Hangzhou Arts and Crafts Museum

This guide to the Hangzhou Arts and Crafts Museum centers on a small stamped mark, jinji, carved into every blade sold under the name Zhang Xiaoquan, and the question of why it was necessary. It traces the scissors shop back to around 1600, through generations of the Zhang family, and the sprawling counterfeit trade of rival shops that borrowed the name outright. You'll hear how, in 1663, one grandson tried to settle the matter with two carved characters. Watch the craftsmen in the workshop behind you still forging steel into iron by hand, the same technique guarded since.