Glassblower hopes to pass down skills of traditional craft
Handmade process produces unique and delicate designs
Three hundred years ago, merchants from Shanxi province exported tea to foreign countries on the Eurasian continent, and in turn they brought back the secrets of glassware manufacturing.
Luo Qinqin, a 40-year-old native of Qixian county in Shanxi, is a skilled glassworker at Shanxi Dahua Glass Industrial Co. She is one of the few female artisans who have mastered the craft of glass pulling.
"I treat each of my products like my own children," she said.
In a workshop in Qixian, where glassware is handmade with the aid of blowpipes, Luo and her colleagues are busy fulfilling overseas orders.
The workshop's primary heat source is the furnace, where the molten glass is heated to 1,500 C.
Every day, Luo works in extreme heat, with the workshop temperature exceeding 40 C, often soaking her clothes with sweat. Despite this, she must push and pull a 1.5 meter, 1 kilogram blowpipe 5,000 to 6,000 times.
