In the depths of war, few could afford the prints they made, so craftsmen used their precious wood blocks as walkways over the muddy, flooded ground.
Twenty years later, radical communists destroyed more of their work.
Now, in a brick courtyard in a narrow lane, a dozen people work to save the folk craft of Lunar New Year prints, the sole remnant of a 500-year tradition ravaged by decades of war and politics.
The images - known as 'annual prints' - are of fierce, sword-toting door guardians and fat, red-cheeked babies holding fish. Chinese put them on their doors to bring luck.
Tens of millions of the prints will be sold this year. Most will be machine printed and mass produced. Only 1,500 will be printed and painted by hand at the famed Yucheng Painting House in the town of Yangliuqing.
Huo Qingshun and his older sisters - the sixth generation of printmakers in their family - revived the Yucheng studio in 1980, when the Communist Party allowed private business to resume.
