Paper-Cutting (Helinge'er Paper-Cutting)

Paper-cutting of Helinge'er is practised in Helinge'er County of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, born of the meeting and mutual shaping of the northern steppe herding culture and the central plains farming culture, one of the most representative paper-cutting survivals in China's minority regions; it is listed on the national ICH register under traditional arts, with Duan Jianjun among its representative inheritors.

Helinge'er paper-cutting is fresh and unadorned, bold and free, its subjects drawn largely from steppe herding life and ancient custom — herding, hunting, the Cham dance, the tree of life — executed in the old vigorous positive-and-negative technique and woven into every corner of farming and herding life, bearing deep folkloric and ethnological value.

Helinge'er paper-cutting vividly reflects the long meeting and mingling of the northern peoples, offering important material for the study of how steppe and central-plains cultures interacted, and still nourishes contemporary paper-cutting art.