Always a favorite: Ma's Dim Sum. [Photo/North News Network]

Ma's Dim Sum, which has a store in Hohhot – capital city of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – is a local delicacy that has been handed down through the generations.

The technique to make it was included in the seventh intangible cultural heritage list in the autonomous region.

Ma Li, the fourth-generation successor, abides by the ancestral precepts of her great-grandfather and has been making dim sum seriously for 25 years.

She has restored hundreds of old recipes for fine dim sum and is also writing a book, recording the methods of making dim sum and the folklore and stories behind them.

Ma Li makes dim sum. [Photo/North News Network]

At the suggestion of her friends, Ma Li applied for the official registration as intangible cultural heritage for her family's "fine dim sum" making skills. In 2019, Mali became the municipal "Representative Inheritor of Intangible Cultural Heritage" for it.

In 2022, Ma Li was selected as a "Representative Inheritor of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region".

The Dim Sum Museum that Ma Li founded now has more than 10,000 items in its collection, aiming to pass on and develop traditional Chinese dim sum.

What's more, Ma Li is cooperating with colleges and universities to explore the hand-made skills of Chinese dim sum. She has put together the stories and legends and will publish a book to fill in the gaps in literature about the hand-made methods for the dish.

Ma Li shows models for making dim sum. [Photo/North News Network]