'Shaobing' warrior

Feng Huaishen is fighting to keep the craft of making traditional Beijing snacks alive, Li Yingxue reports.

For over five decades, 62-year-old Feng Huaishen has been playing with flour. By the end of the 1970s, he was making around 3,000 shaobing (sesame-seed cakes) each day.

In those early years of preparing the snack for Beijing's peckish masses, it's a fair bet that a great number of the city's residents would have tasted one of his doughy morsels at one time or another.

These days, however, while it is easier to find someone selling shaobing, it is very difficult to find the same quality as Feng's fine fare.

Each one looks exactly the samea diameter of 7 centimeters, weighing 80 grams and filled with more than 18 layers－a rarity among the now-ubiquitous shaobing vendors scattered around the city.

"It's not because my shaobing is not tasty any more but because it takes a lot of work to learn and practice. Few people want to make that effort," says Feng.

Feng applied for the traditional Beijing shaobing skill to be listed as part of the intangible cultural heritage of Beijing's Fangshan district. It was approved last year.

"You can find shaobing in different sizes and with only few layers, but I want to set a standard to show people what real shaobing is," Feng says.