Stories from China's four literary classics are being engraved on ceramics by a peasant in east China's Shandong Province.

Wang Shihai, a peasant from Wacun Village in Luocun Township in Zibo City, spent four years engraving the Romance of the Three Kingdoms on a ceramic mural, which has been certified as the longest ceramic mural in the world by the Shanghai Office of the Guinness Book of World Records.

Wang said his "biggest wish" is to have engraved the other three classics, the Dream of the Red Mansion, the Heroes of the Marsh and the Pilgrimage to the West, on ceramics in ten years.

The record-breaking ceramic mural is 172 meters (about 564 feet) long and 0.6 meters (about 2 feet) high, with 282 episodes, 2,166 characters and 328 horses from the masterpiece.

The art dates back to the late Qing Dynasty (early 1900s) in Beijing when artists began engraving pictures on tea sets with a glass cutter. In the 1960s the craft spread into Shandong Province.

Artists first draw the image on the ceramic piece, then etch out the outline with a special chisel, polish it with emery paper, and stain it with oil paint.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2002)