Artist Liu Xudong excels in painting on traditional folding fans. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"It was only from Ming it got famous, after many Xiang Shan architects and artisans were recruited for building the Forbidden City, the Ming imperial palace, in Beijing."

In painting and calligraphy, Xukou wants to build branding power just as well.

From mid to late Ming Dynasty, brush painters (who were most likely also calligraphers) in Suzhou developed their own genre, called Wu Men (meaning Suzhou) art school.

In recent years, there has been a revival of that genre, in pure art and in art market as well.

In Beijing South Railway Station, perhaps the world's largest hub for high-speed trains, the handed-painted paper-bamboo fans sold in the souvenir shop, some several thousand yuan apiece, are made in Suzhou, by artists including the many small studio owners based in Xukou.

Xukou now has a community of about 2,000 known brush painters, calligraphers, and specialists in mounting paintings, more than 600 art dealers, and several private art museums.

The small lakeside town has grown into a key bastion for the neo-Wu Men art school.