"You know Ku Shulan [another famous Chinese paper cut master] is dead and has nothing left behind her. I'm not going to be like that," Gao noted, adding, "I will not put down the scissors in my hand until the day I am too weak to hold them."

To pass down her skills, Gao also motivates her daughter Liu and two granddaughters to learn the folk handicraft. Liu's works have already gained a reputation and been collected by many museums and art galleries.

"Liu's works are something different from her mother's as Liu has added more modern life elements into her works," said Feng Shanyun, a local cadre in charge of cultural affairs in Yanchuan County.

Preservation efforts

In the Yanchuan County whose population is under 200,000, there are more than 10.000 who know how to make paper cuts. This is an astonishing figure but some experts do not think the large number of folk artists makes a difference.

"Paper cutting as a folk art form is closely associated with the farm lifestyle. It is more fragile than the art that is somehow independent from social soils. Folk arts, though popular, tend to pass out of existence unconsciously," said Jin Zhilin, a researcher on folk arts in northwestern Shaanxi Province. "It is even harder to rescue and protect intangible heritage than tangible cultural heritage," he added.

Like other cultural relics in China, intangible culture now faces great challenges posed by economic globalization and urbanization. "Intangible culture runs in our blood, and it is this culture that distinguishes us from other peoples in the world. We can never afford to let the construction of modern society ruin our unique treasures," said Tian Qing, Director of the Beijing-based Intangible Culture Heritage Research Center.

But it is a cheering fact that not only the artists themselves are trying to preserve the traditional treasures but also the many experts, cultural officials and more ordinary people who are interested in and enthusiastic about folk arts.

In the meantime, the country has also given more attention to its slowly draining traditions.

The government in 2006 announced a list of 518 items of state-level intangible cultural heritage and 1,080 newly named key cultural relic sites under state protection.

"The number of such sites named this time is very close to the total number of those named the previous five times since 1961," said Shan Jixiang, head of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

Various means should be used to permanently preserve intangible heritage and to transfer it to a tangible one. On the other hand, efforts should be made to maintain a tradition's vitality by creating all conditions within the community to encourage passing it down from generation to generation, some culture heritage researchers have suggested.

China has established over 30 regulations based on the law of cultural relics protection. A law on intangible cultural relics protection is also on the drafting schedule of China's top legislature.

China has joined four international conventions concerning cultural heritage protection and investment in cultural heritage protection has also increased, said Sun Jiazheng, the Culture Minister of China.

According to Feng, funds and preferential policies are needed for the survival of folk arts and to encourage juveniles to be engaged in the arts. He listed a few ways to boost the juvenile participation in folk arts, such as through government payments to folk artists for guiding the youth, or the teaching of folk arts in schools as part of there curriculum. What counts most is to create an atmosphere, he added.