Guo Xiuming, a farmer in Ansan Village of Rizhao in east China's Shandong Province, is arguably the best folk music instrument-maker in town.

Now at the age of 46, Guo has been making traditional stringed instruments for more than 20 years.

These include two-stringed fiddles, or Chinese violins, for a small Peking opera orchestra, and the pipa, the four-stringed plucked Chinese lute.

The zhuiqin is a two-stringed fiddle popular among folk musicians in Shandong and Central China's Henan Province. "It takes more than 100 procedures to complete a zhuiqin," Guo says. "So making a musical instrument is a complicated job."

For instance, he needs to immerse the cover of the sound box -- cleaned snake skin -- in water for two to three hours and then wrap it around the wooden sound box. Two days later, he will take the skin off, immerse it in water again for a few hours and refix it to the box. He will repeat this procedure again two or three days later.

Only in this way, he explained, would the fiddle produce "lively and flexible" sounds. The other raw materials for these instruments are pieces of wood and horse tail.

"I am very particular with the raw materials," Guo says. He uses hardwood from India and snake skins gathered on South China's Hainan Island.

Guo's fine skills have won him fame over the past two decades among folk musicians in Shandong and beyond.

He has had commissions from as far a field as Shanghai and Zhejiang Province.

Guo himself is also a collector. He has turned his home into a small museum of traditional Chinese musical instruments.

Among his collection is a bronze flute from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a matouqin -- a two-stringed Mongolian fiddle from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and a two-stringed fiddle for Peking Opera that is said to have been made by a renowned instrument maker for Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang (1894-1961).

Guo said his father traveled between Qingdao in Shandong Province and neighboring Anhui Province three times and acquired the two-stringed Peking Opera fiddle after offering the best zhuihu he had made.

Guo said making a good instrument not only requires a pair of dexterous hands but also patience. "You need to treat every piece of the instrument you make as your own child," he says.

Now his only worry is that he has no one to pass his skills to.

Decorative bottle

Ding Yuanzhong, who lives in the same city as Guo, is known there as a fine carpenter.

Now 57, Ding is trying to enlist help to send off a decorative bottle he has hand-made with 2,008 walnut shells.

His home is decorated with many engravings and carvings.

But the most conspicuous is the bottle of walnut shells. It is 92 centimeters tall and has a diameter of 32 centimeters.

It took Ding three months to make the bottle, in celebration of Beijing's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Ding's idea to make a bottle with walnuts comes from the local tradition of decorating young women's dowry cases with walnuts to symbolize harmony and peace.

So he cleaned and polished the shells of the 2,008 walnuts he collected in the mountains. He then cut the shells into small squares, assembling the small pieces into one big walnut shell bottle.

With his job done, Ding does not want to keep the walnut shell bottle at home forever.

He hopes that all participants in the coming 2008 Olympic Games will be able to see the bottle in Beijing.

Farmer's museum

Guo and Ding make or create their own works, but Liu Mingwu, another farmer in Rizhao, has developed a keen eye for collecting.

Liu, 53, keeps all the "valuables" in his museum -- a three-room house in his courtyard. His keepsakes range from tree roots, tree root sculptures, rare stones, jade, wine vessels, coins, ceramics and commemorative badges.

Liu said he started collecting around 20 years ago. He sets out on his travels to search for antiques when he is not busy with agricultural work.

He also goes into the mountains in search for stones with unique veins or tree roots that look interesting.

One hardwood tree root resembles a dragon, and the scales on the "dragon's" body are made from mushrooms.

One winter, he even fell into an icy river when trying to retrieve a rare stone.

Although Liu's collection is expanding, he insists he will not sell any of his treasures.

He only makes exchanges.

He has just completed building a five-room house. He says he will move his entire collection into his new abode.

(China Daily December 23, 2004)