Wang Wenwang (left) has introduced a workshop where visitors, especially young students, can try their hands at sawing lumber and disassembling a luban lock, a Chinese puzzle featuring mortise and tenon joints.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"Cleaning, renovating, waxing and packaging - I had all the process down pat," he says. "And I became increasingly fascinated with the diverse types of woodwork." In 1997, his passion for the craft drove him to amass a collection of woodworks. He scoured the country for old furniture, and one journey took him to a village home where he found an old woman who was on the verge of using a table leg made from rare huanghuali wood as firewood for her stove.

"I quickly stopped her and bought the wooden leg. It would have been a travesty to use a part of an antique furniture from the Ming Dynasty as firewood!" he quips.

The accident made him realize that many people did not know the value of woodwork. He also found out that many valuable antique utensils and furnishings were being sold by Chinese dealers to foreign countries, and that folk woodworks were largely ignored as only those used by the royal families were considered valuable. This was when he decided to quit his job to open a museum that would shine the spotlight on folk woodworks.

Ahead of the museum's opening, he traveled to several countries to attend cultural expos with his collections. He also set up exhibitions in national and provincial museums. He currently has an ongoing exhibition at the China Port Museum in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, which kicked off on Dec 8 and will run for three months.

Last May, his efforts paid off when he received the official certificate to start his private museum.

However, not content with just having a museum where people can only view cultural relics, he introduced a workshop where they can also try their hand at sawing lumber and disassemble a luban lock, a Chinese puzzle featuring mortise and tenon joints.

In a bid to make the craft of woodworking more appealing to the younger generation, he also produced wooden souvenirs in the shape of rabbits, planes, tanks and castles that can be purchased.

"I thought that providing visitors with a chance to get hands-on with woodworking, which might make the experience more memorable. I hope that all visitors will remember what they learn in the museum and spread this knowledge to others," says Wang.

Wang has recently been busy with researching the connection between woodworking and liuyi, or Six Arts, the classical disciplines in ancient China that include rites, music, archery, chariot and math.

"I want to develop a course for children to learn the six arts in a setting of woodworking so that they can better understand the wisdom of the ancient Chinese," he says.

"I think I can discover more possibilities to vitalize my museum and traditional woodworking."