Ancient crafts find new vitality

In Shuanghe village, Silong town, Baiyin district of Baiyin city, northwest China's Gansu Province, 52-year-old Liu Kekun grew up to the sound of Yellow River battle drums.

"I learned to play the drums from my uncle when I was young. The adults in the village would get together and play whenever they had free time. I practically grew up surrounded by the sound of drums," Liu Kekun said. The drum scores were never written down, with the rhythms passed down entirely by word of mouth and hands-on instruction.

Liu Kekun and his drum troupe perform Yellow River battle drums during the 7th Yellow River Culture and Tourism Festival in Baiyin city, northwest China's Gansu Province. (People's Daily Online/Mi Yuan)

In 2025, Liu Kekun was named a municipal-level representative inheritor of the Yellow River battle drums, a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage (ICH) item. His uncle, Liu Nianzu, is a provincial-level representative inheritor, and the two often perform together with their drum troupe. As the sound of the drums reaches more people, Liu Kekun has been thinking about how to help children learn, understand and appreciate the tradition so that the craft can be passed down to future generations.

Through an initiative to promote ICH in schools, Yellow River battle drums have been introduced into classrooms at several schools. Liu Kekun and Liu Nianzu teach the students how to play the drums, first explaining the tradition's history before demonstrating various drumming techniques.

In Qiangwan township, Baiyin district, another form of heritage is preserved in the heat of brick kilns.

Forty-two-year-old Qiang Anxing is an inheritor of the traditional craft of firing gray bricks. His grandfather made a living producing gray bricks, while his father, Qiang Shengwei, later expanded the family craft to include brick carvings and clay sculptures for traditional-style architecture. In the 1990s, their products were being sold across the five provinces of northwest China (Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang).

In 2004, Qiang Anxing started a blog, posting photos of the gray brick production process online. "I wanted to start an online business, but I didn't know what to do. Since I had watched my father fire and carve bricks ever since I was a child, I decided to write about it," he said. To his surprise, the posts eventually brought in an order.

Photo shows finished gray bricks and exquisite brick carvings. (People's Daily Online/Mi Yuan)

After samples from several brick factories were compared, their products had the highest qualification rate, and the factory won the order, ultimately supplying about 100,000 bricks.

In 2024, the craftsmanship of making gray bricks and tiles was included in the fifth batch of provincial-level ICH items in Gansu. To make the traditional craft more accessible, Qiang Anxing has developed more than 30 creative cultural products, including absorbent tea trays and carved bricks.

At a copper art workshop in Baiyin district, Ma Yinlan bends over to arrange a row of copper artworks. Her father, Ma Xianzhong, was among the first group of workers who came to support Baiyin's development. The older generation of craftsmen helped build the city while passing down the craft of copper forging. Ma Yinlan later passed the craft on to her daughter, Ma Yanping.

Ma Yinlan founded the copper art workshop in 1997. The business struggled in its early years. It was not until she received an order for a batch of decorative handicrafts that she began to see a way forward.

Photo shows exquisite copper artworks. (People's Daily Online/Mi Yuan)

After taking over the business, Ma Yanping began using copper as a medium to tell stories rooted in local culture. Drawing inspiration from Dunhuang murals and traditional bronzeware, she refined traditional patterns and color schemes, combining them with copper forging techniques to create distinctive works with a rich texture. In 2024, Baiyin copper forging techniques were included in the fifth batch of provincial-level ICH items in Gansu.