Han Meilin's works show deep influence of cultural traditions

Through his six-decade career, Han Meilin - who is well-known as the chief designer of Fuwa, the good-luck mascots for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 - has always turned to Chinese cultural traditions for inspiration.

The 80-year-old began traveling to towns and remote villages in 1977 where he discovered folk arts, such as paper-cutting, clay sculpting, cotton-cloth printing and zisha (purple-clay) teapot making.

He was later joined by dozens of students and staffers and calls his team "a caravan of art". Over the years, they've journeyed to places across the country that boast rich grass-roots culture, such as his native Shandong province, the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in the northwest and the hinterland of Guizhou province in the southwest.