You Need Hands
story by Ben Moger-Williams
photos by Lu Yan and Lu Gang
After a while, the old routine of going out to Sanlitun Bar Street and eating dumplings
and fried dough at Yonghe Doujiang can get tiresome. You start to feel like there are no
interesting things to do in Beijing, but you're wrong. 
There are places where you can go in Beijing and learn traditional Chinese crafts, or just mess around with clay or paints. Some places offer long-term courses, but others are one- or two-hour deals where you can go whenever you like. I visited three of these hands-on art and craft places, to see how hao wan'r (fun) they really are.
Sino-Japanese Youth Exchange Center
My first stop was actually a part of the 21st Century Hotel complex. The center is a sort of Sino-Japanese joint venture school, concentrating on teaching Chinese language and culture. There are some full-time students there, mostly from Japan, but many students come to study part-time as well. Classes offered include: Chinese erhu (two-string fiddle); Mandarin and Cantonese language; calligraphy and cooking. The day I went, they were teaching a cooking class. The teacher stood in front, while students watched him or her prepare the dish. After taking notes, the students went to their individual kitchen units and prepared the dish themselves. The cooking course was 1,200 yuan for 10 weeks. The class that met on Thursday provided an English translator. All cooking materials and ingredients were included in the fee. The school also has a beautiful room devoted to studying the Japanese tea ceremony. Tel: 6462-8472
Five Colors Earth Craft Center
This is a small crafts center located in the Chaoyang Youth Palace, north of Poly Plaza. The center consists of a gallery, a workshop and a clothes store. The gallery exhibits folk art and crafts from all over the country, especially from farmer-artists. In the workshop, there are different activities for participation: pottery making, weaving and tie-dyeing, painting and sculpting. All of the activities have teachers who are around all the time. It costs 50 yuan per hour, or 80 for two hours. Five Colors Earth is a great place to bring your kids on the weekend.
When I visited, there was a group a children working on painting ceramic tiles, which seemed to keep them quite occupied. The clothing store part of the center has a large selection of beautiful clothes. The clothes are designed by the owner of the center, a graduate of the Qinghua School of Design. She has designed modern clothing with a traditional touch.
All the clothes have antique embroidery sewn into them. The embroideries are from minority villages in Guizhou Province. You can choose the embroidery you like the best and they will design an article of clothing for you. 6415-3839.
Art Museum of Stone Carvings
My last stop was the Five Tower Temple, across from the Beijing Library. In this museum, on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday mornings and afternoons, you can learn stone carving rubbings with Master Guo.
The class lasts about an hour and a half, and you walk away with a little more knowledge of stone carvings as well as your own personal rubbing. Most of the carvings are of poems from the Ming and Qing dynasties, but there are also some Buddhist carvings with pictures. This costs about 40 yuan per time. It was very satisfying to make a rubbing and then take it home afterwards. It is not really that hard, and Master Guo is an encouraging teacher.
Tel: 6217-3543