[Explanation] Shanxi has a long history of paper-cutting. A pair of scissors and a piece of red paper can cut out a variety of wonderful shapes with fingers flying.
The style is exquisite without losing its agility, rugged yet delicate, with the local style of the Loess Plateau.
Xin Aiying, a 65-year-old man from Taiyuan, Shanxi, has been obsessed with this intangible cultural heritage since she was 6 years old when she was exposed to paper-cutting.
Over the next 50 years, paper-cutting became Xin Aiying's inseparable "partner".
On September 16, the reporter came to Xin Aiying’s home and saw her and her mother doing paper-cutting creations. The bed was covered with their paintings and paper-cutting works.
[Concurrent] Paper-cutting artist Xin Aiying: I learned paper-cutting from my grandma to grandma, grandma to mother, mother to me, and I to my lover, and to my daughter.
So I cut the paper-cuts with local characteristics in Shanxi, Taiyuan Twin Towers, Wutai Mountain, Yungang (Grotto) in Datong, Shanxi pasta, and Shanxi specialties. I basically cut them out.
The characteristic of our Xin's paper-cutting is the fusion of Shanxi's paper-cutting skills, the fusion of the north and the south, the ruggedness and boldness, and the delicate and exquisite fusion, because it is only cut with scissors, and the cut is not too fine, (then) I cut (Paper) My lover carved (paper), so (combined) cutting and carving together.
[Explanation] Xin Aiying told reporters that as the inheritor of paper-cutting skills, she often enters some communities in Taiyuan City, Shanxi University, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology and other institutions of higher learning to offer paper-cutting courses for the elderly and students.
However, due to the epidemic, this year's paper-cutting courses have been cut by more than half, so she “turned to” online to teach art for paper-cutting fans at home and abroad for free.
[Concurrent] Paper-cutting artist Xin Aiying: This year, we will pass on the traditional Chinese paper-cutting art to more than 500 overseas Chinese students on the Internet.
I have brought thousands of students abroad for almost a few years, all of which are spreading traditional culture through online classes.
I taught them to cut a pumpkin, cut a five-pointed star, cut a happy character, and cut some simple and easy-to-learn flowers, birds, and birds. Anyway, these folk patterns are all perfectly cut out by the children.
[Explanation] Xin Aiying, who is immersed in paper-cutting, said that with the continuous development of traditional culture, more and more foreigners come to China to learn paper-cutting skills.
[Concurrent] Paper-cutting artist Xin Aiying: In 2009, there was a foreign female college student who came to my paper-cutting scene. She looked at my hands and my scissors. She followed me to learn how to cut. She said, Chinese The traditional art of paper-cutting is amazing, I like it so much.
[Explanation] During the interview, the reporter learned that Xin Aiying has taught more than 10,000 paper-cutting enthusiasts. Her works have been exhibited in more than 30 countries overseas with the Taiyuan Civil Art Troupe and other teams.
She said that she is currently writing a new paper-cutting textbook that can teach more people the skills of paper-cutting.
[Concurrent] Paper-cutting artist Xin Aiying: It is better to inherit the art of people, and it is better for people to book. As the inheritor of Xin's paper-cutting art, I have the responsibility to continue writing my paper-cutting art into paper-cutting teaching materials , To compile a paper-cut book that is more suitable for students at home and abroad to learn, so that after they get the book, they can cut out more traditional Chinese culture, so that they can better inherit the traditional Chinese culture and paper-cut art.
Liu Yongxi Jiayu reports from Taiyuan, Shanxi
Editor in charge: [Wang Kai]