Chinese Paper Cutting

03 March, 2010 by Yan

I had the good fortune to acquire these 2 very beautiful paper cuttings during the River Hong Bao event. The bigger frame paper cutting shows a dragon cruising through the clouds while the smaller frame paper cutting shows a rising fish. The dragon symbolizes Chinese people as a whole, since we often uses the term “Descendants of the Dragon” as a sign of ethnic identity. The rising fish symbolizes the meaning “abundance increase” which has the same effect as Yusheng, to bring an abundance in wealth in the coming year.

Directly translated, it means China Paper Cutting.

These 2 Paper Cuttings cost me a total of 50 dollars. Before you actually complain how expensive it is to buy 2 thin red papers for 50 dollars, I would like to share with you that the dragon cutting took the master 6 hours to complete.

At the start, I really had no intention to buy the dragon cutting. The master was skillfully cutting the fish cutting in front of my very eyes. “A small cutting will do, for a memorial”, I thought. But then the master took out some bigger cuttings he had previously did and stated, “If you buy the big ones, I’ll give away the small ones for free”. With that, I cruised through the cuttings of Chinese maidens, Phoenixes, Chinese characters and a few other very interesting stuff until I locked on my eyes on the dragon. The level of detail on the dragon cutting is staggering. I even tried flipping the dragon on different angles to find torn parts and creases, and I’m happy to say I found none.

The amazing thing is all his works were cut with a huge scissors.

Would you believe me if I said that the master cut this in 2 mins?

“This dragon took me 6 hours to complete. All the bigger cuttings you see here are one of its kind, I wont cut another exact same cutting again. You can compare my cuttings with another master opposite my stall, mine is more superior”. Words from the master.

Eventually after a careful comparison between both stalls, I acquired the dragon and fish paper cutting. Now, the dragon paper cutting sits in the living room while the fish cutting sits comfortably on my table.