Finishing product hopes for new start

Traditional skill of lacquer tappers faces challenging times as interest saps away, report Wang Qian and Yang Jun in Guiyang.

Deep in the forests of Wumeng Mountain in Southwest China's Guizhou province, lacquer tapper Yu Zhongping climbs a tree using a hard leaf to collect the extracted viscous sap through a notch cut into the bark.

From May to September every year, Yu, 64, is busy harvesting lacquer, applied as a coating to protect and decorate a variety of everyday items, like bowls and furniture. When the lacquer hardens, it polymerizes and forms a protective surface that repels water and resists corrosion. As an art form originating from China, the amazing material is one of the earliest "plastics" used by humans.

"I still utilize the traditional way of collecting lacquer and will keep practicing it, which has become a part of my life," Yu from Cengtai town in the city of Bijie, Guizhou, says.