Xia works to repair a pan in a remote mountainous region in Guilin, South China's Guangxi province, May 20, 2015. [Photo/CFP]

Pan repairers were common in the last century, but are now a rare sight.

Xia Lianhua is a pan repair craftsman still working in this line in a remote mountainous region in Guilin, South China's Guangxi province. Xia's ancestral home is in a small village in Hunan, a province in Central China. When he was a child, the 49-year-old said all the people in his village made a living by repairing pans.

Xia followed his master to work in Guangxi when he was 13 years old. In the past, he could earn 0.05 yuan, sometimes an egg or a sweet potato in exchange for repairing a pan, Xia said. Because of his skills, Xia could earn enough money for his family in the 1980s.