Handicraft master Zhang Tonglu received a unique birthday gift when he turned 66 earlier this month. It came from the other side of the Taiwan Straits, a collection certificate confirming that his four Jingtailan (cloisonn) clocks have been housed by the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Zhang Tonglu displays a Jingtailan vase.

While the certificate recognizes Zhang's 50 years of dedication to an ancient art tradition, more importantly, it signifies an important moment in the cultural exchanges across the Straits.

Founded in 1962, the Taipei National Palace Museum boasts many precious cultural relics from the Forbidden City of Beijing, but Zhang's clocks are the first handicraft works from the mainland it has accepted since Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949.

Each of Zhang's four clocks has an elegant and fitting name: The yellow "Twelve Seals" is engraved with 12 imperial coats of arms; the green "Tai Ping You Xiang" features vase (ping) and elephant (xiang) patterns that imply peace and auspiciousness; the blue "Shi Quan Shi Mei" highlights 10 dogs, as the pronunciation of dog, "quan", is similar to another word that means perfection; finally, the red "Bai Tou Xie Lao", is engraved with pairs of mandarin ducks, the lovebirds in Chinese tradition, in the wish that husbands and wives live in harmony.

Zhang took his exquisite creations to Taiwan on a cultural exchange trip in February and they fascinated ordinary people and professionals. Taipei museum's senior officials praised Zhang's works as a consummate fusion of traditional workmanship and modern tastes.

"It was a pleasure to give lectures on Jingtailan in Taiwan's universities," Zhang said of his first and unforgettable trip to Taiwan.

"I tried to convey the soul of this long-standing craft and the values of Chinese culture to young students and it is a great honor that my works are on show in the Taipei museum with other high-quality cloisonn pieces created by my predecessors."

Jingtailan is an ancient Beijing tradition that debuted in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and developed into a unique combination of bronze ware, porcelain, sculpture, painting and copper-smithing.

The industry underwent a major innovation in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), as a new blue pigment was added, giving the craft its current name based on the Chinese word "lan" for blue. The craft reached a peak during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) as more breakthroughs in copper-melting techniques were achieved.

Born in Hebei province, Zhang showed a great interest in painting at an early age and during his time at an art school in the 1950s, he often went to the Palace Museum to imitate imperial treasures of paintings and antiques.

He entered the Beijing Arts and Crafts Factory in 1958 and has since been dedicated to the craft's renaissance. The State-owned factory went bankrupt in 2000 but Zhang opened a workshop to continue his renovations, even though he suffers from hypertension and diabetes.

He was rewarded with the title of Master of Arts and Crafts in 1988 and the State-level Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor of the Jingtailan craft last year.

"The making of Jingtailan requires complicated procedures, in which the glaze and copper elements are continuously fused, burned and reborn in the fire," he says.

"It is like nirvana. Every time a product is smelted in the fire, it comes out ever more splendid."

(China Daily July 21, 2008)