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Lacquer & Cinnabar
Lacquer has been used in Chinese Arts since about 200 BC. Lacquer come from the sap of a Lacquer tree (Native to Southern China). It is harvested much like Maple sap in the United States and Canada. Lacquer is an extremely tedious process. Many coats are needed to create a thickness that can be carved.
As many as 100 to 150 coats may be used on some pieces to achieve the desired thickness. Each layer must dry before the next can be applied. It takes up to 4 months to make a single piece. The most popular coloring used in Lacquer goods is called Cinnabar which is made from mercury. The name comes from its dark red color. Most of the workshops in China that made Cinnabar items have closed.

Porcelain
Porcelain has been in use for over 4000 years in China. It is made from special white clay and fired at a temperature of 1280 degrees C. There are a couple different ways in which these items are decorated. The most common today is molded, decorated and glazed. Others are molding, enameled,than re-fired. The third type is underglaze in blue and red. The Chinese have always been extremely proficient at porcelain work and have produced numerous pieces that look like coral, glass, stone and many other materials.

Bamboo Craft
Bamboo is one of the most wonderful and most beautiful plants of the tropics and one of nature's most valuable gifts. China is the home of about 1/3 of the world's 1300 or so species of bamboo. As the materials, they are strong, light, smooth, straight and round. They have hard outer skins and are free from any pronounced taste or smell.
Bamboo is found abundantly and grows and increases rapidly. Only four years old bamboo is ready for use. For this reason, using bamboo as one kind of material instead of wood, is the GREEN idea of saving rain forest. Bamboo's potential as a multi-purpose product for the global marketplace and the ease with which it is grown and fashioned into salable merchandise.

Silk Cloud Brocade
It is one of the traditional silk-knit brocades. It is named after its color as gorgeous as colorful cloud, for it is made of high quality silk and woven with exquisite skill. The silk industry consists of two trades: the pattern brocade trade and the unpatterned brocade trade since the end of the Qing Dynasty. Not until then did the name "cloud brocade" come into use.

Silk Embroidery
It is one of the most famous Chinese embroideries. It is the general name for the embroidered products in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. There emerged many embroidery workshops and embroidery markets in the Song Dynasty. Up to Ming and Qing Dynasties, its embroidery flourished for a time. Su embroidery is famous for its elaborateness and elegance. It used to be made by the unmarried daughters of noble families and so it is also called "boudoir embroidery".

Its characteristics include elegant colors, fine needling, the application of halo dyeing and the vacant lines left between colors. Its needling skills include looping needling, even needling, net embroidering, etc. Later, they created double-faced embroidery which is used to embroider screen, palace fan, handkerchief, scarf and window lattice. Its pattern themes vary from "the celebration of harvest", "wealthy family", "dragon and phoenix symbolic of propitiousness", "well-being through hundreds of years" to "abundance in grains and happiness in life", "richness in fruits", "happy encounter", and "twin lotus flowers".

The embroidered pictures have "the Hunting Picture", "the Scroll of Plum and Crane", and "the Scroll of Osmanthus Under the Moon" as their themes. There are many other embroidered products, such as dress and adornments, beddings and ornaments attached to the waist.

Pottery
Yixing ( pronounced Yee-shing ) is a small city that became famous due to a unique type of clay that is only found there. This unique clay is called Zisha. Zisha Clay is found in five different colors...red, yellow, green, black and purple. It has been used in pottery for over 3,000 years. The properties of the clay make it the perfect vessel for brewing tea. With use, the teapot absorbs the flavors of the tea which enhances future batches. Zisha Clay Teapot should never be washed with soap and water; just rinsed with water and allowed to drip dry.

Jade, Jadeite, and New Jade
Jades are extremely hard stones (6.5 to 7.0). They were shaped and carved using ropes and bamboo with grains of sand. The piece was coated with sand which was rubbed back and forth with the rope or bamboo to slowly wear away the stone. A single piece could take months to produce.
Today, modern diamond tipped tools, drills, and grinders make the job much quicker. The art of Jade carving has been in existence in China since 3500 BC. The most famous Jade works were produced in Suzhou, which still produces some of the finest Jade and Stone carvings in the world. Nephrite Jade, that was used by the Chinese, came from East Turkistan. Throughout history, China has gained and lost control of that region which had greatly affected the supply and quality available to the craftsmen.
During the periods of low supply, smaller pieces were produced. Craftsmen were required to produce Snuff Bottles using very low quality Jade, much of which had off-color inclusions. These inclusions were frequently worked into the design of the piece. Many of these low-grade pieces are extremely valuable today.
Jade ranges in color from pure white to black and pale yellow to dark green. It has a very creamy appearance and has always been considered more valuable in Chinese society than any other substance. Jadeite is very similar to Jade in appearance, however it is a completely different substance. It is harder, more translucentand has a crystalline structure. Jadeite is found in all the colors of Jade, but also in shades of purple and blue. Most of the Jadeite used in China comes from Burma. New Jade and Serpentine Jade is basically anything that might pass for Jade...but isn't !

Paper Craft
Papercut is an art form originally created in China. Around the first century AD, the Chinese invented the most flexible, versatile and adaptable of materials --paper. The first papercut can be traced back to the period known as the Northern and Southern Dynasties (386-581 AD). In the T'ang Dynasty (618-906 AD), papercuts are the subject of a poem by the poet Ts'ui Tao-yung and from other sources of this period. They are described as being used to decorate plants and worn by ladies in their hair in the form of butterflies and flowers.

Folk Woodblock Picture
It is a kind of picture enjoying popularity among the people with a large variety. A few of them are singled out for appreciation, but most are used for different worldly life and protocols, such as the portrait of the Gate God, the portrait of gods, illustration, pictures for packaging and decorating, window flowers, lamp pictures, kites, paper cards, colorful squares, flags and embroidery patterns. Of these pictures some are printed in a single color (black). Some others are printed in chromatography or by the continuation of color applying. It is a characteristic way of picture popularization from the invention of China's woodblock printing to the contemporary printing skill. Their authors are professional painter and engravers. Some of them are anonymously created by farmers.

Leather Silhouette
First it refers to the leather silhouette in Luan County, Hebei Province. Its was accompanied by the song sung in the tone of luoting. It also refers to the shadow play accompanied by the song sung in the tone of Liuqin Opera. Its engraving skill was characterized by roughness and antiquated colour.

Cloisonné
Cloisonné is a famous traditional enamelware with a history of over 500 years. Cloisonné is one of the famous arts and crafts of Beijing. The making of cloisonné requires rather elaborate and complicated processes: base-hammering, copper-strip inlay, soldering, enamel-filling, enamel-firing, polishing and gilding.
Base-hammering of body is the first step in the making of cloisonné. The material used for making the body is copper, because copper is easily hammered and stretched. This step requires a sound judgement in the shaping and uniformity of thickness and weight. It is in fact, the work of the coppersmith. The only difference is that when an article is shaped, the coppersmith's work is finished, whereas the cloisonné craftsman's work has just begun.
The second step is filigree soldering. This step requires great care and high creativity. The artisan adheres copper strips onto the body. These strips are 1/16 inch in diameter and of lengths as the artisan desires.

The strips of filigree thus adhered, make up a complicated but complete pattern. The artisan has a blueprint in mind making full use of his experience, imagination and aesthetic view in setting the copper strips on the body.
The third step is to apply color which is known as enamel filling. The color or enamel, is like glaze on ceramics. It is called falang. Its basic elements are boric acid, saltpetre and alkaline. Owing to the difference in the minerals added, the color differs accordingly. Usually one with much iron will turn grey, with uranium, yellow, with chromium, green, with zinc, white, with bronze, blue, with gold or iodine, red. The colors are ground into minute powder and applied in the cells separated by filigree.
The fourth step is enamel firing. This is done by putting the article, with its enamel filling, into a kiln. After a short moment, the copper body will turn red. But after firing, the enamel in the little compartments will sink down a bit. That will require a re-filling. This process will go on repeatedly until the little cells are filled.
The fifth step is polishing. The first polish is with emery. Its aim is to make the filigree and the filled compartments even. The whole piece is again put to fire and polished once more with a whet-stone. Finally, a piece of hard carbon is used to polish again so as to obtain some luster on the surface of the article.
The sixth step is gilding. This is done by placing the article in fluid of gold or silver, charged with electric current. The exposed parts of the filigree and the metal fringes of the article will again undergo another electroplating and a slight polish.