[Photo provided to China Daily]

She hadn't realized, for instance, it takes over 100 steps to make a writing brush before she met Hu Chengming. "He told me an apprentice needs to spend three years to learn the second step - 'moistening the brush's hair'. It takes three to five years to become a qualified writing-brush maker." Hu condensed the process into 15 steps for lay readers.

The author had to regularly travel over two hours each way from her home in the city's far northwest to downtown Dashilan, a hub for traditional craftsmen. But their spirit encouraged her to persist, she says.

"I saw their perseverance, ease of mind and enduring love for their occupations," she writes in the preface.

She came to realize most people don't understand them.

"Some think what they do is earthshaking. Some romanticize their work," she says.

"But they're just ordinary people doing ordinary things."