Chinese Paper Cut-Outs

Paper Cut-Outs are a traditional Chinese art form. They are typically made and and placed around the house for Spring Festival which is around Chinese New Year and for Weddings.  It is believed that they bring good luck.

The ones here are made out of rice paper and are very fragile. There is a Chinese Horoscope one and the rest are masks from the Beijing Opera. The later ones are hand painted in water colours and you will see that there is slight colour runs on a couple of them due to the high humidity here.

They are all hand made and very intricate. The Beijing Opera ones are scanned from a book I bought here sometime ago and are placed behind plastic sheets on each page to hold them in place.

Chinese Horoscope Each of the 12 divisions has a specific animal, the inner circle has the Chinese charachter for tha animal. This was given to me as a gift from one of my students from my previous school.	Butterfly Mask - Zhang Fei This character is a bad tempered one, but optimistic and brave.	Jiao Zan - Bird Character	Meng Liang A General	Bao Zheng This character wears the cap of the Prime Minister.
Li Kui A Brave and Rash Hero	Niu Gao A character of wit and wisdom	Dou Erdun A rebel	Monkey King