Masters of curious culture showcase skills

Looking for something out-of-the-ordinary to give someone this Spring Festival? Well, look no further than Wangfujing.

To inaugurate the Spring Festival holiday, the Regent Hotel is hosting five Chinese folk art masters from Feb 4 through 10.

The exhibition features paper cutting and rope art, and invites guests to take a look at more esoteric Chinese crafts such as interior snuff bottle painting, sculpted dough figurines.

The most bizarre by far - crafting "hairy monkey" figurines from cicada exoskeletons and magnolia bulbs.

According to legend, hairy monkey master craftsman Yu Guangjun's trade originated in a herbal medicine shop in Beijing during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The hairy monkey's natural components are believed by traditional medicine practitioners to possess healing properties, but even for Yu, how or why they were first used to make tiny monkeys remains a mystery.

The inch-tall hairy monkey figures act out scenarios within glass cases.

Yu's work features imaginative, highly detailed scenes plucked from the streets of old Beijing to the clinics of Norman Rockwell.

Artist Wang Yizhu gets his inspiration for his dough figurines from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) - "the most important time for Chinese art and poetry, " he said.

The central figure is the lauded poet and scholar Li Bai, having his shoes removed by a servant.

Each scene requires approximately one month to create and the dough does not completely set for two weeks.

Using a special wooden brush that resembles an archaic dental tool, Xie Shanshan paints everything from courtesans to larks inside her snuff bottles.

"These bottles were used during the Qing Dynasty for powdered tobacco," Xie said. "People used it to treat colds and headaches. They kept it in a bottle like other medicines."

(China Daily 02/08/2010 page28)