Full coverage: ‘看中國’外國青年影像計劃專題

By CCTV.com Panview

Editor's foreword: "Looking China" International Youth Film Project is co-organized by the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture (AICCC), Beijing Normal University and Huilin Foundation. The program focuses on the young participants’ personal experiences of Chinese culture and encourages them to discover and tell Chinese stories from their own perspectives.

As of the year 2017, students from all over the world were invited to participate in the project. They were stationed in 12 municipality, provinces and autonomous regions here in China. Every filmmaker has worked out a 10-minute short film about Chinese culture around the topic of "Craftsmanship·Inheritance·Innovation.”

The short movie, "Dalad Pyrography," directed by Wee Your Lee and produced by Tao Getu and Gao Lei, depicts the ambition of Pyrography artist, Wu Longfei, from Dalad, Inner Mongolia. He is one of the China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritors and stays keen on developing Pyrography art.

Pyrography is known as writing with fire, which utilizes a hot iron rod to draw on. The artist could draw on wood, paper and even on the surface of leather. This ancient art goes back thousands of years ago. During China's Han dynasty period, it was called "embroidery with fire needle." There are recorded history of such art in Europe, Egypt and Africa. 

Wu Longfei is worried about the marginalization of this ancient art, therefore he tries to teach his daughter and grandson to burn the wood and opened Pyrography classes to attract young students. The mission to keep Pyrography burning has been initiated and will continue on.

(The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Panview or CCTV.com. )

Panview offers a new window of understanding the world as well as China through the views, opinions, and analysis of experts. We also welcome outside submissions, so feel free to send in your own editorials to "globalopinion@vip.cntv.cn" for consideration.