Coconut carving, also known as Hainan coconut carving, is made of coconut shells, coconut palms and coconut wood, and is hand-carved into various practical products and sculptures. It is one of the specialties of Hainan Island. Hainan coconut carving has novel styles, simple shapes, elegant pictures and light textures. It is both ornamental and practical, showing a strong Hainan style. It is one of the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage protection projects in my country. Hainan coconut carving has a long history. The first to use coconut shells should be the Li people, the earliest ancestors of Hainan Island. The ancestors of the Li people knew how to make pottery and canoes very early, but compared with the complex pottery making technology, the coconut shells that are readily available in the wilderness are acid-resistant and alkali-resistant, and it may be simpler and more casual to make containers. In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Xun's "Lingbiao Luyi" recorded: "The coconut tree is also similar to the sea palm. The fruit is as big as an Ou bowl. The outside has a rough skin like a big belly, and the hard shell is solid and strong, two or three centimeters thick. If there are round ones like eggs, cut one end, grind them with sand and stones, remove the wrinkled skin, and the colorful patterns are decorated with platinum to make water jars. They are rare and lovely." At that time, there was a folk legend that coconut shells had the characteristic of "cracking when poisonous". The Tang Dynasty poet Lu Guimeng also left a poem "Wine fills the coconut cup with disinfectant mist, and the wind follows the banana leaves to the waterfall boat." "Yuedong Notes" also recorded that when Li Deyu, a minister of the Tang Dynasty, was demoted to Yazhou, he sawed coconut shells into ladles, spoons, bowls, and cups for eating and drinking. According to the Ming Dynasty's "Zhengde Qiongtai Records", in the fourth year of Song Shaosheng (1097), Su Dongpo was exiled to Dan'er. He asked local artists to carve coconut shells into coconut hats called "coconut crowns", and then expressed his heroic spirit in the poem "He Ziyou's Coconut Crown": "I filter the thin towel to invite drunk guests, and give the empty shell to the crown master". In the Ming and Qing dynasties, coconut carvings were often presented to the court as treasures by officials, so it was also known as "Tiannan tribute". Records about coconut carvings were also found in the materials of the Qing Palace Banquet Milk Tea Bowl. The Qing Palace drank milk tea with high-quality and exquisite workmanship. At that time, Guangdong tributed milk tea bowls made of coconut shells. The outer wall of the bowl was coconut shell. The craftsmen skillfully embossed pine, bamboo and plum patterns on the thin coconut shell surface, and the inner wall was inlaid with silver. The coconut silver bowl is simple and light. It is one of the few milk tea bowls in the Qing Palace. The emperor not only used it at small and medium-sized banquets, but also used it as the first choice for drinking milk tea. In the book "Hai Gong An" of the Qing Dynasty, "coconut carving ink box" also appeared many times. As for the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, it was very common to use coconut carving as gifts and supplies. Hainan coconut carving is a handicraft with unique national style and local color. The unremitting efforts of coconut carving artists of all generations have made coconut carving skills more and more perfect. Hainan coconut carving has to go through the processes of material selection, modeling, carving, perforation, inlaying, planing, and modification. The carving techniques include sunken carving, relief carving, perforation carving, brown carving, round carving, collage, oil painting, etc. Coconut carving crafts are divided into three categories. The first is coconut shell carving. Using the natural form of coconut shells, coconut shells and shells are inlaid and combined, and spliced into handicrafts according to the design shape. The products include coconut bowls, tea boxes, toothpick holders, ashtrays, vases, erhu, collage craft paintings, etc. The second is coconut palm carving. According to the natural texture of coconut palm, it is processed into various figures and animals such as coconut monkeys, coconut pigs, and coconut girls by cutting, slicing, and scalding. The third is coconut wood carving. Coconut wood has always been used by Hainan people to process into wooden beams to build houses. Later, craft factories began to use coconut wood to process into products such as chopsticks and hairpins. The most used is coconut shell carving.