A visit to the oiled paper umbrella village in Yunnan province

Zheng makes oiled paper umbrella totally by hand. [Photo by Xu Jing /chinadaily.com.cn]

Today, only five households maintain the tradition of making umbrellas, which are primarily made by elderly people. Zheng Yinghai, who is 90 years old, and a provincial keeper of intangible cultural heritage, is the oldest of them. He still draws on the umbrella and brushes it with wood oil.

"I helped my family members to make umbrellas since I was eight years old. In the 1940s, our business was really good. We once sold off 3600 handcrafted umbrellas to a merchant from Baoshan in one day. To meet the order, we slept less than three hours each day. There were modern umbrellas made by machine during that period, but most people couldn't afford them because of the price. Now, everything is different," Zheng said with a trace of regret.

Normally, there are more than 10 steps to make an umbrella. According to Zheng, even when he was young, he could make only two umbrellas each day because the process was really exquisite. The most difficult part is cutting bamboo into chips with different lengths and thickness, and drilling holes on each chip to produce umbrella ribs.

All the materials are carefully selected as well. Skilled craftsmen are used to buy handmade paper from Jietou town at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain because of its high quality. They also mix and boil tung-tree-seed-oil with varnish and persimmon juice all by themselves to produce the tree oil they need.

"A qualified handcrafted oiled paper umbrella can be used for more than five years at least. The more it is used, the more handy and beautiful they become. Compared with modern umbrellas, our umbrellas are more distinctive with hand-drawn patterns on the top," said Zheng.