Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Xu Shuquan is a retired elementary school teacher in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. He has dedicated his life for the past 60 years to fold a paper plane.
Xu, 70, now has a collection of 10,000 aircraft in a variety of sizes, colors and shapes. In addition, he also makes a variety of paper dolls and models of the 12 zodiac. Interestingly, Xu does not use conventional practices when creating a paper toy. He uses ancient origami techniques which are very complicated, like the art of folding is called Zhezhi to create different models of aircraft - from jumbo jets to fighter aircraft.
According to Xu, Zhezhi is the art of paper folding in ancient Chinese culture that existed before the Japanese origami appear. This technique is traditionally used to make sculptures of boats and carts, and even fake gold nuggets were burned at the funeral for the dead - which is believed to be taken in the afterlife.
"The art of our craft origami has been defeated by the West and I would be very happy if it could be the person who brought him back," said Xu.
Xu biggest hope right now is to hold the exhibition itself, where all people can learn more about this traditional art.
