Dangcheng, a city of 20,000 inhabitants located 240 km southwest of Beijing, is now a ghost town because of the risks posed by the European crisis for China's exports. A few weeks ago, Reuters agency – in a report edited by Jonathan Buckley Chris Thatcher -published the mutilation of this thriving business, which has been forced to close or restructure most of the workshops of the city.

The traditional economy of Hebei Province based on the exploitation of the masonry and stone work, had led in recent decades the mass flowering of these workshops, encouraged by the export of ornamental statues, busts, reliefs and supplies to Europe and North America. Dangcheng carvers devoted time to master the foreign tastes, through books of models based on the sculpture of the Renaissance and classicism revisited. Their skills, increasingly expensive in the old continent, and the ease of Internet commerce, made the rest.

In 2008 exports accounted for over 90% of sales of Dangcheng sculpture, but today these have plummeted. For their part, Chinese customers are buying these works – backed by economic prosperity in their country and for some relaxation of controls on the Communist Party has allowed religion to repopulate the temples of images - such as those of Jesus Christ series produced in these workshops.

Masons and stone workers have seen their income, which had increased from 3,000 to 4,000 yen for three years to between 5,000 and 6,000 in 2010, are now seriously threatened its future. As reported by Reuters, " one cubic meter of white marble shipped from the province of Hunan in southern China, now costs around 3,700 yen, compared with 2,000 three years ago." Alejandro Martinez

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