The last century has not been kind to the island's
indigo industry, but now vegetable dyeing may
finally hold fast.
Indigo has been a dyestuff of mankind since Neolithic times. It has colored everything from the fine wools of European industrial revolution looms to the raw coolie cottons of agricultural Asia. In the 18th and 19th centuries indigo was one of Taiwan's major exports, but with the introduction of synthetic dyes in the late 19th century, the industry faded fast. Deepening interest in Taiwan's history and the hard work of a few individuals are saving the trade from disappearing without a trace.
While exotic hand-dyed clothes from India and China have become popular in recent years and jeans are de rigueur, few people are aware that Taiwan was once a major exporter of the indigo dyestuff that colors them. Immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong provinces in China brought vegetable dyeing to Taiwan 400 years ago. Since early immigration policy excluded females, who were traditionally the operators and knowledge-bearers of the textile arts, Taiwanese techniques lagged behind those in China. Nevertheless, because the elevation and climate in Taiwan are well suited to growing the indigo plant, the dyestuff topped Taiwan's export list in the 19th century.
At the time, cotton indigo clothes were most commonly worn by the largely peasant population, engaged in arduous physical labor. This was also the case in the Anglo-Saxon world, where the indigo clothes of the working class gave rise to the term "blue -collar worker." After a German company made synthetic dyes commercially viable in 1897, Taiwan's cultivation of indigo plants and manufacturing of dyestuffs folded in just a few years.
Farmers who had once grown indigo switched to more lucrative cash crops like tea and corn. During World War II the majority of able-bodied men in Taiwan were drafted into the Japanese armed forces, and agriculture was enlisted to meet the needs of the Japanese empire. After World War II indigo dyeing vanished from the island completely--even wild indigo plants were difficult to spot, and dyeing techniques were gradually forgotten.
Reconstructing the entire dyeing process was, therefore, an extremely difficult task. For this reason, the pioneering work of Ma Fen-mei, assistant researcher at the National Taiwan Craft Research Institute in Caotun, Nantou County, is invaluable. Based on physical remnants and oral histories collected in Sansia, Lugang and Meinong townships, Ma has recreated the traditional dyeing techniques in her work Surpassing One's Master: The Genealogy and Beauty of Indigo Dyeing Techniques in Taiwan . The book details the history of indigo dyeing from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), plant habitats, techniques and a wide range of dyed products.
"Before the 20th century, indigo was a very common cash crop. Now it's viewed as a cultural crop," says Ma. "But without enough indigo plants, it's impossible to teach dyeing, so we had to start from scratch, growing the plants ourselves." She and fellow researchers have been cultivating indigo plants in Sitou, in central Taiwan, since 1996. It was not until 2002 that the institute was able to hold its first full-scale exhibition called "Surpassing One's Master." The title comes from a Chinese proverb written by Xunzi more than 2,000 years ago, and literally means "the blue extracted from indigo is better than the plant."
Compared with other vegetable dye extraction, the process of getting the dye from the indigo plant is very complex. "Promoting indigo dyeing is difficult because it's so time-consuming," says Huang Shih-fong, Ma's student and manager of the dye-works at Tenthan Garden, an educational center that teaches vegetable dyeing techniques. The leaves are soaked in vats of water and the mixture stirred frequently. When fermentation occurs, the process is repeated up to 10 times. As indigo is not soluble in water, lime is added to effect a chemical change which is difficult to control. The mixture is then boiled to remove impurities, dried and cut into bricks or ground into powder.
After fabrics are immersed in indigo baths, they are removed and change from green to blue as oxidation takes place. Dyers can use resistance or tie-dyeing methods to create patterns before fabrics are bathed in the dye.
Ma says that training one dyer requires at least 10 kilograms of indigo dyestuff, and it takes at least 100 kilograms of dyestuff to hold a professional workshop. Due to the limited supply of indigo and the division of labor involved in the dyeing process, only 16 students were admitted to the first workshop, held in April 2005. Ma is proud of the students' achievements and the resulting proliferation of indigo knowledge. "After the students went home, they started growing indigo plants and held workshops in their own communities," she says. Ma believes that indigo dyeing should be promoted in combination with tourism and education to create a cultural industry.
While vegetable-dyeing skills in Japan were well preserved as part of the traditional kimono industry, Taiwan has not established an indigenous garment identity. "Indigo clothes best represent the hardships our forefathers went through when they first cultivated the island," she says.
In fact, Tenthan Garden was born from such adversity. The print factories belonging to Jhao Nian-fong in Taichung County's Dakeng mountains were destroyed in the September 21, 1999, earthquake. Born and raised in Dakeng, Jhao felt obliged to give something back to his community that would benefit agriculture and enhance local culture. He invited Chen Ching-lin, an expert on vegetable dyeing, to design a place to promote the craft. The ruined factories were transformed into Tenthan Garden. Established in 2001, Tenthan holds dye workshops every day for experts, students from local colleges or anyone who wants to learn about the craft.
Now the dye-works manager, Huang attended an advanced workshop in April last year. The 560-hour workshop included instruction on dyeing techniques, aesthetic theory, clothing and furniture design, marketing and project management. Even though the number of dye aficionados is still small, the revival of traditional Taiwanese indigo dyeing has drawn attention from abroad. The Japanese master dyer Hashizume Seikan came to Taiwan to teach his skills in exchange for learning Taiwanese techniques from Ma. Hashizume is best known for his indigo Yuuzen , a traditional form of hand painting dye on kimonos. "Learning from Master Hashizume was an extremely rare opportunity--indigo Yuuzen skills are only ever passed from master to son," says Huang. "Traditionally in Japan, a master will not teach his craft to people outside his family."
Tenthan Garden has also broken traditions in its approach to promoting the craft. The Dakeng Mountains provide an abundance of flora suited to all sorts of vegetable coloring. Tenthan's design seeks to raise visitor interest in vegetable dyeing unobtrusively. Covering over 57,600 square feet, the garden is not bound by walls; instead, more than 100 kinds of dye plants rim the garden, blurring the boundary between cultivated and wild land. About 90 percent of the plants can be used as dyes--lychee leaves and branches produce shades of brown, azaleas a yellow to reddish brown and annattos a golden orange. Unlike most botanical gardens, the identification plaque in front of each plant does not show the scientific names, but the color it yields. "The original idea was to design the park like a department store," says Huang. "Everyone can come in and look around without spending anything. They get a rough idea of vegetable dyeing by looking at the plaques."
In addition to the educational window-shopping and workshops, the park features a restaurant that incorporates dye plants in its cuisine and a shop that sells a range of vegetable-dyed products.
Ni Yu-shan, an art professor from China Medical University in Taichung, often takes her students to Tenthan's dyeing work shops. Experiencing vegetable dyeing first hand adds a new, local flavor to art courses, which in Taiwan have been dominated by Western art and its attendant theories. "When my students try vegetable dyeing," she says, "they sense that art is a living, practical subject that comprises of theory, history and manual skills."
"What we're doing now is just the germ of the vegetable dyeing movement," says Huang. Even though there are still no commercial dyeing mills in Taiwan, the efforts of the vegetable dyeing enthusiasts in central Taiwan have caused a ripple effect. As Ni's students hang their hand-dyed scarves out to dry in Tenthan's sun-drenched yard, they ooh and ah at the various patterns and shades beginning to surface. The blue scarves fluttering in the breeze quietly herald the rebirth of a craft that had almost faded from memory.