Samdrub Kyab, dressed in his traditional Tibetan robe, has been busy explaining to visitors the embroidered thangka works on display at Beihai Park, Beijing.

The man in his 20s flew all the way from Rangtang county, in the west of the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, Southwest China's Sichuan province in late March, to attend a grand exhibition jointly hosted by the county government and the Beijing Tourism Group that will last until Sunday.

A specialist from Rangtang works on a piece of thangka at the intangible cultural heritage exhibition in Beijing. [Photo by Yang Feiyue/China Daily]

"Some of the thangka works are made of three fabrics, such as silk and satin, and most of them feature Buddhas, auspicious lotus flowers and landscape scenery," Samdrub Kyab explains.

It's a demanding craft to create big Buddhist scroll paintings, which were named a national intangible cultural heritage in 2008.

They can cover an entire wall of temples or large ceremonial halls.

A medium-sized thangka that is about 60 centimeters in width and length takes Samdrub Kyab nine months to finish.

"First, the cloth has to be dyed with natural plant extractions, before being trimmed into various shapes, pasted and sewn back together," he says.

"Since everything is handmade, each thangka is one of a kind."

Samdrub Kyab's artworks are among more than 80 pieces of ethnic intangible cultural heritage, such as Tibetan embroidery, porcelain, paper and incense from the county, as well as more than 200 intangible cultural creative products at the exhibition.

The event aims to present the charm of the plateau and the distinctive style of the rich local intangible cultural heritage for residents in Beijing.

"Rangtang possesses rich intangible cultural heritage, which not only serves as a business card for Rangtang culture but also constitutes an important part of Chinese culture," says Sun Hongbin, the county's deputy Party secretary.

"Through this event, we hope to let more people understand and appreciate Rangtang, and experience the unique charm of local culture," Sun says.

During the exhibition, multiple cultural lectures, demonstrations of intangible cultural heritage skills, and local food promotion activities have been hosted to enable visitors to have a deeper understanding of what Rangtang has to offer.

Life-changing chance

For Samdrub Kyab, the Beijing exhibition is one of many similar events, such as those in Shanghai, he has joined to promote his thangka works over the years.

"We've sold more than a dozen of pieces over the past three years," he says, each bringing in more than 100,000 yuan ($13,800).

The delicate artworks and propitious Buddhism meaning have made his works hotly pursued by collectors or religious sites.

"The most popular patterns have been 'Eight Auspicious Symbols' in Tibetan Buddhism, such as conch shell, treasure vase and gold fish," he says.

In February, he and four of his teammates delivered a piece that is 9 meters long for a local temple after four months of work.

"The thangka art has completely changed my life," he says.

Originally from Ruo'ergai county in the north of Aba, he came to Rangtang about a decade ago to learn the art. After graduating from junior middle school, he worked at a factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong province for eight months.

Then, he got to know that the Rangtang intangible cultural heritage center was offering free training of local arts, including thangka that has caught his fancy since childhood. There was also boarding and accommodation for free, which made it more tempting for the young man.

Upon arrival, Samdrub Kyab received professional guidance from local retired artisans and got the whole craft down to a fine art after five years of learning.

"I fixed my naughty and restless nature and got to concentrate my mind for a long period of time," Samdrub Kyab says.

Additionally, he got to visit various cities through the center's arrangement, including Shanghai and Beijing, to learn and immerse himself in more traditional art forms that can be integrated with intangible cultural heritage from Rangtang.

After graduation six years ago, Samdrub Kyab chose to stay at the center and became a tutor himself to hold the hands of newcomers.

At the same time, he got to earn commissions for outside orders from the training center.

Creators can keep 70 percent of the money, and 20 percent will go to the class management that uses it to purchase daily materials, which are quite expensive, he explains.

The remaining 10 percent will be given to the center for its routine upkeep. On average, he can bring in more than 200,000 yuan for himself a year.

Tapping potential

Samdrub Kyab is among thousands of young people in the region who have benefited from the local drive to carry forward intangible cultural heritage over the past 14 years.

Most have been children of farmers and herdsmen, and didn't go far in education, according to Gangseng Truk, who is in charge of operations of the center that was established in 2010.

The center has evolved to offer more than 20 intangible cultural heritage training and commerce programs.

Outside Rangtang, training sites and experience centers have also been established in Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangxi province's Jingdezhen, Jiangsu province's Suzhou and Sichuan province's Chengdu.

"These sites are mainly for our students to broaden their view through cultural exchange and pick up new skills," Gangseng Truk says.

Tashi Lhamo, 28, was one of the first who went to the center and studied Tibetan medicine, which was among the first to be named a national intangible cultural heritage in 2006.

"If it weren't for the free training program, I would probably have got married, as many other girls my age did," Tashi Lhamo says.

She had been doing nothing but grazing her family's cattle, and then got to systematically pick up fundamental science and culture classes at the center, before she made inroads in Tibetan medicine theories and practiced for seven years.

Now, Tashi Lhamo has become a leader in her division, in charge of about 200 Tibetan medicine students, and offers training to them.

She has also engaged in combining Tibetan medicine with skin care products, and helped with the center's medicinal bath services in other cities.

"There's so much potential in Tibetan medicine and I'd like to keep tapping into it while having more people appreciate and benefit from it," Tashi Lhamo says.

She takes pride in the fact that the transformation of her life has, in turn, convinced more families in the plateau to support their children's decision to pursue a career at the center.

To date, the center has enabled more than 3,000 farmers and herdsmen to make a living through practicing intangible cultural heritage.

At the moment, the Rangtang center is under renovation and expansion and will offer more modern facilities for local young people to better grasp the essence of intangible cultural heritage and build on it to deliver creative works, Samdrub Kyab says.

Song Nianshen, professor from Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, says he is impressed that students in the training center's thangka class would also study Song Dynasty (960-1279) landscape, flower-and-bird, and figure paintings, as well as classic artworks such as murals in Dunhuang, Gansu province.

He also notes how students in the embroidery workshop not only learn traditional Tibetan crafts such as pile embroidery but also inherit the techniques from Su embroidery, an ancient craft that originates from the garden city of Suzhou in Jiangsu.

"Teaching excellent Han heritage crafts to young Tibetan people is of great significance for craft exchanges, cultural inheritance, and the country's integration," Song says.

He attributes the creation of innovative, high-quality craft products from the center to its current teaching philosophy.

"The training center is open to local underprivileged youth free of charge, helping them to cultivate virtues, aspirations, and careers, and (thus) transforms 'herdsboys' into inheritors of intangible cultural heritage and outstanding artists. This not only achieves innovative transformation of Chinese culture but also becomes a key means for poverty alleviation and prosperity in Rangtang county," Song says.

In the cultivation plan for Rangtang intangible cultural heritage, Song says he "sees the absorption and integration of multiple traditions of both Han and Tibetan people within the craft".

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