Fruit pit carving hediao yishu as a cross between art and traditional medicine of China

核雕艺术 hediao yishu is a carving technique that deals with the shaping and treating of stone, bamboo, lacquer, wood, and bone. It is an essential element of Chinese traditional culture: relayed over numerous generations, it drives everyday life and guides rituals, and so constitutes a special branch of decorative art, the roots of which can be traced back to Neolithic times when the first primeval tools, along with jewellery and ritual items of visual arts, emerged. By the Han period, the technique had been introduced into applied arts whereby fruit pits were used as raw material. Generally, but not specifically, these were the pits of peaches, walnuts, or even olives, with which masters of refined carving created figurines of delicate beauty that portrayed illustrious characters of the Buddhist and Taoist pantheon as well as popular mythological heroes. These works of art embrace a great variety of scenes from religious history and folklore. The uses of these handicraft items evolved over time as well. Apart from the aesthetic pleasures they provided, they also embraced pragmatic functions; for example, the use as elements of religious ceremonies and in games. Furthermore, they were used to supplement Chinese traditional medicine. During the Tang (619-907) and Song (960-1279) periods, fruit kernels were used for preventative purposes in massaging accupoints of the hand. Interest in both aspects of this kind of applied art has been steadily increasing in East and South-East Asia, in part of the growing influence of China. One of the aspects that attracts interest in these handicrafts is the therapeutic effect on the user, namely through self-treatment via the carved pits. Applying occupational knowledge and technical skills to the treatment can add even more to the result. Studying the art of carving should not be confined to understanding historical origins and adaptive features, but extend beyond theory to involve practical exercises, including the rolling of the items in the hands and the accurate locating of accupoints and active zones, to name a few. In the latter case, the user will come to learn what healthy nutrition really is. Spanning more than 2,000 years, the art of Chinese fruit pit carving continues to gain in in importance and appeal to this day.