Zhou Xingnyu teaches a child paper-cutting in Bulu township, Xianju county, Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/taizhou.com.cn]

While farmers need months to cultivate flowers, Chen Miaojin needs just seconds to do the same.

After folding a piece of red paper diagonally and making a few quick incisions, the 78-year-old craftswoman held in her hand a paper-cut flower with 12 petals, drawing gasps of amazement from visitors at a workshop in Bulu township, Xianju county, East China's Zhejiang province on Feb 19.

An inheritor of Xianju paper-cutting, a local intangible culture heritage, Chen has been engaged in the art of paper-cutting for no fewer than five decades.

Paper-cutting was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

A "compulsory course" for single women

There are many veteran paper-cutting craftswomen like Chen in Bulu township.

Paper-cutting and embroidery were traditionally prerequisite skills that unmarried women in the rural areas of Xianju, especially in mountainous areas, needed to have.

Zhou Xingnyu, a resident in Xilu village, Bulu township, learned paper-cutting before marrying her husband at the age of 22.

Besides being used as home decorations during festivals or sacrificial ceremonies, paper-cut works are commonly used as reference patterns for embroidery, according to Zhou.

"For example, the foreheads of baby hats are usually embroidered with bird patterns," the 79-year-old said. "We cut patterns out of paper and stick them on the top of the hat before embroidering them with colored silk thread." 

Another paper-cutting artisan from Xilu village is Ma Jin'e, a woman in her nineties who is renowned for her ability to produce intricate paper-cut patterns featuring the phoenix, peony and carp without having to draw them on paper in advance.

Passing down the skills

In 2017, Chen took home the gold award at a municipal paper-cutting contest with her artwork featuring a waxberry, a characteristic agricultural product in Bulu township.

But winning awards do not mean as much as being able to hand down the traditional art to the next generation, she noted. Fortunately, the authorities have taken steps to do so.

In a bid to preserve the art form, authorities built a paper-cutting workshop on the site of an abandoned warehouse in 2019, with veteran artists including Zhou and Chen being invited to teach paper-cutting techniques to those who are interested.

The artisans' love for the traditional art has not waned despite its fading popularity. In fact, so few people practice this craft today that the shops near their village do not stock the paper required for the craft. 

To procure the right paper, the women have to take a bus to Xianju and scour the shops.

"Walking a few more 'steps' won't make me feel tired, since it's for something I love," said Zhou Xingnyu.

Chen shares the same sentiment.

"No matter how upset I am, as long as I start cutting paper, all the unhappy things seem to disappear," she said.