At a time of lockdown, Pamela See finds that Chinese papercutting can flourish by adopting the Taoist ideal of wu wei, doing nothing, in response to the apparent threat of new technologies. In the days between the first reported death from COVID-19 virus in Wuhan and the closure of the city borders, papermakers at the Xuan Paper Cultural Park in the neighbouring province of Anhui continued a tradition that emerged during the Tang Dynasty (430-930 CE) The process of sheet forming involved two practitioners dipping a mould with a “bamboo curtain” inlay into a vat of blue sandalwood and rice straw pulp. The entry into the water is at a sharp twenty-five-degree angle from the left side. It is drawn out, with a gentle rocking motion, on the right. The mould is dipped back into the water momentarily from the right at sixty degrees. There is a precisely orchestrated flick to ensure the fibres are evenly distributed. It is, much like many aspects of papermaking, a perfect illustration of the principle of Wu Wei. Although 無爲 literally translates into “not doing”, “[not] going in advance of things” may be a clearer interpretation.