Sun Lianyong, a steelyard craftsman, encases the beam of a steelyard with copper sheath at his workshop in Jinkou Town of Jimo District in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, July 19, 2019. Steelyard, a traditional weighing instrument with a long history, used to be popular for its low cost and good portability. In the early 1990s, there used to be more than 30 steelyard workshops in Jimo as the development of market economy pushed up people's demand for steelyards. The 49-year-old craftsman Sun Lianyong is an inheritor of traditional steelyard making techniques. As the fifth-generation inheritor of his family's craft, Sun has been engaged in this career for over 30 years. Sun said, the traditional procedures of making a hand-made steelyard has many steps and requires high accuracy in its measurement. Nowadays, the steelyard has gradually disappeared from commercial activities as electronic balance become popular. However, the steelyard still has its place in traditional wedding ceremony, souvenir industry and pharmacies of traditional Chinese medicine. (Xinhua/Zhang Shanchen)
