Chinese are world-renowned for their handicraft. In China, little boys and girls are taught by their elders to use their hands.

Even at an early age those chubby hands with their tiny, nimble fingers, are busily engaged in making paper toys such as boats,
boxes, hats, and birds, for themselves and their playmates.

This paper-folding art, as we call it in China, is done with only a single sheet of paper and your hands, without any pasting together or the use of scissors. It is the most interesting, inexpen- sive, and useful art for children and grownups. It gives endless joy to youngsters and also to invalids confined to the narrow
limits of a home or hospital. It can be most advantageously used as therapy for patients with paralyzed hands endeavoring to re- gain their dexterity.

When I was a little girl my mother taught me, as her mother had taught her, how to make toys with paper. I used to spend many rainy days trying to create new objects that neither my mother nor my grandmother knew how to make. I was so proud of myself!

Of course, this was a long time ago. Now I have a little girl of my own. She loves all the things I teach her to make, especially the multicolored ones that we make together for her birthday and Christmas parties. Her little friends, and their parents, all enjoy them as much as we do. They come back time and again to get me to show them how to do the paper objects. Their eagerness and deep interest have prompted me to put my paper in a book.

I hope that my American friends, especially the Junior Americans, will find great interest and enjoyment in the art of paper folding.

MAYING SOONG

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