Quick Answer: What Is Fuyang Bamboo Paper?
Fuyang bamboo paper (富阳竹纸, Fùyáng zhúzhǐ) is handmade paper from the Fuyang area of Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Makers prepare young bamboo as pulp and lift a thin layer of fibers from water on a screen. Yuanshu is a named type of Fuyang bamboo paper used for writing and other brushwork. [1][2][3][5]
- Fiber: The soft inner bamboo is processed into pulp.
- Screen: A local rocking motion spreads the pulp while the water drains.
- Finish: Wet sheets are pressed, separated and dried. [1][2][3][5]
The bamboo in the pulp supplies the fibers. The bamboo in the screen helps form the sheet.
At the vat, a papermaker holds a shallow rectangle with both hands. As it tips and rises, water moves across the screen and drains, leaving a layer of fibers. The thin surface starts to look like paper only at the end of a long sequence that began with young bamboo.
How Bamboo Becomes Pulp
At the Yiguzhai workshop in Datong Village, Zhu Qiyang described selecting young bamboo with the sheaths still on for a high grade of Yuanshu. The bamboo is cut and the outer green layer pared away. Lime treatment is one stage. The account describes a pause before cooking and further processing, so collecting bamboo and forming sheets happen at different points in the work. [2]
Cooking, rinsing and further conditioning the material come before pounding it into pulp. Those stages loosen the bamboo so the fibers can spread in water. The resulting pulp can be stirred into water. At the vat, the fibers need to move freely enough to spread over the whole screen. [1][2][3]
The Motion That Forms the Sheet
The national heritage entry names dànglián dǎlàng (荡帘打浪), a way of rocking the screen to create a wave. A Fuyang demonstration recorded by Zhejiang University of Science and Technology shows why the movement matters. The maker dips the framed screen, then rocks it to move the pulp across the surface. When the frame rises steadily, water escapes while the fibers settle in a more even layer. [1][3]
The screen drains water but catches the fibers. The new sheet can be transferred to a stack of wet sheets, which is pressed to remove more water. The separate sheets are then dried. A Fuyang workshop account describes heat drying, and a 2026 competition report records makers brushing sheets flat in a drying room. [2][5]
Yuanshu Paper and the Sizhou Workshop Site
Yuanshu (元书纸, yuánshūzhǐ) is the pale bamboo paper that Zhu’s workshop makes for brushwork. Paper, brush, ink and inkstone are the four treasures of the study. In that setting, the writer notices how the sheet takes a brush mark and how much the ink spreads. The national entry records other Fuyang papers, including Wujin paper. A workshop account describes Wujin as a tough paper placed between pieces of metal as they were hammered into foil. [1][2][5]
At Sizhou in Fuyang, archaeologists found soaking pools, drying areas and rooms identified with sheet forming and heat drying. The Hangzhou cultural relics bureau dates much of the exposed workshop to the Southern Song and notes that bricks dated 996 and 1009 may point to an earlier Northern Song phase. At the site, soaking, sheet forming and drying occupied different spaces. [4]
How Fuyang Papermakers Teach the Craft
Zhu returned to Fuyang in 2017 to learn with his father Zhu Zhonghua and other papermakers. The family’s workshop supplied bamboo paper for pages in the thread-bound programs for the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023. Their destination was the printed inner pages, where the paper needed to serve the book as well as carry ink. [2]
At the 2026 Fuchun Bamboo Paper competition in Datong Village, papermakers and nine students in a local training class took part. The event assessed sheet-forming and drying separately. Judges looked at measures such as evenness and the proportion of usable sheets. Those measures let them compare results after the screens and brushes were set aside. [5]
FAQs About Fuyang Bamboo Paper
Is all Fuyang bamboo paper called Yuanshu?
Yuanshu is one named kind of Fuyang bamboo paper. Local makers have also made types such as Wujin, documented for its use in metal-foil work. [1][2]
Does the bamboo screen become part of the sheet?
The screen is a tool. Pulp fibers settle on it and form the wet sheet. The screen releases the paper for pressing and drying, and can then be used again. [2][3]
When was Fuyang bamboo papermaking nationally listed?
The Fuyang bamboo papermaking project entered China’s first national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006. [1]
Sources
[1] China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network. Bamboo Paper-Making Techniques
[2] Li Rui and Li Xiaopeng, Zhejiang Daily. Zhu Qiyang and Fuyang Yuanshu Paper
[3] Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. Learning Fuyang Intangible Heritage
[4] Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Cultural Relics. The Sizhou Papermaking Workshop Site
[5] Luo Binghao, Hangzhou Daily. Fuchun Bamboo Paper Skills Competition