali tend to deepen, mellow and consistent, and the oily smell permeates the whole body, making it not only fragrant, but also more vivid in jade. After polishing, the wood surface presents firefly-like phosphorescence, which is very charming. Furniture made of this Huang Huali material will not crack and deform, and it is beautiful in color and rich in fragrance. This old material is rare now. The reason is that Huang Huali wood in Hainan is precious now, and this kind of Huang Huali wood in Hainan is even less after a long time of insect erosion. At that time, Li people in Hainan Island were generally in no hurry to export newly cut Huanghua pear logs. There are two reasons: first, whether it is necessary to change them into daily necessities; The second is whether it is the best time to exchange daily necessities. So they put these logs in a very inconspicuous place. After a long time, the Li people forgot where they cut Huang Huali. In this way, after decades or even hundreds of years, at some point, they were discovered and preserved by future generations. Therefore, I think this old Hainan Huang Huali material is as precious as Ming and Qing furniture materials.

Finally, let me talk about the log materials in Huang Huali, Hainan, which are now on the market. These logs are really Huang Huali wood, but most of them have a small amount of shallow sapwood with obvious chopping marks. Obviously, these saplings were manually peeled off with a knife and axe. Moreover, these logs are all cut and artificially baked and dried. When sawing, the pungent smell near the outside is pungent, and the smell near the center is very weak, lacking a complete and lasting odor of deodorizing, which is caused by distillation of deodorizing oil from the inside out when wood is baked and dried. Its wood surface is dry and shiny, and sapwood that has not been converted into heartwood is intertwined with heartwood, with mottled colors, deep and shallow, bright and dark, and poor gloss. These woods are far from the quality of the second old Hainan Huang Huali material I mentioned above. Furniture made of them must be carefully maintained regularly. They should not be dried in the sun or baked near the heater in winter, otherwise they will be easily deformed and cracked.