Chinese artisan an inheritor of Dongguan ICH
Chinese people have reportedly worn wooden clogs for 3000-plus years.
However, an artisan named Liang Jinquan (born 1962), who began making wooden clogs as an apprentice in 1984, is now the only individual with the training to produce the footwear in Dongguan, Guangdong province, local media have reported.
In his less than ten square-metre workshop - located down a lane called Zhuyuan Street, near Zhongshan Park in Dongguan’s Shilong - Mr Liang crafts wooden clogs with painted red lacquer and traditionally “auspicious” natural scenes. Nearly 20 different processes are required in order to finish each pair of shoes, including sanding, varnishing, tracing designs and nailing the leather upper.
In Shilong, where Mr Liang lives and works, the creation of handmade wooden clogs has a history of “hundreds” of years. In the “old days”, one could hear the tapping of wooden clogs “everywhere you went” in Dongguan, he recalled.
Mr Liang is today recognised as an inheritor of Dongguan’s intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and the artisan is particularly encouraged by the younger generation in China, who, he said, “like traditional things, more and more” and, therefore, inspire him to continue with his trade.
Image: CLIA.
