My classmates and I have been having trouble getting the right kind of paper for our Chinese calligraphy practice. Most of the stock in local stores is made from machine now, but we want handmade paper because we like the way it takes ink.
The store says that their factory don't produce the handmade paper anymore as it's not as profitable. We used to get them $6 for 100 sheets or so. Came online to look around and found this pretty video on the making of Xuan paper. These are large format papers for artworks rather than practice. The basic ones costs about $2 per piece. But the video makes me wonder how many people depend on these pieces of paper as a livelihood.