Traditional folk crafts fuel rural vitalization in Shandong

Cao county wooden sculpture is one of the intangible cultural heritages certified by Shandong province. [Photo by Ding Yuanyuan/chinadaily.com.cn]

A craftsman works at the workshop of Yunlong Wooden Sculpture Company Limited in Cao county, Heze city, Shandong province. The company is established by Cai Xiufang. [Photo by Ding Yuanyuan/chinadaily.com]

In the process of advancing rural vitalization with the help of traditional crafts, Shandong province has focused on the traditional crafts conducive to employment and increasing income, developing targeted training towards impoverished regions. It has also focused on training the inheritors of the intangible cultural heritages in impoverished areas.

The labor-intensive wood-carving industry has contributed to an increase in employment and farmers' income.

Cai Xiufang, inheritor of Cao county's wood carving, a Shandong provincial-level intangible cultural heritage project, has frequently participated in the training organized by Shandong province in recent years.

"I have become aware of some professional opinions and improved my wood carving techniques by taking the training courses," said Cai.

She has hired over 800 people in Cao county in her wood-carving company. Many workers have become "voluntary inheritors" of the wood carving craft of Cao county, achieving an average monthly income of over 5,000 yuan ($740).

Since 2015, Shandong province has carried out over 40 training courses about the intangible cultural heritages, with 1,700 participants.

The returning visits research, which was commissioned by the Shandong provincial department of culture and tourism, has indicated that about 240 trainees have started up businesses back in their hometowns, helping 39,700 impoverished people to be employed.

The step of 'sales expansion' is the last step in revitalizing the traditional crafts in impoverished regions.

Wang said that it is necessary for traditional crafts to bring real benefit to the workers. Trainers are supposed to introduce projects for talented people; at the same time, they also need to help them improve the product designs and expand markets.

In recent years, the cultural department at all levels in Shandong province has regularly organized a team of designers, experts, university teachers and inheritors of intangible cultural heritages to help the poverty-stricken areas to design and improve their traditional craft products by setting up workstations.

Meanwhile, it has also helped those areas to introduce well-known e-businesses with channels and platforms and enterprises with relevant cultures, encouraging product aggregation.

Now, the patterns of "made-to-order production" and "sales-oriented production" have become the mainstream in expansion of sales of traditional craft products in poverty-stricken regions of Shandong province.

The wooden-comb-making craft has nearly 300 years of history in Donggaoyu village, Junan county of Linyi city. Each household in the village masters the manufacturing techniques of the wooden-comb.

In recent years, the cultural department of Linyi city has proactively encouraged the village to develop its wooden-comb industry and organized the enterprises in the village to take part in some significant exhibitions, such as the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo and the Shandong Cultural Industries Fair.

Now, Donggaoyu village, with the help of large orders inside and outside the province, has 240 wooden-comb factories, with an annual output of 40 million wooden combs. 

 "In the revitalization of traditional crafts, Shandong province aims to make the pattern of 'intangible cultural heritage enterprises + bases + farmers' basically mature and constantly expand in the future," said Wang.

As of November 2018, more than 1.1 million enterprises and businesses of different traditional crafts had settled down in Shandong province, achieving 12.6 billion yuan of business revenues in 2017.