Pic story: representative inheritor of Hainan coconut carving (3)

Photo taken on Oct. 9, 2021 shows a coconut carving product made by Ke Qiufeng at an exhibition in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province. Coconut carving, one of China's national intangible Cultural Heritage, has a history of thousands of years in Hainan Province. Made of coconut shell, wood and palm as the material, a good coconut carving work needs to go through complicated procedures and requires refined skills and great patience of a craftsman. Ke Qiufeng, 51, has been engaging in coconut carving since 1994 when he began to learn the skill in a factory. "I just fell in love with it at the first sight," he said. In Ke's eyes, no matter he is making a decorative painting, a delicate vase or just a bowl people would use every day, it's a piece of art. "You must be extremely concentrated when you are carving, or you will get hurt by the knife," Ke said. After years of hard work, Ke has been selected as a representative inheritor of Hainan coconut carvings in the provincial level. In addition to making coconut carvings himself, Ke also gives lectures to students at Hainan Vocational and Technical College every week. Seeing fewer and fewer people would like to devote in this traditional skill, Ke Qiufeng is more worried than anyone. "The skill of coconut carving has been inherited for thousands of years. It would be a pity if it was lost in our generation. That's why I need to keep it alive," he said. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)