Chengdu Blacksmiths Forge on
Author: GoChengdu 2023-01-02

 

In Taiping Township, Chengdu, it is said that the Zhou family's craftsmen make the greatest knives in Sichuan Province. Having been forging knives for 42 years, Zhou Guangxing, the third-generation descendant of knife making in an old way, hits big in knife-making craft which has been selected as an intangible cultural heritage.

 

Mechanized production doesn't stop the Zhou family's step to pass down this traditional craftsmanship to more inheritors. Their knives serve as a witness to the deep breath of life in every Chinese family. 

 

As an old saying goes, there were three hardest jobs in Sichuan, the blacksmith, the boatman and the tofu maker, among which the blacksmith was proved to be the toughest one. For 42 years, the hammer weighing over 12 kilograms in Zhou's hand has never stopped working. Having been passed down for three generations, the traditional craftsmanship of the Zhou family is still booming.

 

Spending most of his life in forging cutters, Zhou has brought his knives toward the nation. Being stuck to the view that "forging a good knife depends on the steel, the fire and the craftsman", he keeps hammering with devotion and passion. In 2019, Zhou's knife-making craft was inscribed as an intangible cultural heritage of Chengdu.

 

Edited by Feng Ling

ICH