art workMr. and Mrs. Yu's excellent artworks were greatly inspired by the ambience of their birth place, Shandong province where folk art is popular and stencil printing method is commonly used for textile dyeing. They learned the printing skills from the folks but at the same time modified the skills to absorb the essence of folk art and transformed it into a distinctive art form.The theme of Mr. and Mrs. Yu's works are often based on popular Chinese folklores and their stencil printing artworks are visual presentation of Chinese traditional culture and practices. Their works have been highly recognized and widely exhibited on the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, with some of them becoming the collection of some famous arts museums on the mainland, which include Chinese National Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing Museum and Beijing Arts and Crafts Museum. 2008 is the year of the Rat in China; the couple is also the designer of “Year of the Rat” stamp. Rat corresponds to "Zi" in the Chinese Earthly Branch. Its legendary contribution to the creation of heaven and earth ranked the rat first on the Chinese zodiac. In folk culture, rat is the symbol of bumper harvest, auspiciousness and prosperity. There are many folklores related to it, such as the creation of heaven by a bite of the rat and the rat's marrying its daughter to a cat. These stories reflect the humor of Chinese culture.