Joss sticks light a brighter future

About 10 years ago, the local government helped establish the joss stick workshop and instructors began teaching the villagers how to make them. More than 200 people from the Tibetan ethnic group have received training and a dozen of them have become inheritors of the traditional craft.

A number of workshops teaching traditional Tibetan intangible heritage, such as thangka, or Buddhist scroll painting, stone carving and joss stick making, have mushroomed in the town and helped residents shake off poverty.

The Rangtang government has helped establish 47 workshops to promote intangible cultural heritage items that have provided employment for 3,000 local farmers and herders. As of September, 1,600 of them had shaken off poverty.