Xinjiang Mulberry Paper (Sangpi): Watching a 400-Year Craft in Moyu

In a courtyard house in Moyu county, about 40 km west of Hotan, I watched a man named Turghun peel the bark off a mulberry branch, boil it, pound it into a wet pulp, and press it onto a wooden frame to dry into a sheet of paper. The whole process took him under an hour, and the sheet that came off the frame was the same kind of paper Uyghur calligraphers and muqam musicians have used for four hundred years. This is sangpi zhi , Xinjiang mulberry paper, and it is one of the few UNESCO-listed crafts you can still see made by hand on a southern Xinjiang road trip.

Most travelers blow past Moyu on the Hotan-Kashgar run. That is a mistake. The mulberry paper workshops are a quiet, genuinely old stop, and they fit neatly between the jade markets and the knife towns if you are building a crafts loop through the south.

What Mulberry Paper Is

Sangpi zhi is paper made from the inner bark of the black mulberry tree . The bark is soaked, steamed, beaten, and floated into a mould, then dried in the sun. The result is a tough, slightly uneven, cream-colored sheet that resists insects and humidity better than wood-pulp paper. That durability is why it survived for centuries in the dry Tarim basin, where it was used for koran copies, official documents, and the long scrolls of Uyghur muqam notation.

In 2006 the craft was listed as national intangible cultural heritage, and UNESCO later recognized the broader tradition. Fewer than a dozen families in Moyu still make it full time. The one I visited, the Turghun family workshop, has been at it for three generations.

Why mulberry, why here

The south Tarim was, and still is, mulberry country. The trees line the oasis roads because their leaves feed silkworms and their fruit feeds everyone else. Abandoned bark that would rot became paper, a neat loop that made the craft local and cheap. You will see the same trees shading the Moyu county roads the moment you turn off the G315.

The Making, Step by Step

I timed the workshop visit for the morning, when the light is best through the courtyard. The steps:

• Strip the bark from cut mulberry branches and scrape off the dark outer layer.
• Boil the pale inner bark for about an hour with a little soda ash until it softens.
• Pound it cold with a wooden mallet into a fibrous pulp, then beat it in a stone trough.
• Float the pulp onto a flat bamboo-and-wood frame and shake it level.
• Sun-dry the sheet on the frame for an hour, then peel it off as a finished page.

The frame is the clever bit. It is a shallow wooden tray with a fine grass mesh, and the paper-maker rocks it with a wrist motion that looks like nothing until you try and realize the sheet comes out lumpy. A good sheet sells for ¥20 to ¥60 depending on size and finish. The thinner “calligraphy” grade is the one collectors want.

Where to See It on a Road Trip

Moyu (also called Karakax) is the heart of it. From Hotan city it is a straight 40 km run west on the G315, about 45 minutes, and the workshops sit in the old neighborhoods just off the main drag. Ask at your hotel for “sangpi zhi fang” and someone will point you to a working courtyard. Some are set up for visitors with a small display and a bench where you can try pounding the pulp yourself.

The Hotan travel guide has the city base, fuel, and the jade-market context that makes a crafts day make sense. I paired the paper stop with the Yengisar knife town to the north and the Atlas silk and Dolan bag workshops for a full southern-handicraft loop in two days.

Pair it with the wider craft trail

Mulberry paper is one thread in a larger southern Xinjiang craft belt: Atlas silk weaving in the Ili and Hotan oasis, Uyghur knife forging in Yengisar, and Dolan woven bags and reed instruments around Awat and Makit. The Makit Dolan culture guide explains the music and weaving side if you want to go deeper than the roadside stalls.

Buying Without Getting Burned

Real sangpi paper has deckle edges, visible fibers, and a faint plant smell. Machine-made “mulberry paper” from elsewhere in Asia is smoother and uniform, and it is what you will find in most bazaar stacks. Pay at the workshop, not the reseller, and ask the maker to sign the back if you care about provenance. I bought six sheets for ¥120 and watched the man sign each one with a brush, which turned a souvenir into a record.

Cash rules in Moyu. The workshops rarely take foreign cards, and even Alipay can stall on a rural network. Carry ¥200 in small bills and you will be fine.

Best Time to Visit the Workshops

The courtyards work year round, but spring and autumn are easiest. In summer the midday heat drives the drying indoors and the demonstration slows; in winter the pulp freezes and some family workshops close for a month. I went in late September and the light through the courtyard was perfect for photos, and the pomegranates in the lane were ripe enough that the maker’s wife pressed one into my hand on the way out.

Why It Matters for a Traveler

You can buy paper anywhere. What you cannot buy elsewhere is the chance to stand in a four-hundred-year-old craft while the person doing it explains, in broken Mandarin and patient gestures, why the bark has to be stripped in spring. Xinjiang’s famous sights are the lakes and the passes. The quiet crafts like mulberry paper are where the place actually speaks, and they cost you an afternoon and a tank of fuel to reach.

If your southern loop feels like a list of markets and mosques, add Moyu. The paper will outlast the trip, and so will the memory of the courtyard.

What the Paper Is Actually Used For

The jam is not the only thing the bark becomes. The same sangpi sheets carry Uyghur calligraphy, the long notation scrolls of the muqam song cycles, and the certificates pinned in village mosques. I saw a calligrapher in Moyu lay a fresh sheet and write a verse in a single fluid pass, the ink sitting on the rough surface in a way printer paper never allows. That tooth, the slight unevenness, is why masters still ask for sangpi over machine stock. It is a craft feeding a craft.

A Walk Through the Moyu Lanes

After the workshop, walk the lanes behind the main road. The mulberry trees arch over the irrigation ditches, the village bakery sells flat bread stacked like coins, and old men play dutar under the shade. I spent an hour just walking and the only tourist was me. The Dolan culture guide describes a similar calm in the reed-country to the east, and the two together make a southern craft circuit that has nothing to do with the famous lakes.

Photographing the Workshop

Ask before you lift the camera; the families are used to visitors but courtesy opens more than a lens. Shoot in the courtyard with the subject at the frame, side-lit, and catch the moment the wet sheet peels off, which is the one frame worth the trip. I shot about forty and kept three. The light through a south Xinjiang courtyard in late September is forgiving, so even a phone does the job if you steady it.

Bringing It Home

Customs is simple: finished paper and small craft items are fine to carry out, and a flat signed sheet slides into any book. The Hotan guide covers the border and the bazaar context if you are pairing the paper stop with the jade market the same day. I rolled three sheets in a cardboard tube and they survived the flight home crease-free, and they now sit framed above my desk as the cheapest, best souvenir Xinjiang gave me.

Paper and the Village Economy

The craft is not a museum piece; it is pocket money and pride for the families who keep it. A maker I met in Moyu sold maybe thirty sheets a week to visitors and the rest to calligraphers and the local mosque, and the income let her daughter stay in school in the county town. That thread, craft to family to place, is why I buy at the workshop and not the reseller. The Hotan guide frames the wider economy you are feeding with the purchase.

A Second Workshop Town

Moyu is the famous one, but smaller courtyard workshops sit in the villages between Hotan and Yarkand, unmarked and unhurried. Ask at any guesthouse “sangpi zhi fang” and you will be pointed down a lane. I found one by accident this way and it was better than the known stop, because no one performed for me. The Dolan guide describes the same unhurried craft belt to the east if you want to keep hunting.

Carrying Craft Home

Beyond the sheet itself, small items, bookmarks, and lampshades made from sangpi travel well and clear customs as handicrafts. I bring a few as gifts and they vanish fast, because the story sells them. Roll flat, keep dry, and declare nothing unusual; it is paper, not produce. The dried fruits guide is where I pair the paper stop with the sweet stops on the same southern day.

The Mulberry Tree Itself

The whole craft starts with a tree you will pass without noticing. The black mulberry lines the oasis roads of the south, pruned low so the bark is easy to strip, and in early summer the lane smells of the fruit. I stopped under one in Moyu and the maker’s wife handed me a handful still warm from the branch; the paper comes from the bark, the fruit feeds the family, and the leaf once fed silkworms, so one tree runs three trades. That completeness is why the craft survived, because nothing in it is wasted. When you drive the southern loop, look at the mulberries along the canal and remember the sheet in your bag started there. The Hotan guide maps the oasis roads where these trees stand in rows, and a slow drive past them is the quiet preface to the workshop itself.

Why the Craft Kept Living

It would have been easy for sangpi to die. Machine paper is smoother, cheaper, and everywhere, and most of the old uses faded with the century. What saved it was a mix of pride and paperwork: the listing as heritage brought money and visitors, the tourism gave the makers a reason to keep the frame wet, and the younger carvers and calligraphers who trained on it refused to let the skill lapse. I talked with a man in his thirties who left a city job to run his family’s courtyard, and he said plainly that the paper was his name, not just his income. That attitude is the real preservation, more than any plaque. The craft survives because people choose it, and the traveler who buys a sheet funds that choice. Walk the lanes, watch the pound, sign the back, and you become a small part of why Moyu still smells of bark in spring. The Dolan guide shows the same stubborn keeping-alive in the reed country, and the two together are the southern answer to a question every old place faces: what do we keep, and why.