We have heard about cormorant fishing， Chinese knot， paper cut. But do you know clay figurine（泥人） is a kind of traditional folk art in China. The figurines are mainly characters and animals and the clay is taken as raw material and put into a figurine by h. This kind of art began at the Neolithic Period （新石器时代）. The pottery pig and sheep were d in Hemudu relics （遗址） of Zhejiang Province. People also found pottery， clay pig and clay sheep head in Henan Province. It has about six to seven thousand years history. However， it was until the Ming and Qing dynasties that the clay figurine had been r produced and became one of the main artworks in the people's culture life.

    The art of clay figurine is d into two parts in China： Wuxi Huishan Clay Figurine and Tianjin "Clay Figurine Zhang". The Huishan Clay Figurine which comes from the western part of Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province. It has a history of over one thousand years. The most f character "Big A Fu" is rich and brisk， deep and simple in sculpture， bright and ardent （热情的） in color， full of a rich native tinge （色调）. Tianjin "Clay Figurine Zhang" began in Daoguang Period of the Qing Dynasty and had a history of about 180 years. Zhang Mingshan was the first person of "Clay Figurine Zhang". It said that he could c a lifelike clay figurine with lively facial expression in a minute while sitting and talking to others.