Precision and spontaneity

Aesthetic sophistication — it's in that indefinable, even unfathomable, concept that Xu's ultimate challenge lies. "It's all there in the lines and in each and every turn — some rather abrupt, some so gentle that they are hardly perceptible — that the lines took," says Xu, celebrated today as one of the country's best makers of folding fan ribs.

"As long as you get graceful lines, you get graceful forms."

That gracefulness is best appreciated when a folding fan is folded, with two pieces of bamboo slips holding the entire fan together. As these two pieces taper down from top to bottom, they follow distinct curves in designs named beautifully and evocatively — "the shoulder of a beauty", for example.