A man cuts off the extra hanging threads from a newly-woven carpet. Photo: Li Hao/GT
Khawachen is situated far from the center of Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region. The entrance is barely noticeable from the street. But when you walk in, you see rows of washed carpets drying in the courtyard. In the neighboring room, workers sit at looms weaving wool threads.
This handmade Tibetan rug works was founded by Kesang Tashi, a Tibetan-American and a Dartmouth-educated international banker. In 1986, when visiting his homeland, he came upon traditional Tibetan rug makers and became fascinated with the craft.
As the last surviving handmade Tibetan rug factory, Khawachen adopts the traditional craftsmanship that until recently had only been preserved in museums and imitated by machines.
He found that fewer and fewer young people want to learn rug-weaving, one of the many Tibetan folk arts in danger of dying out.
In order to preserve the craft, Kesang Tashi traveled Tibet in search of aging rug weavers. In 1994, he opened a factory in Lhasa and started selling Tibetan rugs overseas.
But in 2001, his sales headquarters in New York was destroyed during the September 11 terrorist attack, and his overseas sales dropped. Since then, he has focused on collectors and the domestic market. His rugs start at 4,000 yuan ($598) per square meter.
"Tibetans are personally connected with this type of rug," said Wang Zeqiang, who is in charge of sales. "They are born on this rug, when friends visit, they sit on this rug, and when they die, they are buried with the rug."
Kesang Tashi has personally designed a few new patterns. Now craftsmen weave images of the Potala Palace, types of flowers, and traditional Han symbols of fortune.