Taiwan Today

Appreciation of Chinese ink paintings or works of calligraphy is a highly individual matter of taste. Some people admire the artist's skill and style, while others look at the way the space is used, the idea expressed, the history of the work, or even the creator's personal experience. For most connoisseurs, however, the paper on which the work is created means very lit­tle by itself. But the children of Chen Su­-ho (陳樹火), like their father before them, see things differently. They are invariably more interested in that sheet of paper than whatever is on it. “We grew up in a paper mill, surrounded by tree bark and pulp,” says Chen Ruey-huey (陳瑞惠), Chen's daughter and the youngest of his seven children. “We have a natural affinity with paper.”

The paper mill they grew up in is the property of the Chang Chuen Cotton Paper Company, situated in the agricultural town of Puli, central Taiwan. Chen Su-ho founded the company in 1959, when he was presented with an opportunity to buy an old paper factory that had been closed down because of a flood. Handmade paper was fairly good business then. In the sev­enties, Puli boasted some fifty handmade paper factories, and there were many others around the island. But with increasing demand for paper, machine-made, mass­-produced products gradually came to dominate the market. Like many other labor-intensive industries, the handmade paper business also faced manpower shortages. As a result, many factories closed down or moved offshore to places where labor costs were lower, such as the Philippines or mainland China. Now there are only about twenty handmade paper manu­facturers left in Taiwan

For Chen Su-ho, handmade paper meant more than just a way of earning a living. “He didn't dispute that it was difficult for handmade papers to compete in terms of quantity,” Chen Ruey-huey says. “But he insisted that it was a part of Chi­nese culture that should be preserved.” In order to survive in the paper industry and keep his handmade paper mill running, Chen Su-ho set up several affiliated com­panies. He began in 1968 with a Taiwan­-Japan joint venture that continues to manufacture specialized industrial papers. Trading companies in Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong that import and export paper products quickly followed. The strategy has been successful. Chang Chuen is now one of the largest handmade paper manufacturers in Taiwan. With about twenty workers, it produces approximately 150,000 sheets of handmade paper a month, most of them about the size of a typical desktop. Nearly all of the mill's output is sold to Japan.

Many of the Puli factory's staff are in their fifties or sixties and were working in the business even before Chang Chuen was set up. Because fewer and fewer young peo­ple are interested in entering the profession, and many of the older skilled workers have retired, there is a consequent shortage of manpower. With a view to countering this, in 1988 Chen Su-ho established a hand­made paper factory in the Philippines.

Both of Chang Chuen's paper mills employ traditional methods used in Tai­wan since the turn of the century to manu­facture cotton-based paper. They also make a special type of paper that origi­nated in Hsuancheng (宣城), a town in mainland China's Anhui province, and is known as hsuan paper. Basic machines are used to treat raw materials, but all the remaining operations are carried out by hand. The whole process takes about two days. Workers first wash bark imported from Thailand and Malaysia, then boil it for five to six hours before washing the mixture again, bleaching, and finally pulping it. This pulp is then mixed with more water and sap from the Malabar chestnut tree, which helps bring the pulp to the surface and hold it there in an even film. This takes place in a “forming” vat. A worker next lowers a bamboo screen into the vat and “dips” the paper, shaking the screen to and fro until a flat, thin layer of pulp has formed on the screen's surface. It is this process that actually forms the sheet of paper.

It takes several hours to press most of the moisture from big stacks of the newly­formed wet paper. After that, each indi­vidual sheet will be baked on a flat dryer. Finally the batch of paper is sent to the quality control section, where it is classified, cut, wrapped, and finally shipped to buyers. Stated baldly, the process does not sound particularly difficult. “It looks much easier than it really is,” says Yang Ching-fu (楊清福), who has been working for Chang Chuen for thirty years and is now in overall charge of manufacturing. “But to make really top-grade paper takes experience and years of practice.”

The necessity for experience starts with the choice of raw materials. Theoretically, any material that is fibrous—grass, banana peels, coconut husks—can be made into paper. But because the proper­ties of different fibers vary widely, the quality of the resulting papers covers a wide range. For example, bamboo-based “spirit money” is popularly used for burn­ing at religious ceremonies because its ashes are lighter and thus rise higher, and people believe gods and ancestors will get the sacrifice more easily. On the other hand, papers used for Chinese ink painting and calligraphy come from the bark of paper mulberry trees or a plant called wikstroemia canescens. Paper made from mulberry is called cotton paper, whereas wikstroemia­ canescens-based papers are the ones known as hsuan paper. Painters and calligraphers have their own preferences, since these two papers absorb ink differently.

The selection of tree bark also needs experience. Yang Ching-fu explains that only bark taken from the middle section of a tree can be used to make handmade paper, because the top part of a tree has too many branches, and wood taken from the bottom is too hard. Another key factor in determining a paper's caliber is water quality. The reason why nearly all of Taiwan's handmade paper manufacturers are based in Puli is that the water there con­tains less iron. Excessive iron will cause paper to “rust,” producing unsightly yellow spots on the surface.

Yet another important element in de­termining a paper's quality is the dipping process, during which individual sheets are formed. When the bamboo screen is shaken, a thin layer of fiber gradually forms on top of the pulp-and-water mix. A flat layer of fiber becomes flat paper, whereas little bubbles at this stage will turn into little holes later. The softness of the paper varies with the density of the mixture.

So how do workers know when to add pulp and how much to add? “Mostly by experience,” Yang Ching-fu says. Of all the steps involved in the process, dipping is probably the most time-consuming. While it takes about a minute to dip a sheet of pa­per, the most skillful worker can only dip four to five hundred sheets a day. “Practice is important,” he says. “But it also takes concentration and strength to dip a good sheet of paper.”

Papers receive their special finishes during the dipping process or after the sheets have been dried. For colored papers, dye is added to the forming vat. Different fibers or small tree leaves can also be added at that time to give the product an individual appearance. If drops of water are sprinkled onto the thin sheet of wet paper during the dipping process, tiny holes will form when it dries. Such paper is called lo shui (落水, falling water) paper.

Some special papers take on their individual qualities only after they have been dried. Wrinkled papers, for example, are created simply by rubbing the finished product between the hands. More complicated patterns can be fashioned with a tra­ditional process of hand-dyeing. Papers with particularly complicated patterns have to be dyed upwards of a dozen times, because only one color can be applied at once. The dyeing processes are considered confidential by paper factories, but Chen Ruey-huey admits that many of them come from Japan.

Throughout the whole process, technology is confined to a limited role. Automatic grinders now substitute for more traditional ox-driven grinding wheels, and chemicals have replaced sunshine and (where available) snow in the bleaching and dyeing processes, but most of the work is still done by hand. Even the wrapping has to be done that way, because the finished paper is too soft to be processed by machines.

Preserving the craft of papermaking was only part of Chen Su-ho’s plan; he also wanted to promote fine-quality paper to a wider audience. “On father's many business trips to Japan, he noticed that preservation and promotion are both possible, but only as long as enough people care about the craft and are prepared to support it,” Chen Ruey-huey says. “Yet most people in Tai­wan don't know a lot about paper, even though it's so much a part of daily life.”

In 1987 Chen Su-ho decided to open a center that would sell handmade specialty papers, and provide a base for educating the public about papermaking and paper crafts, such as origami and paper-sculpting. The Chang Chuen Cotton Paper Art Center in Taipei was the result, and it has earned quite a reputation. Painters, calligraphers, paper artists, decoration designers, and photogra­phers all go there in search of those ultraspecial papers they absolutely must have, while hundreds of people have at­tended the center's paper handicraft classes.

Chen Su-ho was still not satisfied, however. His next goal was to open a paper museum that would tell people more about paper and really demonstrate how a sheet of paper is made. But he never had a chance to see his dream come true, because he tragically perished in an airplane crash in 1990. “Even right up to boarding time, he was talking about his plan to create a paper museum,” Chen Ruey-huey recalls. “We knew he wouldn't be able to rest in peace until it was opened.” One month after their father's funeral, Chen's children drew up plans for a Su Ho Memorial Paper Museum, established a project­-development office, and set a time limit of two years for completion.

The first problem they ran into was their limited knowledge of museums. Chen Ruey-huey, who was in charge of the development office, temporarily resigned from her other jobs in the paper mill and the art center and set about researching the project in earnest. She read numerous books, attended lectures, visited foreign museums, and talked to anyone she could find with museum experience. She also started to look for items she could use in stocking the museum with exhibits, which turned out to be much more difficult than she had expected. One of her biggest headaches proved to be finding a traditional bamboo papermaker. She dug out a twenty-year-old telephone directory and called all the papermakers listed to see if they were still in business. It took her no less than two years to track down Taiwan's last remaining traditional manufacturer of bamboo spirit money.

After five years of planning and con­struction—three years longer than originally planned—the Su Ho Memorial Paper Museum had its grand opening in October 1995. Taiwan's first and only paper museum is located in a twenty-year-old building at 68 Changan East Road, Section 2, close to Taipei’s busiest commercial district. The total floor area, spread over four stories, is only some 5,700 square feet—about the size of two tennis courts. At the entrance is an eye-catching exhibit of handmade papers from more than twenty countries. Nearby are the ticket-and-information desk, and a shop sell­ing paper artifacts, books, and greeting cards designed and created by museum staff. Whether or not to open a shop was a controversial issue among the museum's organizers. “A shop might be seen as com­mercializing the museum,” Chen Ruey­-huey says. “But frankly, we need it to help bring in the cash the museum requires.”

At the heart of the museum is its show­-piece—a reduced-scale paper mill that takes up the remainder of the first floor and, in an awkward arrangement necessitated by the museum's lack of space, the whole of the fourth floor. Here, all the essentials of Chang Chuen's Puli paper mill are reproduced. Craftsmen demonstrate how to make paper, and visitors can try it for themselves, dipping a sheet of paper or brushing one dry. A favorite activity is pounding slivers of colored tree bark with a wet rock until they stick together and the concoction can be peeled off the table and dried to become a sheet of colored paper. “Father didn't want a museum where items are just displayed side by side,” Chen Ruey-huey says. “He told me he wanted a museum that is alive and hands-on.”

The second floor features an exhibit on the history of paper, including illustrations that explain both traditional and modern ways of making paper, along with the materials used. In addition, there are sam­ples or photos of various centuries-old papers. The rest of this floor is devoted to special exhibitions, such as paper artifacts or paper-related video presentations.

Third-floor exhibits include “Paper in Taiwan,” which acquaints visitors with the local history of paper and paper­making. “Taiwan's paper history is unique,” according to Chen Ruey-huey. “As the island's first paper museum, we want to tell visitors about that uniqueness.” She points out that whereas Taiwan was the first province of China to import paper, it was the last one to manufacture it. In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch brought handmade paper to Taiwan from Europe. But although paper was invented by the Chinese nearly two thousand years ago, Taiwan did not be­gin to manufacture it until the late nineteenth century. The craft of making bamboo paper was introduced to Taiwan from Fujian province in the 1870s, and the methods that Chang Chuen along with most of Taiwan 's other paper mills use to make cotton paper were actually imported from Japan

The other half of the third floor is a paper laboratory, where visitors can learn about paper's characteristics. To make it more interesting, the museum has added an element of suspense to the display: the raw materials used in making paper are kept in boxes in such a way that visitors can feel but not see them. They can also experiment with various papers to discover how they absorb ink differently.

One corner of the paper laboratory is reserved for another live demonstration, which is given every weekend. Computer engineer Ni To-hsun (倪鐸訓), nicknamed Uncle Ni, demonstrates how to make pa­per from raw materials found in everyday life. Ni learned this skill from the Chang Chuen Cotton Paper Art Center a couple of years ago, and has been doing it for pleasure ever since. “It's fun to turn a leaf you've found on the sidewalk into a sheet of paper,” he says. “And you'd be surprised how different papers made from various raw materials can be.”

Beside the formal exhibitions, there are some surprises in store. Want to use the restroom? On the wall you will find a plaque that lists a few facts about the manufacture of toilet paper. Look out the window and there's a paper mulberry plant on the bal­cony. In fact, the paper mulberry can easily be found along Taipei's sidewalks, although few people know that this relatively com­mon plant is used to make paper. Chen Ruey-huey believes that this is symbolic of most people's relationship with paper: it's everywhere, yet no one much cares.

The imaginative approach illustrated by the restrooms and balcony highlights an important quality of the museum­—although it is small, it has made the best possible use of the available space. “The quality of a museum is not dic­tated by its size,” Chen Ruey-huey emphasizes. “It's whether it has character that counts.”

The newly opened museum does, however, face some difficulties. Its future expansion and development will be greatly lim­ited unless more money is forthcom­ing. Currently, most of the muse­um's funds come from Chang Chuen's affiliated companies. The Chen brothers and sisters see the museum as part of the enterprises that their father estab­lished, but the funds these small companies can provide are limited. The museum can­not even afford to hire full-time research staff. Money has been a worry from the beginning.

“But it takes someone who's a little bit of a fanatic to create a museum,” Chen Ruey-­ huey says. “If we'd been wholly rational and made a careful financial evaluation, we'd never have gotten this far.”

For the Chen brothers and sisters, the necessary fanaticism is rooted in their de­sire to make their father's dream come true. And they are confident that the mu­seum, as well as the Chang Chuen group of companies, will play vital roles in preserving and promoting the art and craft of paper. “If you think about it, the chances of a private museum surviving are not that great,” Chen Ruey-huey says. “But people like Uncle Ni on the third floor keep us from giving up.”