Making the Most of Wood

Architect Chen Yan had a comfortable life in Shencheng, but when his father, Chen Jiefang, suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, he was forced to return to his hometown and take over the failing Chen Family Woodworking Workshop. Before losing consciousness, his father had been working on an order for a “Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix” canopy bed. The deposit was two hundred thousand, and breaking the contract would mean paying back twice that amount. But the crucial design plans had been soaked in a rainstorm, leaving the intricate carvings and mortise-and-tenon joints indistinct.

Orders at the workshop had dried up, and its three master craftsmen, whose ages added up to more than 180, were helpless in the face of the incomplete plans. They insisted that no one but Chen Jiefang could reproduce the design. Although Chen Yan had grown up familiar with the smell of woodworking, he had never done the work himself and knew only modern architectural design. But to preserve his father's life's work and the Chen family's reputation, he resolves to take on the challenge: He'll piece together the plans while learning traditional woodworking from the master craftsmen, and finish the canopy bed, a testament to his family's heritage, in just two months.