He scoured the Internet, reading up on fruit carving and clicking on image after image. It was like having a crush on a girl, he says. He couldn't get it out of his mind.

Takehiro has recently started practicing the Chinese style of food carving as well. “My feeling for food carving stays the same as when I first discovered it,” he says.

With their painstaking concern for the most minute, hairsplitting details, master Chinese seal carvers have something in common with the meticulous medieval theologians who pondered the number of a… ...

As Chinese New Year approaches -- the Year of the Snake begins on Feb. 10 -- it’s a good time to look back on how different things are now.

Takehiro has recently started practicing the Chinese style of food carving as well. “My feeling for food carving stays the same as when I first discovered it,” he says.