Paper-cut: A couple’s life pursuit

Editor's note:

No pains, no gains. For more than 30 years, Mr. Wang Yuan and his wife Ms. Duan Yunli, representative inheritors of paper-cut skills in Kunming, have made endless efforts to pass on the intangible cultural heritage. Wang is good at cutting silhouette images while Duan is a master of traditional paper-cut. While serving tens of thousands of tourists in China, they have also visited Malaysia, Thailand, Germany and India for cultural exchanges. They spend most of their leisure time teaching the skills of paper-cut in communities and schools. They hope to incorporate modern elements into paper-cuts by innovation. 

Paper-cut: A couple’s lifetime pursuit

With one pair of scissors and one piece of paper, Wang cut out a life-like silhouette portrait in just 30 seconds. Recently we visited the workshop of Wang Yuan and Duan Yunli and witnessed the miracles of paper-cut.

Wang and Duan are well-known paper-cut artists in Yunnan. Unlike Duan who was born in a family of paper-cut artists, Wang is largely selftaught. However, both are crowned as “master of paper-cut”.

Their workshop is like a sea of paper-cut works, with dazzling array of works hung on walls and piled up on tables and cabinets. Their types range from figures, animals, mountains to rivers.

Duan’s works feature beautiful shapes and lines, with circles as round as the mid-autumn moon, tips as pointed as awn of wheat and squares with clearly-cut edges and corners. Wang is in deep love of cutting silhouette images. His albums are full of lifelike figure silhouette images of Olympic champions, Go chess masters, actors, singers...

“The key to cutting silhouette images is to cut out the most featured aspects of the person,” Wang said it relies on synchronization between eyes and hands. It needs not only exquisite craftsmanship, but also keen observation.

Among the well-known works of Wang, there are The Peacock Dance in Xishuangbanna, The Lovers Riding Elephant and The Ashima. To finish The Peacock Dance of Xishuangbanna, he even watched the performance of peak dance several times.

On that day when we visited the workshop, Wang showed his amazing skills and cut out the fpaper silhouette of my companion in less than one minute. My companion just marveled at Wang’s skills at the first sight of the silhouette. “So similar, so fast. It shows my characteristics clearly.”

According to Wang, the shortest time he spent in cutting out a paper silhouette is just 27 seconds. “As high season of tourism comes each year, I usually travel to different cities around the country and cut out paper silhouette for tourists. I still remember the largest number of tourists I served in a day is more than 200,” Wang said. Once, he served for a group of tourists at the interval between their destinations. As their time was short, Wang had to finish all the cutting quickly. After the last image was cut, one of the tourists told him the shortest time he spent is only 27 seconds.

“No pains, no gains,” Wang said, this motto also holds true for papercut craftsman. For more than 30 years, he and his wife have cut images for tens of thousands tourists. They have made friends with notable persons both at home and abroad, while visiting domestic cities and foreign countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Germany and Indiafor cultural exchanges. In Wang’s view, every person has his or her unique characteristics, the work of a paper-cut craftsman is to cut out all theses characteristics.

For Duan Yunli, the craftsman’s passion is crucial to the paper-cut career, and one has to endure the loneliness and dull work. She said paper-cut is their life career and their work has never been suspended. In the workshop, they often sit for several hours as long as the work is started. “The paper-cut is one of typcal forms of Chinese fork art, with a long history and profound culture. We hope to make our contributions to pass on this tradition,” Duan said. Therefore, they spend most of their leisure time teaching the skills of paper-cut in local communities and schools. They also hope to incorporate modern elements into paper-cut by innovation. 

Writing by Hu Yuanhang; Photos by Liu Ranyang, Transediting by Zu Hongbing