Mold maker preserves family tradition

GUANGZHOU — Yu Zhaoji worked swiftly yet steadily on a piece of wood using his specialized carving knife.

Within minutes, delicate carved lines appeared along the circular groove in the wood, forming the perfect base for a mooncake mold. For over half a century, the 65-year-old has honed the craft, continuing a family tradition that spans 160 years.

Yu's family business, Yu Tong Shop, is the last remaining maker of handmade traditional Cantonese pastry molds in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province and a heartland of Cantonese culture.

Founded by Yu's great-great-grandfather in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Yu Tong Shop has been producing hand-carved molds for a wide range of traditional Cantonese pastries — not only mooncakes, but also dowry cakes and phoenix cookies — serving restaurants, pastry shops and households alike.

For centuries, handmade molds have played a vital role in crafting Cantonese pastries, with dough pressed into beautifully carved patterns set within grooves of various shapes. Before machines began replacing manual labor in mold making around the 2000s, Yu Tong Shop was bustling with orders from restaurants and bakeries, especially during its peak years between the 1970s and 1990s.

Today, according to Yu, handmade molds have all but disappeared from Guangzhou's food industry, as their intricate carving and polishing processes make them far more expensive than machine-made alternatives. "You know, speed is everything in today's world," he said, without a pause in his hands as he continued to carve. Speed, nevertheless, is the very opposite of pastry mold carving, a craft that demands years of learning and practice to master.

The wood used for mold making must go through a two-year air-drying process before carving can begin, and crafting a handmade pastry mold involves dozens of meticulous steps. Still, Yu believes machines will never surpass humans in his craft.

"Machine work is too uniform. It has no soul," he said, adding that handmade pieces are inherently unique, much like how the left and right sides of a person's face can never be exactly the same.

Yu still makes and sells pastry molds to high-end restaurants in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as well as to clients in Australia, the United States and, as he puts it, "wherever there are Chinese".

"After all, their roots are here, and they have profound sentiments for traditions and traditional things," he said.

Yu noted that he doesn't worry too much about passing down the mold carving craft to the next generation of his family, who have chosen what he calls "more profitable" career paths. He has also taken on a few apprentices, though for them, mold carving remains just a hobby. Still, Yu hopes this ancestral craft will endure for generations to come.

In August 2020, Guangzhou's first intangible cultural heritage district opened to the public. It is part of the Yongqing Block, a historic downtown community revitalized by a renovation project launched by the local government in 2016.

The government aims to use the district, which offers space for the display and sale of 13 intangible cultural heritage traditions of Guangzhou, to promote the integration of culture and tourism, as well as the preservation and continuation of traditional craftsmanship.

Yu Tong Shop was relocated from its original site to the district, where it became a master's studio alongside 12 other traditional arts and crafts, including Canton enamel, Canton embroidery, bone carving and lion dancing.

In his new storefront, Yu now demonstrates his carving techniques to curious tourists visiting the Yongqing Block — a popular destination in Guangzhou — from across China and abroad.

He also provides pastry mold carving workshops, both commercial sessions open to the public and noncommercial ones supported and subsidized by the government. Participants span all age groups, from young children to seniors. According to Yu, handmade items continue to appeal to many enthusiasts since they are crafted with heart and imbued with "warmth and emotion".

"If you've made a mold yourself, even if it's not perfect, the pastries made with it will taste better," Yu said.

Xinhua