"It's difficult to work out how to make a perfect five-star flag. Like knitting a sweater, I used very thin bamboo strips of two colors, wove them together with a tool and stretched them tightly to make the pattern of the stars," says Xie, who finally finished the task at 4 am.

He gained about five kilograms in weight because he had to sit all day to work on the complicated handicraft, ranging from making drawings to formulating the overall weaving plan.

He also posted the bamboo weaving process on popular short video platform Douyin, where he has in excess of 27,000 followers. The topic drew several million views on micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo, and people online expressed their amazement at the exquisite workmanship. A local TV channel reported the news and commented that "it's a real inheritance and of great significance".

Since March, Xie's 22-year-old niece has helped him to make short videos to record him employing various weaving techniques in accordance with the characteristics of different bamboo types.