One Vanishing Craft. A Promise to Keep.
We are YUE and ZHOU, from Yangzhou, China — a city with more than 2,000 years of Yangzhou lacquerware artistry, built upon 7,000 years of Chinese lacquer culture.
Our grandmothers worked at the Yangzhou Traditional Craft Factory. They shaped velvet flowers, carved jade, and layered lacquer with a patience we didn't understand as children. We grew up with the smell of raw lacquer in our clothes, watching their hands move in ways that seemed impossibly slow.
Then we grew up, and we left.
YUE went into digital marketing. ZHOU became a designer. We chased careers that felt modern, fast, relevant. Yangzhou — with its small workshops and quiet rhythms — faded into the background.
A Journey Abroad That Brought Us Back Home
A few years ago, we traveled to Japan together. In Kyoto and Wajima, we visited lacquer studios. We saw how the craft was honored—taught in schools, displayed in museums, cherished by younger generations.
Japanese lacquerware had become a global symbol of refined taste. And we thought:
Yangzhou lacquerware is older. Brighter. Bolder. Just as beautiful. Why does no one outside China know it?
When we returned home, YUE's grandmother took us to the old factory where she once worked. One of China's largest lacquerware factories—now nearly silent. The long hallways that had once echoed with hundreds of artisans were almost empty. Young craftspeople grew fewer every year.
She guided us through the rooms and said something we never forgot:
"A proper piece needs at least 30 coats. Each coat must dry for three days. You cannot rush it. But now… who has the patience to wait?"
That question stayed with us.
Our Values