One monkey is playing musical instruments while others are beating gongs and drums. Some are sawing wood, swinging axes, planning the wood, marking it with a line, while others are drawing blueprints. This miniature masterpiecis made by Yan Minyi, a handicraftsman from Wuhan of Central China's Hubei Province.

Making maohou requires patience, skills and knowledge, says the old master. He carefully keeps track of his daily work, including times, themes, difficulties, summarizations and the next steps of the project.

Yan scours libraries looking for new ideas and asks friends to search the Internet. He continues to study folk customs in museums to enrich his knowledge of maohou.

Yan has made the little monkeys the main characters in a huge set, which describes the 72 traditional ways of making a living in old Beijing.

But Yan doesn't want to repeat the same old way of expression that many other folk artists have used.

Instead, he tries to give a fresh meaning to the essence of the cultural meaning of the small figures. "Little maohou is a symbol," Yan said, adding that it's a "carrier of history and culture".

Using simple materials, maohou is very expressive, especially of the lost folk arts such as playing musical instruments and old games.

Yan hopes his miniature monkeys will help pass on some of China's oldest arts. Yan's maohou has won critical acclaim at home and abroad, but Yan remains his old self. He wants to be himself when honors come, and he respects others' suggestions or criticism.

The artist and researcher does not think it is time for him to hold any exhibitions abroad.

"One should neither hold a maohou exhibition for sale, nor put maohou in flea markets. This would definitely debase the value of Chinese culture," he said.

"It is never over-demanding to be precise with our culture."

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