A wooden boat made in Zhuhong town glides on a placid lake. [Photo/WeChat account: xinghuafabu]
The beautifully designed handmade wooden boat that you take for a dreamy ride in scenic areas across the country is more likely than not to have come from Zhuhong town in Xinghua, a county-level city administered by Taizhou in Jiangsu province.
The crisscrossing and scattered lakes of Xinghua have made the production and lifestyle of boats closely related and indispensable there. As a result, shipbuilding has been a special skill for the people of Xinghua that goes way back.
Over the course of history, the production of wooden boats in Zhuhong town became a way of life during the times of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911).
Nowadays, various types of wooden boats produced from the town are widely used in agricultural production, fishery production, transportation, sightseeing tourism, and they are also exported to foreign markets.
In 2012, the Xinghua Zhuhong Wooden Boat Cultural Industry Park was established and unified industry standards for wooden boat makers were issued.
