Taiwan Today

The smooth lines and elegant designs of wooden furniture inspired by elements drawn from Chinese culture were not the only reasons why Yung Shing Furniture was invited to showcase its creations at both the 2010 Shanghai Expo and the 2011 Taipei World Design Expo. In the eyes of those who know something about wooden furniture and carpentry, the company’s use of the mortise and tenon structure to construct all of the joints in its furniture deserved at least equal billing.

Yung Shing general manager William Jiang (江文義) explains that the mortise and tenon structure has been used by craftspeople to join pieces of wood for millennia and is still the sturdiest way to construct joints for wooden furniture. Most furniture manufacturers, however, have replaced the traditional technique with fasteners like nails and screws, which are cheaper and lead to greater manufacturing efficiency.

While nails and screws have advantages when it comes to mass production, rust, the wearing of hard fasteners in soft wood over time and the different swelling and shrinking rates of metal and wood can all loosen joints and thus shorten the life of wooden furniture. Yung Shing is one of the few manufacturers to address those problems by continuing to rely on the mortise and tenon structure. “We want our furniture to last,” Jiang says. “We call our furniture ‘new antique.’”

Yung Shing was established in Tainan, southern Taiwan in 1958 by Jiang Ji-yo (江季友), William Jiang’s late father, and by Yeh Thai-chin (葉泰欽), the elder Jiang’s late brother-in-law. Jiang Ji-yo learned carpentry while building boats, while Yeh picked up woodworking techniques first as an apprentice who made coffins and then later by making doors and windows. Carpentry was a pretty good job at the time and gave Yeh the wherewithal to pick up some “extra-curricular” skills such as English and accounting, which later proved to be of great help in his career and for the company’s development.

In the first decade after its establishment, Yung Shing mainly supplied the domestic market, making a little bit of everything and in almost every style, with products running the gamut of Japanese-style chairs, Western-style sofas and Taiwanese-style tables. “Neither the manufacturers nor the consumers knew anything about design, so quality was the most important thing in the trade,” William Jiang says. “Making the straights straight, the flats flat and the curves smooth, as my uncle was always reminding us, is the only way to make quality furniture.”

In 1968, Yung Shing’s reputation for quality products helped it land its first big project—making furniture for the conference room at Chungshan Hall, which is located in Yangmingshan National Park in Taipei and formerly served as the convention site of the Republic of China’s National Assembly. To avoid rust caused by the sulfurous vapor emitted by hot springs in the Yangmingshan area, Chungshan Hall was constructed without using metal nails and screws, just like Yung Shing’s furniture.

The prestige the company gained in the Chungshan Hall project led to other government jobs. Over the years, Yung Shing has made furniture for the Office of the President, National Palace Museum and National Taiwan University Library, to name a few examples.

After the Chungshan Hall project, Yung Shing’s furniture took on a more American flavor as the company expanded to making custom-made pieces for US military personnel and their families stationed in Tainan. Because of the relatively low price of custom furniture in Taiwan, many of the Americans not only shopped for themselves, but also for friends and relatives back home. “They took pictures, magazines, or drawings of furniture to the shop and discussed them with my uncle,” William Jiang says. “Business was more than good since my uncle was probably the only carpenter in Tainan that spoke some English.”

The increased business the company gained through its language advantage lasted until the US military presence in Taiwan ended in the late 1970s. Fortunately for Yung Shing and other furniture manufacturers in Taiwan, exports to Japan and the United States soon picked up. To meet the preferences of such different markets, Yung Shing set up separate production lines including one that turned out rattan furniture for the Japanese market and one that made Chippendale-style furniture, which was popular in the United States at the time.

Boom Times

At the company’s peak, it had about 300 employees working around the clock to fill the orders. “I finished sanding a piece of a chair, turned around, saw another 200 waiting to be sanded and swore to myself that I’d never work in a factory again,” says Woodson Yeh (葉武東), Yeh Thai-chin’s son and Yung Shing’s current chief operating officer, of an experience he had as a teenager while helping out at the factory.

Prosperity faded for many of Taiwan’s furniture factories in the late 1980s as increasing production costs and the sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan Dollar made international competition difficult for export-oriented manufacturers, while the domestic market also saw strong competition from mass-produced imports. As with many other traditional industries, the furniture sector also began facing a labor shortage at that time. William Jiang, who joined the company in 1989, recalls that the underground lottery was popular and the stock market had climbed sky-high at the time, both of which proved more attractive to many people than getting their hands dirty in a factory.

Yung Shing’s declining business was especially difficult for Yeh Thai-chin, since all of the responsibility for running the company fell on his shoulders after Jiang Ji-yo passed away in 1991. At one point, the company did not even have enough money to pay employee wages.

Yung Shing saw a glimmer of hope in the mid-1990s when the concept of design started being promoted in Taiwan in all types of industries and the education system. “Suddenly, there were plenty of furniture designers but no craftsmen to actually execute the designs,” Woodson Yeh says. With this, Yung Shing realized that design could provide a way to stay competitive. “The easiest way [to compete] is to use cheaper wood to cut costs, and to use nails and screws to reduce manpower and shorten production time,” he says. “We decided to go another route: using the best wood as we had been, keeping the mortise and tenon structure and creating added value with new designs.”

In 1997, Yung Shing recruited Lu Yuan-hua (盧圓華), an associate professor in the Department of Interior Design at Shu-Te University in Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan, as its design consultant. Lu started designing furniture in 1993 and has won many awards for his work. After discussions with Lu, Yung Shing decided to focus on making furniture with a contemporary Oriental style. “Furniture needs to evolve, as those pieces that were designed for use in a traditional house for a big family do not fit into a modern apartment for a small family,” Woodson Yeh says. “In other words, there are a lot of sunset products, but furniture manufacturing is never a sunset industry.”

Woodson Yeh, who returned to Yung Shing in 1998 equipped with years of marketing experience gained from working for a furniture importer, proposed that the company set up a new brand to market its contemporary Oriental furniture. “Yung Shing had established a reputation as a factory that makes quality furniture,” he says. “But to be recognized by the market as a company that sells furniture with a unique style, we needed to have something different from that established image.”

Woodson Yeh’s branding idea pushed his father’s limits a bit, as Taiwan’s older generation of businesspeople tend to believe in budget control and word-of-mouth marketing. Many also view activities and advertising that are indirectly related to the company or those that do not see immediate returns as a waste of time and money. Fortunately, Yeh Thai-chin, though not wholly embracing Woodson Yeh’s modern marketing approach, was open-minded and allowed his son some room to try things out. Yung Shing opened its first Woody Chic shop in Kaohsiung City in 1998. In Taiwan, the company currently operates outlets in Kaohsiung, Tainan and Taipei.

Modern Marketing Approach

Woody Chic follows a very different marketing strategy from that employed by Yung Shing in the past, as the relatively new brand puts considerable effort into advertising and promotion. From time to time, for example, Woody Chic invites potential customers to activities like tea ceremonies or flower arranging classes. “The purpose is not only to showcase the furniture, but also to get our design ideology across and to demonstrate how our furniture fits people’s daily life,” Woodson Yeh says.

Also in 1998, Yung Shing moved most production to mainland China, while the company’s design and research branches remain at its Tainan headquarters. Woodson Yeh explains that in addition to reducing production costs, the decision to make furniture in mainland China was an attempt to explore a bigger market. Therefore, when the production line was up and running, Woody Chic also began opening shops in mainland China. “We want to develop Woody Chic into an international brand, and mainland China was a good place to start,” the younger Yeh says.

Since opening its first shop in Shanghai in 2001, Yung Shing has established nearly 20 Woody Chic stores in about a dozen mainland Chinese cities. Currently, there are about 200 employees in the company’s shops and factories in mainland China, while there are only 50 in Taiwan, including a dozen senior craftsmen who work on prototypes and custom orders.

Yeh Thai-chin, who traveled frequently to mainland China when Yung Shing first set up operations there, had more free time in Tainan after the company’s mainland operations got on track. Eyeing the largely idled Tainan production complex, he decided to renovate it into a furniture museum and tourism factory to preserve and share the history and culture of Taiwan’s furniture industry. After three years of preparation, the Furniture Manufacturing Eco-Museum officially opened in 2005. Exhibits are divided into areas devoted to the various kinds of wood commonly used to make furniture, furniture from different cultures and local and international influences on Taiwanese furniture. Visitors can also try their hand putting together different mortise and tenon joints, assembling stools built with such joints and watching how senior craftsmen turn a piece of wood into a chair.

While the museum gives the general public and students a chance to learn something about wooden furniture, in 2005 Yung Shing also founded the Taiwan Furniture Properties Association, which aims to promote the development of traditional craftsmanship in the industry. In addition, the company has made an effort to attract young talent to the trade by working with university design departments to provide students with scholarships and internship opportunities at the company’s design division. As a result, with its mix of staff designers, interns and veteran craftsmen, Yung Shing’s headquarters can be a noisy place. “There are a lot of discussions or even arguments between designers and our craftsmen about materials, functions, techniques and such,” William Jiang says. “As we see it, that’s an efficient way for both sides to learn and improve.”

Workshops to Workers

Since 2004, Yung Shing has also organized a workshop for people who are interested in carpentry. Through 16 weekend classes taught by senior craftsmen, students can pick up some of the techniques and build a few pieces of furniture. Two students who have taken the workshop classes now work for Yung Shing’s design department.

In 2008, which marked Yung Shing’s 50th anniversary, Yeh Thai-chin formally passed down control over the company’s operations to the next generation. But rather than enjoying a relaxing retirement, he devoted his time to the museum, the workshop and other activities aimed at preserving or promoting furniture manufacturing. In fact, Yeh Thai-chin served as a kind of ambassador for the industry until he passed away in 2010. “He started out as a craftsman and turned into a cultural worker and educator in the end,” Woodson Yeh says.

Two generations of Jiangs and Yehs have witnessed the evolution of Taiwan’s furniture industry. In more than five decades, a lot of adjustments have been made in designs and marketing strategy to keep the company competitive, but its insistence on a traditional joinery technique and craftsmanship remains unchanged.

Write to Jim Hwang at jim@mail.gio.gov.tw