Captured in charcoal

Charcoal portraits by Ye Baolong, Han Cuiqiong's son. Making charcoal paintings has been Han's family business for three generations.

Things started to change during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) when demand for Mao Zedong's portraits

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skyrocketed. "We did a lot of Mao portraits back then," she says, and this skill of drawing the likeness of famous people rather than ordinary people's ancestors or aging parents has come in handy in recent years. Celebrity portraits, such as ones of Confucius and Michael Jordan, are now in vogue and sell more briskly than family portraiture, she reveals.

Han picked up the skill from her father when she was 16. Her father, Han Guanping, started by painting backdrops for local theatrical companies. "We lived in a 20-square-meter room and would help my dad by adding color to the backdrop he was working on, which would take up a whole wall," she says. "There was a lot of laughter."

The elder Han spent 60 years in the profession. Before his death in 2005, he had seen his grandson, Ye Baolong, taking up the family business. Ye learned it from his mother. To broaden his horizons, Han Cuiqiong made him master all kinds of painting styles, including oil painting. "He is a much better painter than I am," she admits, but in the firmament of cultural Haikou she is a fixture and people specifically ask for her to personally do a piece.

Ye comes in all the time to help his mother, but makes money from selling mobile phones. "My mom can support herself by selling portraits and tourism souvenirs," he says. "But once the rent kicks in, there is no way we can sustain the business." The rent is rumored to be around 8,000 yuan ($1,290) a month by market value, much higher than the revenue trickling in.

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