Beijing – October 19, 2026 -- China's Shanxi province brought hand-knotted brooches, colored glazeware and lacquerware to more than 100 foreign diplomats at a Geneva reception in late September. Some guests left talking about visiting.
Datong artist made edelweiss brooches for Swiss guests on the spot
The reception was hosted by the Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva. Knotting artist Yang Xuefei of Datong displayed 48 brooches made with 'Datong knotting', a recognized intangible cultural heritage (ICH) craft. She also made several pieces on-site for Swiss visitors.
Those pieces featured the edelweiss, a national symbol of Switzerland. They also carried ornamental flying ribbons inspired by statues at the Yungang Grottoes. Yang and her colleagues have created more than 500 cultural products using the technique and have shown them in a number of countries.
Jiexiu glaze master taught guests to glaze pottery
Bai Huaibing, a master inheritor of colored glaze production in Jiexiu, showed more than 20 exhibits. The city has a millennium-long glaze tradition, and its pieces include ceramics, building ornaments and sculptures. Bai comes from a family with many generations in the craft, and he has developed glazed items aimed at modern tastes. At the event, he showed visitors how to apply glaze to pottery bodies.
The exhibition also included Shangdang brocade from Changzhi, hand-polished lacquerware from Pingyao and chengni ink slabs from Yuncheng.
Shanxi lists 182 national ICH items
Organizers said the province has 182 representative ICH items on the national list, 198 nationally recognized inheritors and more than 1,000 provincial-level items.
Many visitors who knew little about Shanxi pulled up maps of the province on their smartphones, and some discussed plans to visit.