Yang Liping, a celebrated dancer-choreographer of Bai ethnicity, has made it her mission to preserve things that seem out of date and has founded a school to that end. Chen Nan reports in Beijing.

Dancer and choreographer Yang Liping, from the Bai ethnic group, made a fashion statement at a Ferrari auto show in Yunnan province's capital Kunming. Instead of a regular, or designer purse, she was seen carrying a bamboo basket, an accessory favored by Bai women.

"Many women in my village carry such a basket," says Yang, who is from Yunnan province.