'Young people have new ideas and new aesthetics. Driven by them, lacquerware is no longer regarded solely as a craft object, but appears throughout people's lives in the form of vases, bracelets, lacquer boxes, tea sets, combs and other items.'

Key points of the report

• The Niuwang Raw Lacquer Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition Hall regularly runs study tours and training, and visitors can try making a lacquer fan on site;
• Using lacquer as the brush and the fan as the paper, 'half made by hand, half by nature' — the lacquer fan has become a popular vehicle for bringing intangible cultural heritage to a wider audience;
• More than 100,000 lacquer tree saplings are growing at the Longtou Guoqi Cultural Industry Park; grafted saplings have a shorter growth cycle and stronger resistance to diseases and pests;
• The company has worked with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Xi'an Raw Lacquer Research Institute, the Shanghai Guoqi Factory, Northwest A&F University and other institutions to establish agriculture and forestry science and technology bases;
• Drawing on Pingli's tea production, tea plants are interplanted with gourds, and Chinese lacquer tea ware and gourd-shaped lacquer art pieces have been developed.

Further reading

The report also notes that Pingli County uses an 'enterprise + cooperative + farmer household' model, in which the leading company provides saplings, funding, talent and technology, while cooperatives handle unified purchasing and sales of raw lacquer, continuously raising farmers' incomes.