Flipping a new toy story

Li Mei spent 12 years teaching English to children before deciding to take a completely different path.

Her father-in-law, a fourth-generation inheritor of fanlihua — a traditional Beijing paper toy that transforms with a flick of the wrist — was preparing to close his small workshop in eastern Shandong province.

The profits were thin. The work was exhausting. The craft, which had once been a familiar sight at Beijing's temple fairs, had all but faded from memory.

Yet, Li thought the toy deserved another chance, but she was not acting on impulse.

"I had been an English teacher for nearly 12 years," she says. "That career would always be there for me. If trying to revive fanlihua didn't work out, I could always go back."

So she decided to test the waters — bringing the craft back to Beijing, its place of origin, to see whether people still cared.

The answer came during the 2024 Spring Festival holiday at Beijing's Ditan Temple Fair.

Her tiny booth quickly drew crowds. Children squeezed through adults for a closer look. Elderly visitors pointed excitedly toward the colorful paper toys stacked behind the counter. Some customers bought them before even asking how they worked.

For hours, Li barely paused, repeating prices almost mechanically as her stock disappeared.

At Beijing's Ditan and Longtan temple fairs that year, Li's family earned between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan ($22,130−29,500) in just 15 days. What stayed with her, however, was not the sales figure.

"I realized that a toy many people assumed had faded into history could still spark such instant recognition and excitement," she says.

The response convinced her to leave teaching behind and devote herself to reviving the craft.

Two years later, she sees that moment in a different light. "It made me realize these traditions were never truly gone," she says. "People were simply waiting to rediscover them again in a new way."