BEFORE and after every Spring Festival, a folk artist named Li Zezhi always receives a lot of visitors at his house in Qingdao.

    The visitors appreciate new works by Li, which include a wide variety of clay sculptures of colorful animals, toys and Buddha statues.

    “Our family is the only one on the Jiaodong Peninsula that has continued the culture of clay sculpture generation after generation. There is now a history of more than 200 years,” said Li, 38.

    Li is a live-in son-in-law of a family in Xishuidao Village on the Jiaodong Peninsula. His clay sculptures have been well received because of their excellence and elegance.

    His family has a strict rule that each generation passes on the skills and should produce at least two innovative works based on the previous generation. That allows the existing skills to be perfectly passed to the next generation.

    Each clay sculpture took several days to finish, Li said. He is collecting money to build a school to teach clay sculpture.

    (Jane Lai, Lu Wenbo, Zhao Tao)