Chinese bladesmiths?

Does anyone know of any chinese bladesmiths that are producing top end stuff? Making a little list of what to spend my tax on (all cleavers) and I thought it'd be kinda cool to have at least 1 chinese made high end cleaver in my collection but I've never heard any mention of chinese blade smiths aside from the usual larger companies (CCK, Shibazi etc) and Maestro Wu. (Forgive my ignorance here, not sure if Shibazi and/or MW are Taiwanese)

Don't get me wrong, CCKs are awesome and I'm sure the bombshell cleavers are good too, but I doubt I'd be reaching from them over my other knives.

I'd have to assume that in such a large country with such a rich culinary background and a strong "admiration" of the cleaver, that there would be atleast one blacksmith producing ***** amazing cleavers. No?

Josh

In my experience, the Chinese are more interested in volume over quality. I haven't been all over the country but in the parts I have been in, there is usually a blacksmith shop in every larger village turning out knives the locals think are very good. But usually nothing that would get a Westerner all excited about their remarkable quality or anything.

Most high end chukabocho/cleavers :Suien,Moritaka,Mizuno Tanrenjo and Takeda for some are Japanese.

there are no market! japan & Germain knives domain 90% of kitchen knife market. few famous Chinese bladesmiths only produce high profit Chinese sword/art knife for collector. some local bladesmiths/ knife co. purchase japanese steel making their own brand knives.

I figured the case would like be one of "quantity over quality". Though I'll be optimistic and assume that there must be one person producing something high end.

I've always been keen to travel around China, maybe in a few years when I'm heading back to Scotland I'll take some extra time off to see the sights (and hopefully find said mystical bladesmith:biggrin

Cheers for the posts so far.

Josh

China is a really really big place and I certainly haven't seen it all. There is also the fact that each province has its own several thousand year old culture. I don't want to make any blanket statements about knifemaking there, all I can relate is what I found on my own search for that master cleaver smith.