“On Gong Bin’s right cheek are thin scars from when he deliberately cut his face in November 2014 because UNESCO had added Japanese handmade paper to its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. According to Gong Bin, that was a ‘day of humiliation for China.’ He cut the lines on his cheek not because he thought the Japanese didn’t deserve the honor, but because, in his words, ‘We lost face.'”
—Mark Kurlansky on Gong Bin, subject of the very short documentary, The Paperist.
Pairs with: The Art Behind Barichara’s All-Female Artisanal Paper Making