Batik, dough figurines, velvet birds, paintings, hand-made silk carpets, inside-painted snuff bottles, silk figure art, Chinese embroidery and hand-painted silk scarves. This wealth of folk arts is available in almost all Beijing's major tourist shops. But discovering where and how they are made is not an easy thing to do.

Hidden away in a neighborhood along the north city moat near Deshengmen is the White Peacock, a three-story folk arts and crafts department store selling everything Chinese you can think of. Sure you can get the same thing in your hotel gift shop, but can you watch the art being created?

At the White Peacock, you can do just that, as artists work their wonders in demonstrations that reveal the processes of creation behind many of Beijing's most cherished folk treasures.

The idea has struck a chord with tourists; the shop welcomed its one millionth tourist this year. The demonstrations not only give the nine resident artists a chance to promote their arts, but also attract many tourists to the out-of-the-way shop.

Upon entering the White Peacock, a visitor sees Li Guiying, 63, doing a kind of "velvet birds." This is the art of making flowers or birds with velvet threads, and has been a traditional Beijing craft popular since the Qing Dynasty.

Sun Ning, 28, from Hebei Province, started to learn to paint the insides of snuff bottles when he was a little boy. This year he was invited by the White Peacock to sit behind its snuff-bottle counter to give demonstrations and to teach some shop staff members the art.

Painting a single snuff bottle requires at least one day. Sun draws some of the best designs I've ever seen, especially when there is an audience around and to encourage him in his work.

On the first floor of White Peacock you'll find Wei Guangxian, 30, who comes from Nanyang, Henan Province, the home of Chinese hand-made silk carpets. Like other young women in her hometown, she took up the craft of knitting silk carpets.

She said that making a carpet of 300 lines requires normally one year. Today she is working a 300-line silk carpet in the shop and has finished 10 percent of it.

Batik is another of the traditional folk painting arts. It is mainly popular as a craft among such minority nationalities as Miao and Yao, though the finished pieces are popular world-wide. The craft involves using different kinds of wax to treat cloth, usually cotton or silk with colors.

The wax is melted and a knife dipped into the hot wax. This is then used to draw a pattern on the cloth, with the artist working very quickly. The cloth is then placed in blue dye for five or six days. Patterns will appear where the knife left wax on the cloth, the drawings a lighter blue than the surrounding color.

On the second floor various kinds of batik are sold, and a young woman from Guizhou Province demonstrates the method of knife-drawing with wax on cloth.

Imagine a world of people as diverse as the one we live in — except that everyone is 6 centimeters tall! That's how the displays of dough figurines and silk cloth figures appear. Two nimble-fingered artists show visitors how these crafts are created.

Strolling through the White Peacock will quickly consume your afternoon, but the visit is worthwhile. Besides the chance the shop offers you to see artists at work, the White Peacock offers you its goods at very reasonable prices, with the quality guaranteed.

White Peacock is a designated shop by the Beijing Tourism Administration, and last year won the prize for best tourist enterprise. If you are still looking for the perfect gifts for your friends at home, try this place.

Add: Beibinhe Lu, Deshengmen Wai