Call of a craft

Inheritors' family

To make Tantou-style New Year pictures, some 20 steps are followed, including using pear wood for engraving and bamboo to make paper, as well as multiple uses of woodwork and hand-painting before vivid, colorful folk paintings are produced by the skillful hands of artisans.

Zhong's interest in this craft stemmed from the influence of her family.

Her grandparents were all national-level inheritors, and her father won the title in 2018. Their century-old family workshop is named after Zhong's grandmother Gao Lamei.

"My childhood memories mostly revolve around the workshop, where I watched them (grandparents and parents) making the New Year pictures," she says, adding that she then spent time learning the craft and played with the tools lying around.

"The engraved pear wood for printing, various pigments, and the stories behind each picture still often come into my mind," she says.

In 2011, Zhong landed a job at a local news agency in Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, after completing her Japanese-language studies at Guizhou Normal University in southwestern China.

"I got exposure to various cultural development models and discovered the charm of traditional culture," Zhong says.

After her grandparents passed away, she says, she felt a great sense of responsibility to carry on with the family's work.

In 2017, she quit her job and learned more about the New Year pictures from her father.