A fascination with wood

A Ming-style study: Four Chinese characters in the calligraphy work are dao zai qi zhong, or "wisdom in what you use". [Photos by Wang Jing and Provided to China Daily]

"Wood cultivates people", his father had said.

Shouldn't it be the other way round, Mi had thought at the time. The question remained in Mi's head as extensive travels around the country drew him deeper and deeper into the study of wood, much like the concentric swirls that marks a tree's core.

"For the Chinese, wood represents two things: constancy in the face of a fickle world, and gentleness bestowed by age," says Mi.

As proof, he points to Beijing's Forbidden City, the site of the royal palaces and the seat of power for nearly half a millennium. This is where every pillar and chair is a marvelously constructed wooden wonder that once spoke well of an everlasting and benign rule.

A latticed boudoir bed flaunts intricately repetitive flower patterns made using mortise-and-tenon joints.

"On another level, the qualities believed embodied in wood are exactly the ones traditional culture valued - a steadfast inner depth and a suave exterior," Mi says.

Mi has just finished consulting for an exhibition of wooden furniture at Beijing's National Museum called Beauty Honored by Time.