The origin of diabolo

Diabolo, made of bamboo and wood, is hollow, hence the name; Mixed with empty clock in Qing dynasty, commonly known as ringing gourd; Jiangnan is also called the bell. It is the most famous one produced in Beijing and Tianjin.

Diabolo is divided into single wheel (with a disc at one end of the wooden shaft) and double wheel (with discs at both ends of the wooden shaft). Double-wheel diabolo is easier to operate than single-wheel diabolo. The whistles around the disc use a big whistle as the bass hole and several small whistles as the treble hole. According to the number of whistles on each disk, they are divided into two rings, four rings and six rings, until the thirty-sixth ring. When pulling and shaking, the whistles sounded at the same time, loud and powerful, and the sound entered Yun Biao.

The operation skills of diabolo include throwing high, hitting the pole, changing hands, first line two, first line three and so on. The earliest diabolo records can be found in the Ming Dynasty. According to Dong Liu and Yu Yizheng's "Scenery of the Imperial Palace" at the end of the Ming Dynasty, "An empty clock has a hollow wood, a side mouth, and the soup is made of asphalt, which is as prominent as the clock and the handle is flat on it. Don't wind the rope around its handle. There is no hole in the bamboo ruler. Measure its rope to reach the empty clock, but the rope is pulled to the right and the bamboo is pulled to the left. A Le, the empty bell goes boom, big bell, little fly, when the bell is broken. Diameters range from inches to eight or nine inches. Let go, one or three people. " What is said here is consistent with the modern children's audio toy "Earth Axis", which is made of bamboo and wood. The rope is wound around its handle, and the rope goes into the bamboo ruler. When the rope is pulled hard, the earth shaft will fall to the ground and fly, and when it rotates vertically under the action of centrifugal force. It sounds because there is a mouth around the cavity. Qin Xiaoyi's lacquerware, an overseas treasure, has a round box with a red baby play pattern on it and a baby play pattern engraved on the lid. In the picture, a boy is shaking diabolo, and another boy is watching with his ears covered. Diabolo is disc-shaped, with a wooden shaft inside. The wooden shaft is wrapped with a bamboo stick rope and pulled and shaken. The method of shaking diabolo here is exactly the same as the present method. According to the editor's note, this red lacquer box was made in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty. If this statement is true, then as early as the early Ming Dynasty, the modeling characteristics and gameplay of diabolo were quite mature. Two pieces of embroidered ancient costumes were unearthed in the Ming Dingling Mausoleum, one of which was named "Red and Dark Flowers, Luo Embroidered, Longgu Flowers, Square Collar Women's Coat"; The other one, named "Red Ribbon, Luo, Jinlong, Baihua and Square Collar Women's Coat", was buried with Empress Xiaojing. On the back of the ancient philosophers' clothes, there is a picture of an "empty clock". The two boys are working together to release a big empty clock. It can be seen from the picture that it is different from diabolo. The empty clock here should be the "earth axis".

Great progress has been made in the structure and shaking technology of contemporary diabolo. In addition to the mass production of diabolo, there are also institutions specializing in diabolo research and development in Beijing, such as the Diabolo Professional Committee of Beijing Toy Association. Nearly a hundred people participated in it, and all the members were experts in diabolo. More importantly, many members make diabolos by themselves, with different shapes and changes. The largest diabolo is nearly one meter in diameter and weighs dozens of kilograms. In addition, the teacup cover, teapot cover, steel pot cover, round table top, bicycle wheel and other utensils are all included in the diabolo series, shaking up. Diabolo made by members themselves has "three floors", that is, the roulette wheel has three floors, which are collected layer by layer, and each floor is smaller than the next. There is a kind of "double-shaft single disc", that is, there are shafts on both sides of a roulette wheel, and two people can shake a diabolo at the same time. Diabolo's method is bold and enterprising, with endless patterns, such as "Golden Rooster on the Shelf", "Mountain Climbing", "Weaver Spinning", "Watching the Milky Way at night", "Jiro Back Mountain", "Looking up at the bright moon", "Carp wagging its tail", "Boy Yue Bai" and "kite turning over". The most thrilling thing is that "ants climb trees". One end of the long rope is tied to the treetop, and the other end is pulled. Another man shook a diabolo and suddenly threw the flying diabolo at the long rope. The rope holder stretches the rope hard and shakes the diabolo into the air. Diabolo can fly to the air of 50 or 60 meters. When diabolo falls, the person who shakes diabolo will catch it firmly. When I first saw this skill, no one did not exclaim.

Recently, Mr. Li Hongkuan, director of Diabolo Professional Committee of Toy Association, sorted out his own experience, structural characteristics of Diabolo and essentials of shaking Diabolo in Beijing, and published it at Toy Association, becoming the first monograph on Diabolo in toy history.