Six paper-cut makers in northwest China's Shaanxi Province were recently bestowed the title of folk paper-cut artists by China's Ministry of Culture and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

They are all female farmers and cultivate ardent love for paper-cutting since childhood.

Bai Fenglian, 70, decorated her home with a variety of paper-cut works. She said she had demonstrated paper-cuting in France and the United States respectively in 1994 and 1995. Her works are on show at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the China Fine Arts Gallery.

Her hometown Ansai County, known as the "land of paper-cut," has played host to more than 100,000 paper-cut lovers and visitors from over 30 countries and regions in recent years.

The distinctive paper-cut technology in northern Shaanxi has applied for the world intangible cultural heritage.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2002)