Taiwan Today

Ballad of Chang-kan—li Po

Ching mei chu ma (green plums and a stick horse), a four-character Chinese idiom derived from this poetic passage, has long been in frequent use, a quick and generally understood Chinese way of describing the innocent affection between a boy and a girl. We can see our own childhoods. A boy imagines himself a brave soldier, astride a stick horse—if he is lucky, it has a head on one end and a wheel on the other. Raising his eye-brows and stamping his heels, the tiny rider gallops up with a yell, a whip or other horseman's weapon tightly in hand, parading for his admiring and ad­mired playmate.

But Aldous Lin, sales manager of Ching Hwa Art-China Co. and founder of Lin Porcelain Co., had more than sentiment in mind when he produced Riding a Stick Horse, among the latest items to make their debut in Lin Porce­lain's pantheon of Chinese porcelain fig­urines. The effort is in behalf of commerce rather than affection, notwith­standing a real touch of the latter. Lin is intent on broadening the markets and vista for Taiwan's porcelain industry.

Over the past 15 years, foreign buyers have, often enough, rated Tai­wan's porcelain sculpture manufacturers as mere imitators— "ghost processors." Severe limits in design innovation and promotion capabilities, added to other difficulties, impeded their attempts to garner a sufficient share of the world market. Taiwan's porcelain manufacturers seemed confined to reproduction of tried-and-true formats.

Though he, himself, achieved both fame and fortune in the industry, Lin, who is an energetic man with an excess of gumption, never derived any sense of accomplishment from his products—all produced to order and exported under foreign brand names. Each time he re­ceived a major order from a foreign customer, he would ask himself: "Am I going to produce to others' specifications all the rest of my life?"

After an extended groping period, Lin gradually came to his own assertive answer, the combined result of an inspir­ing exhibit of ancient clay figurines at the Taiwan Provincial Museum ... and of the abundant fancies of traditional Chinese children's pastimes as depicted in two special issues of Taipei's ECHO magazine.

Now, after two years of experiment and exploration, Lin's efforts are cast in porcelain-a series of adorable Oriental children involved in the enchantments of activities described in traditional Chi­nese folklore and legend, most of which are still in vogue.

The first set, Six Children's Games, portrays six play-absorbed tots, approximately 5½" high:

Lighting Firecrackers is connected with Nien, a ravaging monster from an­cient Chinese folklore. To scare Nien away, each New Year the Chinese people would explode barrages of firecrackers. In more recent times, the tradition simply welcomes the Chinese New Year in.

Spinning the Top, it is said, was origi­nally a pastime of court maidens during the Sung Dynasty. Called chien chien in Chinese, the game first utilized metal discs pierced by iron spikes. During the late Ming Dynasty, the game became enormously popular with children.

Shooting Marbles was a favorite game in early China. Children at first used brilliantly colored stones, finely polished into "ting" balls. Glass marbles were then very expensive. A favored routine, yesteryear as today, involves throwing or rebounding the marbles in or out of small shallow holes dug in the ground.

Performing Sword Play involves chil­dren's imitations of the legendary warrior Kuan Yu and his magical sword, Kuan Tao (the Green Dragon Knife). The sword was famous for its tremendous size and for its overwhelming power in 36 different sword-wielding routines. Kuan Yu, a great hero, is adored by all Chinese children.

Pulling the Cart is play related to the travel of the Emperors and their outrid­ers on inspection tours of ancient China. Children enjoyed playing the role of an outrider.

And Riding a Stick Horse, popular among Chinese boys, and boys the world over, also persists into modern times.

A new Kung Fu series features three boys and three girls, positioned on bell­-shaped pedestals and displaying martial arts gestures. Standing on One Foot (the so-called king chi tu li) was the most difficult production challenge because it involves the most delicate and complex of firing techniques. "I am not afraid of others' imitating this one," grinned Lin. "The exquisite technical demands will automatically frustrate copycats."

The yet-to-be-completed Festivals series is based on the myriad children's activities highlighted on traditional Chinese holidays. The traditional Golden Nugget (presenting the red gift envelope) and Dice Game of Chinese New Year's Eve are the first two items. They will be followed by depictions of lantern-hoisting (Lantern Festival), eating moon cakes (mid-Autumn Festival), and many others.

A Bells of Four Seasons series illus­trates the four seasons by mean of four tots who sit atop bell-shaped, seasonal­ flower-decorated pedestals with other appropriate seasonal symbols in their hands. An old poem underlines the flower and symbol choices:

"Pink peach blossoms
And juicy peaches
Echo spring blessings
Early in the year.

The lotus conquers
The summer pond,
Distilling dewdrops
From morning sunshine.

When autumn chrysanthemums bloom,
They herald ripened wheat,
Bringing to farmers
News of a happy harvest.

Snow-white plum petals
Drift on a winter breeze.
Feasting on fish on New Years Eve
Celebrates the earth's fertility. "

Lin sees his bric-a-brac series as "American-Chinese dishes" spiced with a dash of Western flavor-they are modified Chinese fare, designed specifically to appeal to overseas tastes.

Lin Porcelain Co. has assigned, agents in the U.S., West Germany, and Canada to promote the new lines, furthering efforts to carve out a share of the world market for his own brands. The high quality souvenirs are aimed at the mass market, rather than collectors, which he acknowledges is a chancy experiment. Nevertheless, he feels he is on his way.

A strictly local pottery flowerpot manufacturer 30 years ago, Ching Hwa has since been incorporated into an inter­national "who's who" of quality porce­lain figurine suppliers, boasting such major customers as America's Hallmark and Avon, among others. A possible cooperative tieup with a significant international supplier in West Germany is under discussion.

Sited at Kung Kuan, Miaoli County, one of the island's three ceramics industry centers, Ching Hwa luxuriates in space—6,611 square meters—a facilitative advantage that is the envy of 30-odd cottage-industry competitors nearby.

A mini zoo, a factory site oddity, a stone's throw from the firm's front gate, immediately attracts the entering pa­tron's attention. The wild boars, monkeys, bears, mongooses, lynxes, fowls, golden pheasants, and their cousins sit, squat, perch, or prowl idly inside the cages, perhaps in silent protest against their confinement to quarters, while a nearby fountain surrounded by green shrubs sings its song of nature. "The animal figurines we featured several years ago stimulated the establishment of the zoo," Lin shrugged, satisfying the visitors' curiosity.

On the left wall close to the entrance, neatly lined up employee time cards echo in white with red borders the red characters on a white central-patio wall: Satisfaction with the Status Quo Means Lagging Behind—A Boat Going Against the Current Can Only Progress or Retreat.

Inside the factory, giant-size blue and yellow plastic baskets pile up everywhere, the major product storage and transport containers for the various pro­duction lines. The overall process en­compasses seven stages: prototype devel­opment, plaster-mold making, slip cast­ing, green finishing, biscuit firing, painting, and packaging. More than 250 work­ers, mainly female, now focus, in small groups, on a 1983 Christmas item for Avon: An amiable father, comfortably draped on a sofa, reads a book to his pony tailed daughter, kneeling by his feet.

Lou Feng-chu, a 19-year-old night school student in the green finishing sec­tion, concentrates on corrective detail on the father's limbs, a necessary step before linking them with the rest of the body. "I have worked here two years now. It is light work; I can do it quickly," she volunteered.

Painting the porcelain figurines is the greatest challenge; it is skilled handwork and cannot be rushed. "This pro­cess contradicts the current automation trend; each color must be separately ap­plied. This is an extremely demanding, labor-intensive product line—a heavy percentage is handmade, our quality guarantee," Lin remarked.

Lin pointed out a 3" high Hummel­-type figure, remarking that his most experienced painters are assigned to accom­plish its critical facial details. Greener hands will do the larger and less critical areas-clothes, hair, shoes, etc.

Wang Shu-hen, now in her 30s, has been working in the coloring section less than a year, relying on her mother-in-law to care for her children. "The painting requires sharp eyesight, just my kind of work," she said.

The painstaking process is further ex­tended by Ching Hwa's stringent quality controls. All finished products failing to pass a final conformation check, are smashed to shreds to avoid the drag of a market in seconds, and protect the buyer's copyright and quality reputation.

Lin Pei-ling, Ching Hwa president, fresh from a conference on alloys and ceramics-a joint workshop between the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of China-added this insight on the business: "In the face of booming competition from cheaper labor in other Asian countries, the elevation of tech­nique and quality holds the key to success in a merciless commercial contest."

Looking to the more distant future, Aldous Lin is devoting much time to developing a series of grotesque classical animal statuettes, inspired by exhibited antiquities at Taipei's National Palace Museum.

His deepest hope is, some day, to be able to produce a porcelain symbol of China, along the lines of Japan's new "Taro San" symbol, of Uncle Sam, John Bull, La Belle France, and others.