Paper-cutting · Chinese Craft Stories

01 · Historical Records

Hailun paper cutting is a folk art that has spread across the land of China's Northeast. It originated in the ancient custom of the Manchu ancestors of cutting animal hides to make ornaments, and is now distributed mainly across the cities and villages of Hailun City, Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, and has extended to the neighboring cities and counties. Hailun paper cutting originated among the Manchu and is a product of the integration of multiple ethnic cultures; it is a living fossil for the study of folk art and folk culture in the Northeast. It grew out of the agrarian civilization of the Northeast and has long accompanied the production and daily life of farmers, reflecting the spiritual pursuits and aesthetic tastes of ordinary people. It has broad popular appeal and a cultural transmission function, constitutes an important resource for the modern cultural development of Hailun City, and is of positive significance for driving local economic development and promoting social stability.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Hailun paper cutting is distinguished by its superb knife work, having formed an artistic style that is classically simple yet meticulously fine, vigorous and broad, revealing splendor within naive simplicity and delight within plainness, fine without being cloying, and firm within softness. On the basis of inheriting traditional folk paper cutting, Hailun paper cutting places great emphasis on innovation and development, gradually developing the free, expressive genre of the xieyi (freehand) style into decorative designs centered on carved lines. It has developed flat, layered hollow-cutting into multi-layered spatial compositions that express both focal-point and scattered-point perspective; developed flat pattern decoration into main-figure modeling combined with hollow-cut background ornament; and, on the basis of perfecting two-color impressed carving, innovated multi-color overprint carving and hollow-cut carving with full backing. Its works take themes such as celebrating bountiful harvests, abundant wealth, and good fortune, expressing the longing for a better life.

A Manchu origin in cut hide

The craft descends from the Manchu practice of cutting hide ornaments and later moved to paper, a product of several cultures meeting.

Multicolour registration and full openwork lining

Building on two-colour pressing, Hailun cutters devised multicolour registration and fully lined openwork, turning flat ornament into modelled forms with pierced backdrops.

Manchu Wedding Scenes and Lion Ba

Representative works, alongside the Twelve Beauties of Jinling, among the most noted of the ten series created locally.

The ten subject series

Recent work has broken out of the traditional range into ten series: folk custom, historical figures, ice and snow, birds and landscape, famous sites, blessings, the zodiac, black-earth culture, Manchu weddings and classic novels.

Plain yet fine, rustic yet ornate

Its knife-work achieves a manner plain yet fine, broad yet rustic, ornate within naivety and firm within soft, moving from freehand ease to line-carved decorative design.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Hailun paper cutting is distributed mainly in the urban and rural areas of Hailun City, Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, and extends to the neighboring cities and counties; it is one of the places in Heilongjiang folk paper cutting where the community of practitioners is relatively concentrated. The origins of local paper cutting can be traced back to the ancient custom of the Manchu ancestors of cutting animal hides to make ornaments, and it has intermingled with the Shandong and Hebei paper-cut patterns brought by migrants since the late Qing; for this reason two distinct Manchu and Han pattern traditions often coexist within the same village. Transmission is mainly within families, from mothers to daughters and mothers-in-law to daughters-in-law; after the mid-20th century local cultural departments organized creative work and exhibitions. Representative works include Manchu Wedding Customs, Shiziba, and The Twelve Beauties of Jinling.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In recent years the themes of Hailun paper cutting have broken through their traditional range to face modern life, forming ten major series: folk customs, historical figures, ice-and-snow scenery, flowers and birds with landscapes, famous scenic sites and historical monuments, fortune, prosperity, longevity, and joy, the twelve zodiac animals, black-soil clean-government culture, Manchu wedding customs, and classical literary masterpieces. Representative works include Manchu Wedding Customs, Shiziba, and The Twelve Beauties of Jinling. Hailun paper cutting is transmitted mainly through family inheritance.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Paper-cutting (Suihuashihailun, Heilongjiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗