Intangible Cultural Heritage

Shu embroidery is the Sichuan school: saturated colour, dense stitching and its own motifs. Where to watch the needles in Chengdu, and how to tell it from the Suzhou style.

The horsehead fiddle is an instrument and an idea: two strings, a horse carving, and a sound built to carry across open grassland. Where to hear it in China's Inner Mongolia.

Jasmine tea scenting is a craft of timing: green tea and fresh jasmine layered overnight, repeatedly, until the leaf holds the fragrance. Where to see it and how to judge a tin.

Seal carving compresses calligraphy, design and hand skill into a few square centimetres of stone. Where to watch it — and how to have your own name cut.

Mortise-and-tenon joinery holds Chinese furniture together without a single nail — and explains why Ming pieces survive. How the joints work, and where to see them.

An oil-paper umbrella takes days to make — bamboo ribs, paper skins, tung oil — and is waterproof without any plastic. Where to watch the craft in Sichuan and how to buy one that lasts.

Bamboo weaving is China's everyday craft — split, shaved and woven into everything from baskets to furniture — and it is still taught, practised and sold across the south. Where to see it.

Cloisonné is a metal craft dressed as painting: bronze bodies, wire-drawn outlines and fired enamel. Where to watch it in Beijing and how to judge a piece worth buying.

Lacquer is a patient craft: dozens of thin coats of tree sap, cured between layers, then carved, inlaid or polished. Where to watch it in China and how to buy a piece that lasts.

Miao silver is jewellery as architecture — headdresses and collars worn in layers — and it is still made by hand in Guizhou. Where to see the smiths at work, and how to judge the metal.

Wax-resist batik is the textile craft of Guizhou's Miao villages: drawn in liquid wax, dipped in indigo, cracked and revealed. Where to watch it and how to judge a piece.

Huizhou's carvers worked three materials at once — wood, brick and stone — decorating the merchant houses of Anhui. Where the craft survives, and how to read a village facade.

Dehua's ivory-white porcelain was exported as blanc de Chine and still comes from family kilns in the Fujian hills. How the craft works, where to watch it, and what to look for in a piece.

Quanzhou's marionette tradition runs on strings — dozens per figure, controlled by a single puppeteer who sings, speaks and manipulates at once. Where to see it, and why it survives.