SHANGHAI — Born and raised in the countryside of Taiwan, Huang Shangzhi has been fashioning objects out of wood since he was a child. He attended a technical school in Taitung to learn carpentry before going abroad to study design in Japan. After graduating from college, he joined a Japanese interior design company that sent him to the Chinese mainland for projects ahead of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

Huang, who now teaches carpentry at his workshop in Shanghai, as well as several local international schools, still has the first hand plane he used in high school: The tool is engraved with his name and student ID number. While teaching classes to his eager apprentices, Huang says he aims to promote the woodworking tools and techniques of the master artisans he so revered in Taiwan.

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Huang Shangzhi has dedicated his life to teaching the fading art of Taiwanese woodworking to hundreds of eager apprentices in Shanghai.

“Fewer and fewer artisans are making these tools nowadays, with only a handful in Taiwan,” Huang says, gesturing to the hand plane he used in his youth. “Our workshop is still small, but we hope this will be a catalyst for future growth.”

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Editor: David Paulk.

(Header image: An interior view of Huang Shangzhi’s carpentry workshop in Shanghai, May 11, 2019. Sixth Tone)