Annie Katsura Rollins sent many more wonderful images than we could use in her article: " The Inheritance of Shadows." We are happy to be able to include more of her pictures here. - Editors


"Upon my recent research trip to Tangshan, China, I was welcomed as an apprentice by Master Lu and his family who are still practicing the craft of shadow puppet making all by hand. Tangshan is a third-tier city that lies directly east of Beijing about 150 kilometers. Not far beyond the city limits are farmlands that are still being farmed the ways they've done it for hundreds of years. There are no machines there. The Lu family household sits in the outskirts of Tangshan proper, among a small row of single-level brick homes. The majority of their small home and courtyard is centered around the shadow puppet making process. For Master Lu, the patriarch of the family, what started as a simple countryside school activity became his life's ambition. When he married Yishu, she was folded into the puppet painting process. While other rural families are processing cotton or spices in their downtime, the Lu's have been perfecting every step of the multi-layered process for hand making Tangshan-style shadow puppets." - Annie Katsura Rollins