What festival is Chinese paper-cut used for?

Chinese paper-cut is used in Tomb-Sweeping Day's sacrificial activities.

Tomb-Sweeping Day is a traditional festival in China, and it is also one of the most important festivals to worship ancestors and sweep graves. People often cut flowers and paper money to offer sacrifices to the dead. The records in Dong Liu's A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of Mingdu illustrate the important role of paper-cutting in sacrifice.

Characteristics of Chinese paper-cutting

Paper-cutting is a folk art form with a long history and wide spread in China. The emergence and spread of this folk art is closely related to the festival customs in China. On holidays, people will stick beautiful and bright paper-cuts on snow-white walls or bright glass windows, doors and lanterns. The festive atmosphere is very festive.

Paper-cutting has a lot of contents and a wide range of meanings, such as dolls, gourds, lotus flowers and other patterns symbolizing many children and many blessings; Poultry, livestock, melons, fruits, fish and insects are closely related to life and are also important contents of paper-cutting performance.

Paper-cutting, as a folk art, has strong regional characteristics: Shaanxi window grillage style is simple and unrestrained; Hebei and Shanxi paper-cuts, beautiful and gorgeous; Yixing paper-cut is gorgeous and neat; Nantong paper-cut is beautiful and exquisite and so on. Although paper-cutting is simple in making and modeling, it is the condensation and exaggeration of many folk art forms in China because it can fully reflect the connotation of people's life and has strong folk characteristics.