International students explore ICH peach wood carving in Linyi
Against the backdrop of the 2026 National Rural Civilization Conference held in Linyi, groups of overseas international students visited intangible cultural heritage workshops in Mengyin County to learn the time-honored peach wood carving craft, a featured local folk art of Yimeng mountain area.
Mengyin is known as China's Peach Capital with over 600,000 mu of peach orchards. Old peach branches that used to be discarded as firewood are now refined into delicate cultural handicrafts. Local inheritors integrate relief, round and hollow carving techniques to create more than 40 categories of products including peach wood swords, Ruyi ornaments, combs and pendants carrying auspicious cultural meanings. The craft has been listed as Linyi-level intangible cultural heritage. During the hands-on experience, foreign learners listened to inheritors’ introductions of peach culture origin, observed whole carving procedures and tried simple carving steps by themselves. Many overseas visitors recorded the craft with short videos to share Chinese folk culture with global audiences. At present, Mengyin peach wood handicrafts sell well nationwide and are exported to Singapore, Japan and other Southeast Asian countries, driving local villagers’stable income growth.
The cross-cultural experience activity builds a soft communication bridge for global audiences to understand Yimeng folk civilization. It inject international vitality into the inheritance of local intangible heritage and showcases Linyi's integrated development model of cultural inheritance and rural vitalization to the world.
Editor：韩蒙蒙