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Middle School Chinese Department: The Chinese Folk Art of Paper-Cutting—Explore the Distinct Charm of Chinese Culture.

May 24, 2021

On May 21th, 2021, students of G7 non-native Chinese language classes attended the fourth of this semester’s cultural lectures—An Introduction to Chinese Paper-cutting.” As one of the Chinese folk arts, paper-cutting has always occupied a unique position in Chinese culture because of its rich historical and cultural connotation. The lecture helped students better understand this art style and hidden wisdom from within these small scissors. Penetrating insights in terms of its technique, history, status, and practical operation, allowed students to experience the hands-on work during the activity and feel the charm of paper-cutting.

To further engage students’ attention, Ms. Gao, designed several riddles related to paper-cutting and presented them at the start. It introduced the concept of paper-cutting and also inspired the students’ curiosity regarding this folk art. After that, Ms. Gao taught students five basic methods of paper-cutting with pictures and word explanations on-screen—Yangke, Yinke, Silhouette, Tearing paper, and folding and cutting. She also invited five students to come to the stage and each student cut one of the five letters of “SHSID”. Afterward, to further perceive the long history of paper-cutting, Ms. Gao played a video and asked targeted questions to deepen students’ understanding of paper-cutting art. For example, students learned that paper-cutting is a hollow-carved art and was mostly engraved on silver foil in ancient times. More than that, they learned that paper-cutting workshops appeared as early as the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. Through an introduction of shadow puppetry, abacus, Guqin, and other traditional Chinese arts, students realized the uniqueness of paper-cutting.

At the end of the lecture, each student received a colored paper set to finish their work based on the paper-cutting techniques they learned from this lecture. At the same time, they also managed to create innovative and unique artworks. Through this lecture, students learned about Chinese paper-cutting as an intangible cultural heritage of paper-cutting and inherited this rare skill in the process of practicing.

(Written by Zhao Shuyi Pictures by Zhao Shuyi Edited by Huang Shiyuan, Mikah Jimenez)