The Beijing glassware factory experienced its most brilliant time during the 1960s to 1980s for most of its products were exported abroad and presented to many countries as national gifts. However in the late 1980s, with the development of the market economy, the defects of the factory have arisen. Under the pressure of production and marketing, Beijing glassware factory lost its predominance in price and materials to other factories and as a result it went bankrupt. Sadly the key skills of glassware making were lost.
In fact, similar situations also take place in most folk crafts whose transmission and developments are still in the original stage and face a shortage of capital, placing the traditional folk crafts in a recession.
Although the artistic handicrafts have aesthetic and collectable value, they are not a necessity in people’s daily life, but a production of a highly developed economy. Many masters are equipped with qualified skills but they have no idea about cost thus they spend too much time and material in making handicrafts, which are not suited for the development of a market economy.
More than 100 masters across China have been invited to open their workshops and studios in the Beijing Baigongfang Handicraft Museum for the purpose of exhibiting traditional Chinese cultural heritage to the world. But, whether it can revive the national handicrafts only time will tell.
By Feng Hui
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