When we were walking through Qingyang recently, a town not far from Anhai, we passed a man sitting on a small chair on the sidewalk making birds, butterflies, dragons and other creatures from strips of bamboo leaves, and attaching a “leash” to each so kids could carry them around.

We ended up with a butterfly and a bird–allegedly a phoenix–but only the bird survived the trip back to Anhai. The butterfly sadly met its demise when someone sat on it on the way home.