Source: Yuncheng Urban and Rural Collective Industrial Association

Updated: May 19, 2020  09:59    

Traditional Craft Dough Sculpture Shop was established in Yunxian town of Wanrong County in 1996. Its founder XIE Yunxian is the fifth-generation inheritor of Wanrong Dough Sculpture. She is a master of arts and crafts in Shanxi Province. She is dedicated to inheriting and spreading traditional handicrafts in ways of collecting and categorizing the ancient evidence of the dough sculpture culture and cultivating future talents. XIE Yunxian is an authentic rural woman. She and her husband ZHAO Yongfeng have worked hard for 20 years, expanding their business from a small shop of four square meters to a large workshop of 900 square meters.

Yunxian Dough Sculpture Shop actively provides jobs for urban and rural residents. Currently, there are 36 employees. Over the years, it has organized and cultivated 1,570 dough sculptures workers. Dough Flower (Wanrong Dough Sculpture) is a provincial intangible cultural heritage project. Dough sculptures is to use flour to shape things. Steamed bun is the simplest dough sculpture. Our ancestors turned dough into flowers, birds, fish and insects for sacrificial activities, praying for God’s blessings. It is called Huamo (flower dough) nowadays. Their products have diverse themes and high quality. XIE Yunxian claimed that: “No matter how common the additives are used in the market, we will never try”. Distributors from all over the country have come for business with her, resulting in an annual sales of more than 2.3 million. She keeps a contract of long-term supply for distributors in Beijing, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan and other places. 

Festivals and holidays arrive continuously throughout the year. Yunxian Dough Sculpture Shop provides multiple products to each theme. On the first day of the first lunar New Year, which is the most solemn holiday in the hearts of farmers, people eat jujube flower bun, Zaoshan bun, jujube basket bun, golden pot bun, silver pot bun. For the Lantern Festival, steamed wonton bun are served. For the Dragon Boat Festival, every household makes steamed tiger bun. On June 6th,  farmhouse makes Lotus buns. For the Mid-Autumn Festival, moon cake buns are produced. For one-month-old baby, Gugu buns (meaning strong) and jujube buns (meaning growth) are prepared. For one-year-old baby, fish buns are prepared for a well-off life. For twelve-year-old child, Xiangquan bun is prepare for a promising future. For marriage, flower dough sculptures with figures, flowers, birds, fish, insects, dragons and phoenix, such as “Nine Phoenix Flying towards the Sun ” and “Nine Dragons Playing Pearl” are prepared for a happy and wealthy life. A flower cake usually weighs more than ten kilograms, and it takes several skilled masters almost a whole day to complete it.

The Shanxi Women’s Federation awarded Yunxian Dough Sculpture Shop with the title of "Sanjin Qiaojie" for the employment and entrepreneurship demonstration base. XIE Yunxian was awarded the "Folk Unique Artist" and "Local Cultural Talent" by Wanrong County Party Committee and County Government. She was also awarded “Top Ten Female Stars”, “March 8th Red Flag Bearer”, and “Dough Sculpture Expert” by Wanrong County Women's Federation. Her works won the first prize at the Hedong Museum by the Municipal Women’s Federation. In 2018, it won the “Gold Medal of Craft Skills Demonstration” at the First Industrial Products Fair in Yuncheng.