Yu was already a phenomenon when she studied for her master's degree in the UK and, during her first year, had Walker Books, a mainstream British publisher of children's books, want to sign her. She was 28, and a student, but her first foray into paper-cutting for a school assignment had made a talent scout exclaim that it was an artistic expression that British people had not seen before.

Yu had not ventured into this traditional Chinese art form before that day, when the university department director asked all of the freshmen to make a piece that could best represent their background.

Paper-cutting popped into Yu's mind, and the encouragement she got from others drove her to explore it further.

"My affair with paper-cutting is an inadvertent one. Things growing in the gardens were never sown there. Despite that, when I pick up the scissors and colored paper, it doesn't feel foreign. Paper-cutting is a folk art that Chinese people are familiar with. So, perhaps, it has long been embedded in my mind," says Yu.