Jade elephant by Suzhou's Ma Hongwei which won a Shanhua Award. [Photo/Suzhou Daily]

Five artists from the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, recently got Shanhua Awards, China's highest folk art honor, marking the second time the city has received five awards at one time, the last one being in 2007.

Winning a Folk Craft Award were Tao Huifen, for a pice of embroidery; Ma Hongwei, for a jade carving; Xu Zhongying, for a nut carving; and Qian Jianchun, for a brick carving, while the Folk Art Performance Award went to the Suzhou University of Science and Technology and Suzhou China Association for Promoting Democracy, for a lion dance.

Suzhou has received 27 of these Shanhua awards, which are given every two years by the China Federation of Literature and Art and the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association.