"I have been making traditional musical instruments(乐器) for more than sixty years since I was a kid," said Rehman Abdulla, who is 70 years old. His home village of Towanki⁃ogusak in Kashgar Prefecture, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is famous for making and selling traditional musical instruments.
"Villagers have been making musical instruments for more than 150 years," a man said. "There are more than seventy families in the village that are mainly working on making traditional musical instruments, accounting for one tenth of the total," he added.
Rehman Abdulla has been teaching the craft (手艺) to more than fifty people, including his son, Mamut Rehman. "I can make four kinds of musical instruments, while my father can make twenty⁃seven," said Mamut. In 2021, Mamut started to sell musical instruments on short video platforms. "Last year, I sold more than 100 musical instruments and made more than 50,000 yuan," he said.
In order to protect and improve the instrument⁃making techniques, the government set up a workshop for the craftsmen in Towanki⁃ogusak in 1999. The inheritors (继承人) of the intangible cultural heritage and the makers of musical instruments in the workshop receive an annual subsidy (补贴) of 10,000 to 40,000 yuan. Now, the villagers produce more than fifty kinds of traditional instruments, including almost all of those in the Uygur culture.
In recent years, schools near Towanki⁃ogusak have organized after⁃school activities in the village, allowing students to observe the production process of traditional musical instruments and the skills used in playing them.
