Jiating ji richang yong zhi tanyuan.

Paper has always been a cheap and convenient substitute for more expensive materials or clumsy objects which are useful for other purposes and it is sometimes suitable for uses in which no better materials will serve. Today, paper and paper products have hundreds of uses in communication, business, industry, and household operations, as they are found everywhere in daffy life. Many of these uses can be traced back to centuries ago when paper was used as extensively and variously in China as it is elsewhere in the world during the modern times. Generally speaking, paper was used for wrapping and padding not long after its invention in the Western Han; for writing from the Later Hart; for cutting into designs, making stationery, fans, and umbrellas from the third or fourth century; for clothing, furnishing, visiting cards, kites, lanterns, napkins, and toilet purposes no later than the fifth or sixth century; for family ceremonies in the seventh; for state sacrifices and making replicas of real objects from the eighth; and for playing cards, for wearing as protective arms, and in lieu of cash as a medium of exchange from the ninth century. In other words, all these uses for graphic and decorative arts, for commercial and ceremonial occasions, and for household and recreational purposes existed in China before paper was introduced to the West in the ninth century. While the use of paper in writing, printing, stationery and decoration is discussed in a separate article, this study traces the origin and development of the popular and household use of paper and paper products as recorded in literature or found in recent discoveries of early specimens and artifacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]