In a small kitchen tucked behind the crowds of Shanghai's Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall, a master chef gently shapes a mooncake with a wooden mold passed down for generations.

Down the hall, an artisan mixes herbs for a traditional medicinal paste. These are part of a working classroom where heritage meets modern life.

A new training center was launched on Thursday in Shanghai to protect and promote the 22 traditional skills rooted in the history and culture of Nanjing Road E., one of Shanghai's most iconic shopping streets.

The skills include vegetarian cuisine from the famous GODLY restaurant; tailoring by Baromon, which served both locals and foreign customers for decades; and inkstick crafting by Cao Sugong, used by generations of Chinese scholars and calligraphers.

Local dishes like boiled chicken, Cantonese mooncakes, and glutinous rice cakes are also featured, along with techniques in traditional medicine and food preservation.

The training center aims to teach, preserve, and innovate. It will partner with the China Hotel Association to develop formal courses connecting traditional skills with modern industries.

Tongji University's College of Design and Innovation will help build an academic system to protect and expand these practices. A credit system will track student progress and support practical use.

The plan starts with training core instructors, followed by a scalable model for nationwide promotions. The center will integrate training, certification, and innovation into one system, according to the group.

At the launch event, many masters of these skills received appointment letters as training experts.

"Heritage should not stay in museums," said Zhao Youming, master of vegetarian cuisine at GODLY. "It should live in our daily lives and grow with the times."