Huang Yongsong, 36 years of "cultural dream"

　　Huang is deeply concerned with the protection of traditional Chinese arts. He went to Wenzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province to have an in-depth look at the situation of Jiaxie, or the clamp-resist dying method. Using this method, cloth can be dyed by clamping it between a pair of woodblocks, engraved with certain patterns. This centuries-old method is thought to be dying out. When Huang arrived at Wenzhou, the only workshop of clamp-resist dying products was about to be closed due to financial difficulties. The owner of the workshop told Huang his business could not go on, as few people came to buy clamp-resist dyed cloth any more. After hearing this, Huang ordered 1,000 pieces of Jiaxie cloth immediately and asked the owner to maintain the shop for at least for one year more.

wax-resist dyeing

　　In addition to Wenzhou's Jiaxie, Huang also paid attention to other traditional Chinese arts, including batik, popular in SW China's Guizhou Province. He even went to Guizhou to learn more about batik, also known as wax-resist dyeing, which is a form of dyeing or printing folk art created by applying beeswax to create different shapes.

　　While the above five artists won the title "Guardians of Chinese Folk Culture", Xia Wanqun, the vice chairman of Chinese Folk Literature and Art Society, won a different, Special Prize.