Inspiration from out of this world

When television showed the life in the Shenzhou VI manned spacecraft in 2005, Jiao Xuefeng was amazed to see an astronaut playing a puzzle game featuring facial makeup of Peking Opera, a work of his father.

"The makeup's design was downloaded from our website (and used for the puzzle game)," the now 24-year-old man says, still excited. "It showed that our online promotion worked."

Jiao is the seventh generation of the family in the making of Peking Opera masks. Learning from his father, Jiao Yingming, who always wore a Tang suit of traditional Chinese clothes, he has practiced the painting of facial makeup since he was 7.