Mianzhu is one of the many Sichuan cities rising from the ashes. Some 20,000 residents were killed in the May earthquake and half of the remaining 500,000 people still live in tents. The cost of human life is unimaginable. How does a community recover when husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters are lost forever? People are now picking up the pieces of their shattered lives and some locals are turning to an age-old printing craft to help them recover.

Mianzhu is a famous center of lunar New Year block prints, a tradition that dates back 2,000 years. These prints are still popular in rural areas during the Spring Festival and depict harvests, fat rosy-cheeked babies holding fish and door guardians. They express good wishes for the coming New Year.

After the quake, print artist Zhong Ying, 23, and a few dozen women in Penghua village set up the Zhongcheng Lunar New Year Print Studio and got to work. "Zhongcheng means 'united as one'," says Zhong, who is the head of the studio.

"We want to learn how to do prints to make money and bring ourselves out of the economic plight brought about by the quake," says He Chunrong, one of Zhong's students.

A month ago, Wanke, a Shenzhen-based real estate development firm, ordered 100 silk embroidered pieces each with an image of a door guardian and the name of a volunteer.

"Wanke will send these as patches to 100 volunteers who are involved in earthquake relief," Zhong says.

"Before the quake, it cost between 20 ($2.9) and 30 yuan to do a piece. To assist us in post-quake reconstruction, the company has offered us 60 yuan for each piece," she says.

Reconstruction is also on the mind of Hu Guangkui, 45, the curator of the Mianzhu museum, which was also damaged in the quake.

Hu and his museum staff work in a small makeshift office in the backyard of the museum, which is filled with tents. They cook their meals in the one-room office.

But images of death and destruction still haunt the manager.

"I can only sleep between three and five hours each night because I think about the horrible images I have seen," he says.

Hu is also concerned about the museum but says the city is mapping out its reconstruction.

"Nobody knows whether it will be built at the original site or somewhere else or when the reconstruction will start," Hu adds. "Prices have risen since the museum was built in 1995 and 10 million yuan is only enough to build the frame of the building now. The Ministry of Culture has allocated 30 million yuan for the reconstruction of museums in Sichuan. I learned our museum and the Qiang cultural museum in Beichuan county will be beneficiaries but I do not know when our museum will get the money and how much it will get."

Fortunately, most exhibits in the museum survived and are now kept in a warehouse. They include the best-known woodcut print Ushering in Spring made by master artist Huang Ruihong (1865-1938). The print depicts 460 people, including officials, farmers pushing carts and women with fish bought from the market participating in the Spring Festival.

Huang made the print during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) for Huang Gaozi, a local dye merchant. Huang Gaozi later sent the print to his accountant Zhou.

Years later in 1979, Zhou's son sent it to the Sichuan Academy of Art in Chongqing to see if a buyer could be found for it. But New Year prints were not popular and considered a clich at that time.

Hou Shiwu, the 69-year-old former curator of the Mianzhu museum was studying at the academy at the time. When he learned of the story of the Huang Ruihong print, he bought it for 80 yuan. Today it is priceless.

Mianzhu finished construction of a lunar New Year block print center in Shejiantai village, where Chen Xingcai lives along with 30 other printmakers.

Fortunately, they emerged unscathed from the quake and continue to produce prints.

Chen, 89, learned the craft when he was a boy. He has been named a master lunar New Year printmaker by the Ministry of Culture and is one of 200 local folk artists in Mianzhu who make the prints. The Ministry also named 78-year-old Li Fangfu a print master.

Li's house in Kongxing village collapsed in the quake but he and his wife, Yu Bangzhen, were unhurt. At his shop near the museum, Li makes prints four to five hours a day.

He specializes in prints of door guardians and famous ancient beauties, which are sold for prices ranging from 10 to 500 yuan.

According to Chen, there are four steps to making a print. First, an outline of a picture is drawn by pencil on a piece of paper. Next, the picture is fastened to a wooden board so that the engraver can make a printing block. The engraved outline is darkened with ink and a print is made on white paper. And finally the image outline on the white paper is colored in by hand.

During the coloring process, an artist can make full use of his creativity, so the same print can vary in color. This color change is what distinguishes the Mianzhu School from other lunar New Year print schools, Chen said.

Mianzhu lunar New Year prints made their debut during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-1911) and reached a peak in development in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties.

During this boom period, some 1,000 artists in 300 workshops produced 10 million prints every year. The prints were sold both domestically and in Southeast Asia mbt shoes.

When print production resumed in 1980 after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), business began to thrive again. Nearly 1 million prints were sold in 1980, Hou said.

However, times have changed and since 1990, less than 80,000 have been sold mbt shoes.

Many young farmers have built new houses and are no longer interested in traditional decorations. Machine-produced prints are also cheaper than those made by hand mbt shoes.

Hou said it was unrealistic to expect the prints to regain their former popularity but as a cultural heritage, they must be preserved just like Peking Opera mbt shoes.

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