They have brought along a portable set of drawing, carving and printing gadgets they invented a decade ago. Visitors are encouraged to use a carved wooden block, brush and paper to create a nianhua.

Within minutes, they can make a brightly-colored New Year picture in the Yangjiabu Style, that have been created in the Weifang area for centuries.

Viewers can also buy a wide range of folk works the Zhangs have created at the museum’s art store.

Among their revised New Year picture artworks are hand-made New Year greeting cards, birthday cards, invitation cards, name cards, money pockets, T-shirts, catalogues, and ex-libris pieces.

Apart from the New Year pictures, over 250 calligraphy works guide the viewers through a condensed history of the popular art that straddles the figurative and the abstract.

The curatorial team has gathered about 250 calligraphy works, mostly new commissions, to represent eight typical contexts, namely: New Year celebration, palaces and temples, village life, natural locations, gardens, commercial venues, traditional Chinese residences and modern residences.

In the village life section, for instance, you can hear the sounds of chirping birds and gurgling streams, wander through gray-colored gates, walls, and wooden pavilions, all decorated with calligraphy, usually ancient poems and classic couplets, to eulogize idyllic living or to preach Confucianism.

The most startling section, however, is calligraphy today, which is arranged like the sitting room of a contemporary middle-class Chinese family.

Viewers find calligraphy in every corner of the room, along with oil paintings, posh bar tables and chairs, casual leather sofas, a white, slim screen TV set, and glistening crystal bulbs and lamps.

The background music is upbeat jazz, a sharp contrast to the low-key guqin music available in the section for traditional Chinese homes.