Born in Beijing in 1981, Qi Haonan graduated from the capital’s North China University of Technology in 2004, majoring in mechanical automation. Qi said that when he heard there was a job opening at the Palace Museum, he decided to apply, adding that visiting the museum’s gallery of clocks built up his decision. “These timepieces opened my mind to clocks. They are mechanical wonders combining technology and art,” he said.
In 2005, he joined the cultural relics restoration department at the Palace Museum, becoming a student of Wang, the museum’s third generation watchmaker. “In the beginning, everything in the palace was fresh to me. It made me excited to even think about repairing old-fashioned clocks,” Qi said. But reality soon dampened his passion. There is ad rule for apprentices: For the first year, you can look, but don’t touch.
From 8 am to 5 pm every day for that first year, Qi checked and took apart watches and clocks collected from friends to practice finding problems. It took him a year of this repetitive routine before he could finally get his hands on the small French clock in the museum. “It is ad job that requires extreme patience, because clock restoration is a very long and careful process,” he said, adding that it is clear evidence of the old saying “haste makes waste” and, in this case, haste can do a great deal of damage.
Although the old clock repairing techniques at the Palace Museum were listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in 2014, it was a little-known skill and in short supply of career practitioners before 2016, when three-part TV documentary, Masters in the Forbidden City, made the profession known to the nation. Qi didn’t expect that the documentary would make that profession cause a stir. As a result, in 2017, Qi got two apprentices and Wang got three.
【小题1】What eventually made Qi decide to apply for the job?| A．The clock’s unique design. |
| B．His desire to broaden his eyes. |
| C．The combination between technology and art. |
| D．His paying a visit to the clocks’ gallery in the museum. |
| A．changed | B．improved | C．weakened | D．controlled |
| A．Repairing clocks is a demanding job. | B．Qi had no access to any clock in 2005. |
| C．Qi often repaired clocks with his friends. | D．Damages never happen during repairing. |
| A．Curios | B．Appreciative | C．Disapproving | D．Uncaring. |
