China News Service Taiyuan, February 9 (Xinhua) -- The flavor of the New Year on Taihang Mountain: the full spring that opens in the window lattice.
China News Service reporter Yang Jieying.
The simple character "Fu", the vivid "Dragon" picture, and the auspicious "Pisces" picture ......Pieces of paper are flying, scissors are rustling, and in a courtyard on Taihang Mountain, Duan Xiaojun is carefully cutting window flowers for the Year of the Dragon. Every year on the eve of the Spring Festival, he would cut the window flowers and give them to relatives and friends.
Duan Xiaojun shows off his paper-cut works. Photo by Guo Minjie.
Duan Xiaojun from Gaohui Village, Lizhai Township, Zezhou County, Jincheng City, Shanxi Province, is the inheritor of the Shanxi Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Project "Dayang Paper-cutting".
Chinese paper-cutting has a long history and a long history. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zezhou paper-cutting has been fully integrated into the lives of the people, regardless of weddings and funerals. Zezhou paper-cutting can be divided into window flowers, lantern flowers, ceremonial flowers, dowry flowers, funeral flowers and other types. Before the Spring Festival, every household should paste "window flowers" on the window lattice.
As a kind of "art on the fingertips", when the paper slides over the fingertips, thousands of miles of rivers and mountains and everything in the world can be presented one by one.
How can you cut the dragon and the phoenix with a few knives? It feels amazing. Since he was seven or eight years old, Duan Xiaojun has been learning to cut window grilles with his grandmother and mother.
On old couplets, practice paper cutting; Pick up a cigarette shell and cut a phoenix peony; Pick a leaf and make a puppy and rabbit ......Spirituality, coupled with acquired understanding and practice, made Duan Xiaojun's paper-cutting road go farther and farther.
Duan Xiaojun's paper-cut works. Photo by Guo Minjie.
When he first took the paper-cut work to the Zezhou County Cultural Bureau, the staff asked him, "Can you cut 100 butterflies in a month?" Not the same? "Yes! Within 10 days, Duan Xiaojun cut 100 butterflies, single butterflies, double butterflies, and group butterflies, all of which were lifelike and ready to fly.
Paper-cutting is a thing that has to be quiet, and when the heart is calm, you can hear the sound of your hands. Duan Xiaojun enjoyed the sound of scissors moving freely on the paper. For more than 40 years, he considered it the most beautiful sound in the world.
In 2015, Duan Xiaojun spent half a year to create, and the 8-meter-long "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" slowly unfolded in front of the audience; In 2021, his work won the "First Prize" of the Top 100 Awards in the National "Fu Niu Yingchun" Paper-cutting Works Exhibition; In 2022, his work "Rural Revitalization" won the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Ingenuity" award of the 4th Jincheng Cultural and Creative Products Exhibition Competition.
Duan Xiaojun's paper-cut works created around the 28 star colored sculptures of the Jade Emperor Temple in Jincheng. Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
Horned wood Jiao, Kang Jin Dragon, Di Tu Raccoon, Fang Ri Rabbit ......Jincheng Jade Emperor Temple 28 star color sculpture works, known as "the only product in the sea". At the beginning of the new year, Duan Xiaojun's paper-cut works created around the 28 star colored sculptures of the Jade Emperor Temple in Jincheng were finally completed after more than three months.
Duan Xiaojun told reporters that he had always wanted to create around the 28 Nakshatra colored sculptures, hoping to skillfully integrate elements such as starry sky culture, myths and legends and intangible cultural heritage skills to create a series of cultural and creative products of the 28 Nakshatras.
There are foreign friends who come to customize the paper-cut works, and they especially like the zodiac works. Duan Xiaojun's paper-cut works have also been collected by tourists from France, Britain and other countries.
In order to allow more people to learn the art of paper-cutting, Duan Xiaojun often goes to the campus to enter the community and inherit the intangible cultural heritage skills.
When I was a child, I watched my grandmother and mother cut the window flowers and paste them on the window, which I thought was very beautiful. Such a beautiful and difficult skill was learned from Mr. Duan. Xin Ruxia, a student who had participated in the training of Duan Xiaojun's paper-cutting course, said that she hoped that this ancient skill could be passed on.
On Taihang Mountain, there are courtyards everywhere, and on the window lattices covered with paper-cuts, spring is full of joy. (ENDS).