Paper-cutting · Chinese Craft Stories

01 · Historical Records

Zhuanghe papercutting is a folk art passed down from generation to generation in the Zhuanghe City area at the southern end of the Liaodong Peninsula. According to research, this art form was already popular locally during the Ming and Qing dynasties and reached its height in the late Qing and early Republican period. Since the mid-20th century, Zhuanghe papercutting has developed further.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Zhuanghe papercutting covers a wide range of subjects with distinctive designs. It employs artistic techniques of expression that have long been popular locally, giving rise to a rich variety of styles closely integrated with folk life. Among these, window flowers and wall flowers can embellish the home environment and heighten a festive atmosphere; ceremonial flowers are important decorations for life-cycle rituals such as birthday celebrations and weddings; and lantern flowers are used to decorate various festival lanterns. Zhuanghe papercutting has an antique flavor and vivid exaggeration, with close attention paid to black-white relationships and to the handling of density and simplicity. Its cutting and carving technique and its distinct blade flavor have reached a very high standard. Representative works include "Qilin Bringing a Son," "The Mouse Takes a Bride," "Hair-Grasping Doll," "Carp Sporting with Lotus," "Magpie Alighting on Plum," "Lotus Seeds Picture," "Dragon and Phoenix Herald Auspiciousness," "Enfeoffed as Marquis on Horseback," and "Flower Vase." Zhuanghe papercutting has a distinct blade flavor, with careful handling of black-white relationships and the balance of density and simplicity, fullness and emptiness. It is adept at using homophones and metaphors to point to its themes—for example, fish to mean surplus (yu), bats to mean fortune (fu), and lotus to mean successive noble births (liansheng guizi). Cutting often begins with symmetrical folding, giving an antique flavor and vivid exaggeration.

Window, wall, ritual and lantern flowers

Zhuanghe cutting offers window and wall flowers for the home, ritual flowers for birthdays and weddings, and lantern flowers for festive lamps.

The Unicorn Brings a Son, Mouse Wedding and Topknot Doll

Representative works include The Unicorn Brings a Son, Mouse Wedding and Topknot Doll, all auspicious and vividly shaped.

Han Yueqin's circular compositions and left-handed cutting

Born in 1941, Han Yueqin cuts left-handed without designs save for major works, favouring round compositions and punning auspicious themes.

Popular in Ming-Qing, flourishing at the dynastic turn

The art was already current in Ming-Qing times, flourished around 1900 and developed further after the mid-twentieth century.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Zhuanghe lies at the southern end of the Liaodong Peninsula. The papercutting is distributed mainly in the urban area of Zhuanghe and the townships under it; it was already popular locally in the Ming and Qing dynasties and reached its height in the late Qing and early Republican period. The works are mostly combined with home decoration and life-cycle rituals: window flowers and wall flowers embellish dwellings, ceremonial flowers are used for birthday celebrations and weddings, and lantern flowers decorate festival lanterns.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Zhuanghe papercutting embodies both the common character of traditional folk culture and a distinctive regional style, maintaining a relatively complete traditional flavor, and has important research value for folklore studies and folk art. At present, as traditional folk customs gradually fade from modern social life, the space for the survival and development of Zhuanghe papercutting is continually shrinking, successors are scarce, and the only twenty-odd skilled cutters are already in their seventies or eighties. Zhuanghe papercutting is on the verge of being lost and urgently needs rescuing. Han Yueqin (recorded in the official archives of an affiliated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in November 1941, native of Zhuanghe City, Liaoning Province. From childhood she learned papercutting from her maternal grandmother Wang Songshi, her mother Han Wangshi, and her five older sisters. As her skill advanced, she began to draw inspiration from daily life for her papercutting art. She is accustomed to holding the shears in her left hand; apart from large works that require careful conception, she generally cuts directly without drawing a draft first. Her works mostly adopt circular compositions. She is skilled at using metaphor, homophone, and other techniques to express themes of seeking good fortune and welcoming auspiciousness, and at skillfully combining traditional pattern formats with images of flowers, birds, and animals, giving her work a strong folk flavor. Representative works include "Auspicious Celebration and Abundance," "Nine Fish Picture," and "Twin Dragons Converging." She has published the book Han Yueqin's Auspicious Papercutting. Representative inheritor of the papercutting (Zhuanghe papercutting) project in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗