It is not easy to locate the once-booming Beijing Ivory Carving Factory.
Its gate now is only wide enough for two or three people to walk through abreast. And there is no signboard.
And the whole factory uses just two small quadrangular courtyards for its daily business.
"Is the ivory carving factory still in operation? I thought it was closed down long ago," says a resident in the neighbourhood of the factory, when asked for directions.
Not just neighbours, even officially-approved ivory-carving sellers also believe the factory has stopped production years ago.
However, the factory is surviving, though struggling.
"My only wish is that the art of ivory carving should not die in our generation," says Xiao Guangyi, the factory manager.
Xiao took over the ivory carving factory in the late 1990s, while he was also the manager of Beijing Bone Carving Factory.
"The ivory-carving factory, indeed, enjoyed a period of prosperity," he says.
In the 1980s when all kinds of handicrafts were thriving in China, the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory had more than 800 employees and owned a five-storey building.
"At that time, the whole building was used for workshops and at least 400 craftsmen were busy working at the same time," recalls Zheng Shiru, 39, vice-manager of the factory, who joined the factory in the mid-1980s and had spent years learning the craft from ivory carving masters.
However, in a few years' time, in the 1990s, Zheng saw many of his colleagues switch to other art and craft trades in Beijing.
The building has also been leased out at the price of 1.5 million (US$180,700) each year to the city government of Linfen, North China's Shanxi Province, which converted it into a hotel.
"In the 1990s, the number of employees dropped sharply from more than 800 to 300," says Xiao. "And now the factory depends on less than 100 people to maintain its operations."
Limited stock of ivory
Though managing to stay with the factory up till now, Zheng Shiru has already given up the art of ivory carving.
He says only a dozen people, including municipal-level masters, have the opportunity to create things out of ivory.
"It is not because I do not want to do ivory carving any more, but because limited stock of ivory does not allow me to," he explains.
As one of two ivory-carving factories in China (another is in Guangzhou), the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory has only 700 kilograms of elephant tusks in stock now.
Xiao Guangyi stresses all the stock was bought before 1989 when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora banned international ivory trade.
Following the convention's requirements, China, as a member, has prohibited ivory imports from Africa since June 1, 1990, as an effort to save elephants on the brink of extinction, which was the direct result of poaching for ivory.
Starting from 1995, all international ivory trade has been forbidden in China, according to Chen Jianwei, deputy managing director of the Endangered Species Import & Export Management Office under the State Forestry Bureau. Domestic ivory trade has also been limited since then.
Only very few factories and stores are approved by the State Forestry Bureau to continue ivory trade "inside China," Chen says.
It means customers can still purchase ivory from legal ivory sellers, but are not allowed to take ivory out of China any more.
Though the demand for ivory remains, the ban on ivory imports has left both ivory-carving factories and sellers in short supply.
"What we sell now are all goods kept in stock, produced by the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory before 1990," says Du Wenzhi, a sales clerk with the Beijing Arts and Crafts Store in Wangfujing Street, one of the few officially-approved ivory sellers.
To the stores, the ban simply means fewer goods to sell. But for ivory-carving factories and artists, it means the vanishing of the unique art.
Joining the convention
"Upon China's joining the convention, the factory had 14 tons of raw ivory," Xiao Guangyi says.
It is the amount of ivory in stock that has helped the factory survive up till now.
"We have to implement a much stricter process to ensure no piece of raw ivory is wasted," he says.
Even renowned ivory-carving masters have to undergo the process -- sending drafts of their design to a group of experts first, and then securing raw ivory material only when all experts approve the design.
"With such limited supply of raw material, we must make sure that every raw ivory piece is made into a superb art work, which is worthy of being handed down to the posterity, reminding them that we once had a splendid art called ivory carving," Xiao says.
In fact, the art of ivory carving has a history of more than 5,000 years, according to archaeological studies.
Ivory combs, loops, jewellery and tube-shaped objects unearthed in Dawenkou of East China's Shandong Province and Foshan of South China's Guangdong Province were found to be produced during the Neolithic period.
And during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the art peaked, with various styles developed. Beijing in the north and Guangzhou in the south were the two ivory-carving centres at the time.
The Guangzhou-style ivory carving is most famous for its unique hollowed-out ivory ball -- a ball-shaped ivory piece being carved into as many as 45 layers, each beautifully-patterned layer able to rotate.
Beijing artists, on the other hand, are good at carving traditional beautiful Chinese women, people and flowers.
The ivory artworks have won the favour of foreign tourists, who once formed the major customers of ivory art at stores like Beijing Arts and Crafts Store in Wangfujing, says Zhang Hongwei, the store's senior manager.
Ivory carvings have even been sent to the United Nations as a precious gift from China, which is still displayed to visitors.
"How can I let the art be lost in our generation?" asks Xiao.
Preserving the art
The factory manager says some people have contacted him and tried to sell smuggled ivory to him, but all have been turned down by him.
"I cannot do illegal things like that, even though we need ivory badly and there are nearly 100 people waiting to be paid each month," he said.
In an attempt to preserve the art, Xiao and his colleagues have tried to produce works combining wood and ivory, which use less ivory.
They have also tried to use ox and camel bones as substitutes for ivory, but found them not able to match the special quality of ivory.
"We even dream that, someday, we be allowed to use tusks of elephants which die naturally just to keep the art of ivory carving alive," Xiao said.
The truth is, ivory carving factories and artists see no hope of purchasing ivory legally now.
In August last year, ivory-carving artists in Guangzhou appealed to local cultural administrations to let factories buy raw ivory from four African countries that are allowed by the convention to sell part of their ivory stock this year.
But unfortunately, China is not qualified for the purchase.
According to Fan Zhiyong, senior official with the Endangered Species Import & Export Management Office, Japan is the only country qualified so far to purchase the ivory in stock this year.
That is because the convention demands member countries to draw up laws promising that they will not allow art works made out of the purchased raw ivory to be exported again, Fan explains.
"As a traditional ivory-processing country, the nation has not stated its opinion this way yet," Fan says.
Neither will there be any possibility that ivory captured by police and customs from smugglers can be sent to Xiao's factory, even for the sake of saving the art, Fan said.
Chinese police and customs have been making great efforts to crack down on ivory smuggling in the past decade.
According to the official statistics, police and customs have seized at least 30 tons of smuggled ivory in the past five years.
"All the ivory seized is in storage, since the convention has not discussed the issue of how to deal with seized ivory," Fan says.
It seems the art of ivory carving has no way out.
"If one day we are out of ivory supply, I only wish we can build a museum featuring all the precious pieces of ivory works for our descendants to see the art," says Xiao.
(China Daily February 3, 2004)
