This project includes three paper-cuts based on three Chinese fairy stories which from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Pu Sung-ling (BC1636-1912): The Singing Frogs, The Sea-serpent and The Performing Mice.
Three paper-cuts are produced in black color as well as the colorful backgrounds.
Tools: scissors, scalpel, paperboard.

Story: WANG TZU-SUN told me that when he was at the capital he saw a man in the street who gave the following performance:—He had a wooden box, divided by partitions into twelve holes, in each of which was a frog; and whenever he tapped any one of these frogs on the head with a tiny wand, the frog so touched would immediately begin to sing. Someone gave him a piece of silver, and then he tapped the frogs all round, just as if he was striking a gong; whereupon they all sang together, with their Do, Ré, Mi, Fa, in perfect time and harmony.

Story: A trader named Chia was voyaging on the south seas, when one night it suddenly became as light as day on board his ship. Jumping up to see what was the matter, he beheld a huge creature with its body half out of the water, towering up like a hill. Its eyes resembled two suns, and threw a light far and wide; and when the trader asked the boatmen what it was, there was not one who could say. They all crouched down and watched it; and by-and-by the monster gradually disappeared in the water again, leaving everything in darkness as before. And when they reached port, they found all the people talking about a strange phenomenon of a great light that had appeared in the night, the time of which coincided exactly with the strange scene they themselves had witnessed.

Story: MR. WANG also told me that there was a man at Ch’ang-an who made his living by exhibiting performing mice. He had a pouch on his back in which he kept some ten of these little animals; and whenever he got among a number of people he would fix a little frame on his back, exactly resembling a stage. Then beating a drum he would sing some old theatrical melody, at the first sounds of which the mice would issue forth from the pouch, and then, with masks on their faces, and arrayed in various costumes, they would climb up his back on to the stage; where, standing on their hind-legs, they would go through a performance portraying the various emotions of joy and anger, exactly like human actors of either sexual.