Women in the rural area along the Yellow River reaches making floury flower "cold swallow" on the Pure Brightness Day.   Women of Bai ethnic group working on wax printing.   Design of wax printing.       Rural female paper-cut expert Ku Shulan cutting window decoration flower in her residence cave.

    In old China, rural women did not have any social status. This grandmother in Yuan Shui Quan of northern Shaanxi did not even have a name of her own. People referred her with her daughter-in-law's name Yan Xifang. She lived to 81 years of age and died in 1997. In her last days, leaning against her daughter-in-law, she managed to change all the window and door decorations in the cave with new paper-cuts she made. Large horizontal border flowers were along the wall above the brick bed; black kitchen range was decorated with beautiful egg shells. Before she died, she handed over to her daughter-in-law a stack of original paper-cut patterns and said," I have nothing to leave you. I have loved cutting out window flowers all my life. It is my last wish to leave these patterns for you to keep." There are similar stories in other families too. They are the true folk artists.

    There are many female laborer artists in the rural areas. In 1970 when I was working in Yan'an Cultural Center in northern Shaanxi, we conducted a survey on cultural art in 13 counties and cities. Take Ansai County for example where we went through every single household, among a population of 50,000, over half were female; and 20,000 of them were in the age group that could make paper-cut, embroidery, or floury flower. Some 5000 were considered capable hand and 250 were outstanding. We selected 40 as excellent candidates and called them the "seeded players." (it was at the time of U.S.-China ping-pong diplomacy. Seeded players were selected for ping-pong match) Only two out of 40 were under age 40. Later in 1980, in my nationwide research of rural culture, I had similar statistics in other parts of the country.

    Those elderly women are owners of the authoritative folk art, folk customs. With a pair of scissors in hand, they are experts in paper-cutting; picking up a needle and thread, they are excellent in embroidery work; they are also superb cooks in making floury flowers, and they can draw too. They are good housewives at home, and capable hands in farm fields. As the folk saying goes, "A capable hand in one thing is capable in all." At age 4 or 5, they started to learn paper-cutting from their mothers, and practiced for decades till senior age, laying solid foundations in art image styling; at young age they learnt embroidery skills from their mothers and made embroidery undergarment, pillow case, shoe soles, cigarette bags, needle holders, and developed deep-seated appreciation for coloring; they knead floury flowers, jujubes mountains at Chinese New Year and cold swallow on the Pure Brightness Festival, year after year, well trained on three-dimensional art styling. Through a lifetime practice, they are well versed in traditional art patterns which have been passed down for centuries. Every year on Chinese New Year, they make new paper- cut for window and cave decoration; help make ball flowers and corner flowers to decorate the bridal room on wedding occasions; cook floury flowers on various festivals and embroider under- garment for their husbands, pillow case or shoes for them- selves, and tiger series clothes and shoes for kids. At the beginning of the year, paper-cut "Hand-in- hand sun flower seed dolls" on the door lintel to keep vicious spirits away; and on consecutive raining days, the lady with a broom to sweep away the clouds posted in the yard; are all out of their capable hands. They are fully entitled to a group of well accomplished folk artists.