A file photo of participants of the Weifang kite festival, which takes place annually, and their creative kites. -- PR Newswire
Inside a workshop of the Yangjiabu Folk Art Grand View Garden in Weifang, Shandong Province in China, several workers are busy making kites. This process includes the likes of kite drawing and frame making.
Yangjiabu’s kite-making heritage dates back to more than 600 years ago. Xu Yang, an inheritor of the Weifang kite art skill, developed her love for kite-making when she was just a child. She learned kite-making and painting skills at the Yangjiabu Folk Art Grand View Garden and was also taught by her aunt.
“I visited my grandma weekly as a kid, and on these visits I saw my aunt make kites and I assisted her by doing some drawing,” said Xu, 36.
“We are a kite-making family and it is quite nice to do what I love.”
Preserving local culture
The Yangjiabu Folk Art Grand View Garden is the epitome of how Weifang, sometimes known as the “kite capital of the world”, preserves its traditional craft and develops its culture and tourism industries. The city has held the Weifang International Kite Festival annually since 1984, attracting kite enthusiasts from dozens of countries and regions.
Yangjiabu is also one of China’s three major traditional woodblock print production bases. “From engraving to printing and packaging, all work is done by hand,” said 67-year-old Yang Naiqiang, who displays the woodblock printing craft to tourists at a workshop inside the folk art garden.
Dedicated young people have picked up the baton, influenced by their families which have passed on these cultural heritage skills from generation to generation. Yang Jing and her husband, both in their 30s, are the 14th-generation inheritors of woodblock painting. Their family owns a century-old woodblock paintings store.
“My husband is the only son. If we did not inherit the craft, it would be difficult to re-enter the industry in the future,” said Yang. Her husband learned the skills from his father and grandfather.
Kite-flying is a favourite pastime of many Chinese folks. — Pexels
Yang and her husband have developed creative products such as throw pillows and canvas bags designed with woodblock paintings, which are proving popular among customers. The couple also does various heritage promotion events at schools.
“Through knowledge about woodblock paintings, young people can better understand the wisdom and craft of our ancestors, and learn traditional values embodied in the stories of the paintings,” she added.
Even during the cold winter season, the folk art demonstration park attracts throngs of visitors. It receives an average of nearly 1,000 visitors daily in the slack season and several thousands in the peak season.
Weifang is renowned for its traditional handicrafts and cultural traditions. A number of historical celebrities such as agronomist Jia Sixie and poet Su Shi were either born or worked in the region. Gaomi, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Weifang, is the hometown of Nobel laureate in literature Mo Yan.
Weifang is home to 17 items of national-level intangible cultural heritage such as Weifang kites, woodblock printing and papercutting, and home to more than 100 such items at provincial and prefectural levels. It was named a Unesco Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art in 2021.
In November 2023, US travel magazine AFAR listed Weifang as one of the 25 most exciting places to visit in 2024.
Last year, the city applied for a fund of CNY137mil (RM89.98mil) for the protection and inheritance of cultural relics and intangible cultural heritage, including the construction of seven new museums, according to the city’s culture and tourism department.
Tech industries boom
Apart from focusing on culture, Weifang, with a population of 9.4 million, is developing high-tech and emerging industries in pursuit of high-quality development. Its gross domestic product ranks fourth among all prefectural cities in Shandong.
“Weifang boasts strong agriculture, a solid industrial foundation, profound cultural heritage, and outstanding educational and geographical advantages. The interaction between humanities and economy could create new drivers for high-quality development,” said Liu Yun, party chief of the city of Weifang.
Weifang features 37 out of the 41 major industrial categories in the country, including all 31 manufacturing categories. Its newest industries include new energy storage, metaverse and industrial mother machines.
Weichai, a Chinese powertrain manufacturer, has applied new-generation information technology to its smart factories and built the world’s largest diesel engine manufacturing cluster.
With the expanded use of robots, Weichai has greatly improved production efficiency, with its production line for green energy-powered engines only needing one-fifth of the workforce required before the implementation of these changes.
In a smart factory of Goertek, an electronics supplier, the likes of optical, acoustic and other components are processed into high-end VR equipment.
Founded in 2001, this private tech company is a global leader in terms of shipments of smart headphones, wearables and smart speakers.
Booming vocational education in Weifang provides strong support for the development of emerging industries. As a national vocational education innovation and development pilot zone, Weifang has more than 60 vocational schools with over 300,000 students.
“By leveraging its strengths in culture, education and technology, Weifang can greatly expand its scope for high-quality development,” said Wang Zhongwu, a professor at Shandong University. – Xinhua
