Pic story: inheritors of Fangzhuang dragon boat making skills

Fang Shaohuang (2nd R) discusses with his family on the making of dragon boats at a dragon boat factory in Fangzhuang Village, Fuzhou City of southeast China's Fujian Province, June 3, 2024. As the Dragon Boat Festival approaches, workers in Fangzhuang Village are working flat out to service orders for dragon boats from both home and abroad. 

Dubbed "the Dragon Boat Village", Fangzhuang has a history of dragon boat making for over 700 years. Every year, over 200 boats are sold from here to the world.

Fang Shaohuang, an inheritor of Fangzhuang dragon boat making skills, a Fuzhou city-level intangible cultural heritage, has been fixing and making dragon boats for over 50 years. As the third-generation inheritor of the family, Fang has insisted in making traditional boats only by hands with tools inherited from elder generations.

According to Fang, making a dragon boat needs to be particular both in selecting raw materials and in making procedures. The boat mainly uses over 40-year-old Chinese fir wood or camphorwood grown up in the northern mountainous area of Fujian Province as the materials, and it needs to go through numerous processes such as making the frames, polishing, drawing, painting and installing the finely carved dragon head, before finally completed.

"I hope the traditional craft will be passed down for generations, and more people can have the chance to know the culture of dragon boat," said Fang Shaohuang.