Tucked inside a quiet courtyard in Beijing's Dongcheng district, Mr Chu Studio feels less like a shop than a small archive of handmade paper.
Its walls are lined with sheets from different parts of China, in shades of cream, pale yellow, earthy brown and deep blue. They are made from bamboo, cotton and other plant fibers, some sourced from remote mountain regions. Their textures vary widely: some feel coarse and fibrous, while others are almost silky to the touch.
Beside each carefully mounted sample is a small label identifying the paper and noting its origin. Among them are mulberry-bark paper, porcelain-blue paper and Dongba paper, traditionally used by the Naxi people.
For Cui Zhenshuo, who co-founded the studio with Yang Bo in 2019, this variety reflects what first drew him to traditional handmade paper: no two kinds are quite the same.
Before opening the space, Cui and Yang, both born in the 1980s, worked together at a papermaking company. In 2018, as business conditions in the sector became more challenging, Cui began looking beyond it and came across traditional handmade paper.
He soon noticed that every artisan had a distinctive way of working, and even subtle differences in technique could leave a visible signature on the finished sheet — making it thicker or thinner, rougher or smoother, lighter or darker.
"They may soak the bark for different lengths of time, pound the fibers harder or softer, or dry the finished sheets in the sun or shade," he explained.
Wanting to understand the craft more deeply, Cui and Yang set out in search of handmade paper. Over the past few years, they have visited dozens of workshops across 20 regions, including the Xizang autonomous region and Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.
"China boasts a rich array of handmade papers, each with a texture shaped by its birthplace," Cui said. "For example, handmade paper traditionally made by the Dai ethnic group uses mulberry bark, while Zeya bamboo paper from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, is made from bamboo that grows abundantly in the area."
The differences go beyond raw materials.
In Xizang, for instance, paper was traditionally made largely for printing Buddhist scriptures rather than for everyday writing or painting. As a result, it needed to be thick and durable and was often made from naturally insect-repellent plant fibers, helping it last for generations.
The visits also made the need for preservation more tangible to Cui. In many remote villages, he saw how fragile those traditions had become. Many workshops were small family operations deep in the mountains, bringing in meager incomes, while younger generations were often reluctant to stay and take up the craft.
One encounter in Xizang stood out. There, Cui met a retired cultural worker who had spent years trying to revive a type of paper that had disappeared.
Made from the high-altitude shrub Daphne longilobata, the paper was no longer produced after knowledge of the traditional process was lost. Working with university researchers, the man tracked down the wild plant and painstakingly reconstructed the technique.
For Cui, the visit reinforced a conviction that grew stronger with every trip: traditional handmade paper did not necessarily need to be radically redesigned to remain relevant.
"The paper itself is already good enough. We just need to let more people see it and understand it," he said, adding that this is what "cultural confidence" means to him.
That belief shaped Mr Chu Studio.
Rather than treating handmade paper only as a material for calligraphy, painting or preservation, Cui and Yang have turned it into lamps, earrings, refrigerator magnets and notebooks, giving designers and young urban consumers more opportunities to experience the material in everyday life.
Cui's approach reflects a broader trend among young Chinese creators. They are opening spaces centered on intangible cultural heritage, bringing traditional crafts out of museum cases and remote villages and into modern life.
