Material: Chinese raw rice paper

Time: 2017.03

Size: 6 X 6''

Pattern Meaning and Story of Butterfly
in Chinese Paper Cutting and Culture

Butterfly has lot of meanings in Chinese paper-cutting. First, the pronunciation of butterfly (蝴蝶 hú díe) in Chinese is very close to the Chinese words "福叠 fú díe", which means double luck, happiness, and blessing. 

The Butterfly and the Chinese Philosopher

There is also a well-known story about butterfly and the famous philosopher, Chuang Tzu, in China. Once Chuang dreamed he became a butterfly, and he was dancing happily around the blooming flowers. He work up suddenly and didn’t know what happened. After a while, he realized that he was a human being. Then, Chuang started wondering who was the real he: a human being or a butterfly? Which was the reality: is it a human being that dreamed of becoming a butterfly or is it a butterfly still dreaming of becoming a human being? 

The Butterfly Lovers

It is a romantic story that happened in ancient China. The story is also known as Liang Zhu (梁祝). The story talks about Zhu, as a woman who were discouraged to go to school at that time, persuaded her parents and disguised as a man to attend school. She met Liang at the school, and they fell in love with each other. However, Zhu's family arranged her to marry to another man, who were rich and had a higher social class. The news about Zhu was going to marry to another man made Liang heartbroken, and he was suffered from depression and became seriously ill, and he passed away. After Zhu got the news of Liang's death, she went to Liang's grave. Suddenly, a crack was opened in Liang's grave. Zhu jumped into it without any hesitation. After a while, people see two butterflies came out of the grave.

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