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Jinyun couple's wooden masterpiece depicts Xiandu

chinadaily.com.cn| Updated : Aug 24, 2020 L M S

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A wood-carving masterpiece featuring the famous Xiandu Scenic Spot in Jinyun county, Lishui [Photo/lsnews.com.cn]

A wood-carving masterpiece featuring the famous Xiandu Scenic Spot in Jinyun county, Lishui, East China's Zhejiang province, came under the spotlight recently.

The eye-catching wooden piece was created by Zheng Weisheng and his wife Shi Yuzhen, who have run a wood-carving studio in Jinyun for six years.

Although it took only about eight months for them to carve all the details of the scenic spot, they had been planning the work for six years. From the time they came back to their hometown and started a business, they were thinking about creating something that would best represent the place.

"We had no time to work on it because we had just come back and everything was unstable, and it wasn't easy to do. We had to carve it carefully," Zheng said.

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Elaborate work makes the piece a marvelous work. [Photo/lsnews.com.cn]

In the second half of 2019, they began to work on the piece.

"We didn't think we could put it off any longer as Xiandu Scenic Spot was trying to become a national AAAAA-level scenic spot," Zheng said.

The couple spent three months designing the drawings and arranging all the attractions in Xiandu according to the size of the wood, which came from a 100-year-old camphor tree.

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Zheng Weisheng and his wife Shi Yuzhen work on the wood-carving piece. [Photo/lsnews.com.cn]

The carving technique they use is called qingdao. Ordinary wood carvings need to be polished with sandpaper, while qingdao leaves all the carving marks on the surface to present a texture. The technique is extremely demanding on the carver.

"I want to leave all the good work here in Jinyun!" Zheng said.

The Xiandu Scenic Spot work has already been tagged "not for sale". Though many tourists want to buy the piece, the couple is determined to keep the carving in their hometown.