Chaozhou Woodcarving

Chaozhou woodcarving (Chaozhou gilt-lacquer carving) is renowned for its long history, complete system, exquisite craft and strong local character; it entered the first batch of national ICH in 2006 and, with Dongyang carving of Zhejiang, forms one of China's two great woodcarving traditions.

Worked in camphor wood, it combines relief, sunken, in-the-round and openwork carving, excelling above all at multi-layered openwork, then lacquered and gilded into 'gilt-lacquer carving'; its subjects — opera tales, flowers and birds, auspicious emblems — are intricate and sumptuous.

The carving fills the beams, doors, shrines and offering boxes of Chaoshan ancestral halls, temples and houses, a core craft of the region's architectural ornament and clan ritual that crystallizes local belief and taste.

Gilt-lacquer carving ornaments can be seen throughout the ancestral halls, temples and museums of the Chaozhou old town.