Centuries-old handicrafts bring better lives to local in Tibet

The raw material for making Tibetan paper is wolf poisonous grass. Every year in July, this type of grass will see a bloom of beautiful flowers. But their beauty hides a lurking danger; they are highly toxic, and cattle and sheep will avoid it when they see it. But it is precisely because of this that the paper is "invulnerable to all insects".

People in Nyemo call this grass, which grows in grasslands and alpine meadows, "paper clips". Nonflowering, this grass is inconspicuous in the bush, but once it blooms, it is easily recognized. The grass grows up to 1 meter and bears a cylindrical flower ball; the outer side is white, and the flower center is pink or purple. The papermaking process includes picking, soaking, washing, mashing, peeling, tearing, cooking, beating, pouring, drying, peeling and finally calendaring by squeezing the product through various sized rolls.