Tourism is not exactly one of the stronger economic activities in the rural town of Caotun in Nantou County, central Taiwan, but since December 2006, more tourists, as well as locals, have found it enjoyable to spend a half day or so at the Taiwan Craft Culture Park there. The park is operated by the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute (NTCRI) at the institute’s on-site headquarters. “The primary mission of the park, in addition to displaying, collecting, studying and promoting the country’s crafts, is to make crafts educational and entertaining,” says NTCRI Director Hsu Keng-hsiu (許耿修).
By touring the park’s five exhibition halls, visitors can learn about the numerous applications of various crafts. While many of the exhibited items may be unfamiliar to younger visitors, for example, fishing implements made of bamboo, they all once had a practical use in daily life. “People used whatever raw materials they could get, and made them into useful devices by hand or with simple tools,” Hsu says. “That is to say, crafts are all about the environment, the people and their culture.”
Visitors can also gain hands-on experience through the park’s do-it-yourself (DIY) programs, or chat with some of the resident artisans who are more than willing to talk about their crafts. “What we have here is an opportunity to interact with the public,” says metal artist Shine Chen (陳慶輝). “The more people know about traditional crafts and their modern-day applications, the more likely it is that these crafts will have a future.” In 2012, about 200,000 visitors attended exhibitions and DIY courses led by craftspeople at the park, while the weekend market drew some 315,000 tourists.
The NTCRI has promoted the industry for nearly six decades. Established in 1954 by the Nantou County Government, the institute was initially a facility for training workers in the use of bamboo, carpentry, pottery, woodcarving and weaving. It was renamed the Nantou County Handicraft Research and Training Institute in 1959, and underwent several name and administrative changes until it became the NTCRI in 2010. The institute, which now has branches in Miaoli County and New Taipei City in northern Taiwan, has also modified its mission to adjust to changes in the craft industry. Improving production efficiency, for instance, was the main task in the 1960s and 1970s. The demand for craftspeople was high at the time since labor-intensive handicraft manufacturing that did not require intensive capital was a perfect first step for Taiwan’s development from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
Metalwork pieces combined with lacquer by artist Yang Xin-biao are displayed at the craft center. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Some of the artisans who were trained at the institute in those early days have played important roles in preserving and developing their crafts. Master bamboo-weaver Li Jung-lieh (李榮烈), for example, has devoted nearly six decades to the craft since he first studied at the institute at the age of 18 in 1954. Li worked in exporting bamboo products for a period of time and then, as the market began to change and low-end exports became less profitable, started to focus on creating art pieces and teaching. Over the years he has taught bamboo weaving at the NTCRI as well as other vocational schools, community colleges and university design departments, and still teaches today at the age of 77. Li has received many awards for his artistic achievements including the prestigious Folk Craft Award from the Council for Cultural Affairs (now Ministry of Culture) in 1992 and Folk Art Heritage Award in 1994 from the Ministry of Education (MOE). He was also honored for promoting the craft with the Distinguished Contribution to Social Education Award in 2005, another of the top awards presented by the MOE.
Taiwan’s handicraft exports gradually lost their competitive edge during the 1980s with the sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar, increasing production costs and the popularity of mass-produced products. Manufacturers in the sector closed or moved to places with lower production costs, local craftspeople retired or changed profession, and vocational schools closed their craft departments. “Taiwan’s traditional crafts were being marginalized and were at risk of disappearing,” Hsu says. Since the 1990s, therefore, the NTCRI has put a high priority on the preservation of traditional crafts. To encourage craftspeople to keep working in their various fields, the institute has organized a number of craft competitions in the past two decades including three of Taiwan’s top craft award shows: the Taiwan Craft Competition, National Crafts Awards and National Crafts Achievement Awards.
In 2004, the NTCRI established the Taiwan Craft Workshops scheme, under which individual craftspeople can apply for government funding to cover up to half the cost of setting up a workshop. In return, the workshop must be open to the public. “By opening their doors, people get to know more about traditional crafts and artisans, and the artisans get the opportunity to sell their works and continue their crafts,” Hsu says. Currently there are about 150 such workshops throughout Taiwan.
The Next Generation
Awards from competitions and the honor of being approved as a craft workshop have certainly encouraged many artisans to continue their creative endeavors. In the bigger picture, however, the short supply of young talent is still the most urgent issue Taiwan faces. “The situation is that we still have master craftsmen around, but are short of successors,” Hsu says. “Few young people nowadays know anything about traditional crafts, let alone are interested in and willing to make a career out of them.”
An exhibition of works by Li Jung-lieh, who learned bamboo weaving at the NTCRI in 1954 when it was first set up as a craft training facility (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
The NTCRI’s many training programs over the years have seen some results, however. Take 42-year-old lacquer artisan Liang Chih-wei (梁晊瑋), for example. In 1998, Liang took an NTCRI class in using lacquer simply because he wanted to apply the medium as a protective layer to his collection of bamboo birdcages. “I had no idea that the craft could be so interesting, and was hooked before the program ended,” he says. After completing the course, Liang decided to leave his family’s plastic manufacturing business to pursue the craft. He took an advanced NTCRI program in which he learned from master craftsman Lai Kao-shan (賴高山, 1924–2004), before becoming a full-time artisan.
Earlier this year, the institute launched a nationwide program known as One School, One Craft to provide an opportunity for young people to encounter traditional crafts earlier in life. A total of 12 artisans introduced their crafts to teachers at high schools throughout Taiwan, and later invited the teachers to take part in workshops set up by the craftspeople at four educational institutes. National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei City, for example, offered classes in pottery, glassmaking and indigo dyeing, while National Taitung Junior College in Taitung City, eastern Taiwan focused on aboriginal crafts, stone carving, wood carving and embroidery. The participating high school teachers were offered two months of training to enable them to promote their chosen craft in their schools.
Few people, however, eventually build a career after learning craft skills as Liang did. Master craftsman Chang Hsien-ping (張憲平), who has been teaching bamboo weaving at the NTCRI’s Miaoli branch since the late 1980s, says most of his students take the craft as a hobby, which is fine for their purposes, but not enough to preserve the technique in the long-term. Many traditional craft skills are tedious and time-consuming to learn and require total devotion to master, Chang says, but it is impractical for people to invest so much time and energy unless they are confident they can feed themselves with the craft and see a future in it.
“In a nutshell, rather than talking about the high ideals of preserving traditional crafts, there has to be a big enough market to attract members of the younger generation [to choose craftwork as a career],” Hsu says. “The problem is that there are cheaper, modern-day versions in the market of most of the products to which traditional crafts can be applied.” A pair of lacquer-coated bamboo chopsticks, for example, costs NT$300 (US$10) at the NTCRI’s gift shop while a stainless-steel pair at a supermarket costs only one-tenth of that price and is just as functional. What sells lacquer chopsticks, therefore, is not their functionality, but their cultural or artistic value. Hsu notes that with Taiwan’s economic growth, there are more people who are willing to pay higher prices for such items, but many of them seek foreign brand names as they are unaware of high-end locally made products. The NTCRI, therefore, has been quite active in organizing trade shows and exhibitions at local venues such as cultural centers and department stores to promote Taiwanese crafts. “If we can manage to sell 200 pieces, it would certainly spur our craftspeople to create another 300,” Hsu says. “More people would be willing to become full-time craftspeople if there’s a market, and so crafts would be preserved.”
Resident artisan Lee Yung-moo teaches a young visitor to the park how to make a traditional toy. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
New kinds of products or new applications for traditional techniques have become another way forward for traditional craft workers. The NTCRI has been matching local and foreign designers with craftspeople since 2007 with some success. Taiwanese stone-carver Chen Pei-tse (陳培澤) and designer Rock Wang (王俊隆), for example, transformed the construction materials of brick and cement into a series of vases. Internationally known German designer Konstantin Grcic and local bamboo craftsman Chen Kao-ming (陳高明) created 43, a striking cantilever chair made of 43 laminated bamboo strips, hence the name. The vases and chair, which the institute promotes along with numerous other Taiwanese designs under the brand name Yii, won high praise at the 2010 Milan Design Week, the world’s largest home furnishings design fair. Yii designs were shown in Milan again in 2012 and this year. Flow, a bamboo chair by local designer Feng Cheng-tsung (范承宗) and artisan Chen Kao-ming, and b@mboo, a pair of bamboo stools by Taiwanese designer Sally Lin (林曉瑛) and craftswoman Chiu Chin-tuan (邱錦緞), were featured at this year’s show. In addition to Milan, Taiwan craftspeople have been successful in major international shows in Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo. Earlier this year at the Ambiente Frankfurt trade fair, crafts from Taiwan won international orders worth more than US$6 million.
Combining Forces
“Designers are not necessarily familiar with the materials or the techniques, while traditional artisans usually don’t pay much attention to design trends,” Hsu says. “Working together, they might have disagreements, but the results can be quite astonishing if they can work things out.”
Even if the collaborations are successful, however, setting up large-scale production can be a challenge. Foreign buyers at the Milan show in 2010 wanted to place orders for the Yii vases, chairs and other goods on the spot, but were turned down since all the items from the team were one-off creations handcrafted for the show. Organizers estimate they missed out on some NT$60 million (US$2 million) in sales as a result. It was not until the delegation returned to Taiwan and undertook a careful evaluation process that some of the items were chosen for limited-quantity commercial production, which is still underway.
Despite the warm reception in Europe, Hsu believes the biggest craft market lies just across the Taiwan Strait. “Surveys show that the business value [of crafts in the mainland Chinese market] was US$100 billion last year,” he says.
Flow, which was created by designer Feng Cheng-tsung and craftsman Chen Kao-ming, was featured at this year’s Milan Design Week. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Hsu says mainland China has also been promoting traditional crafts in recent years and admits that the skill of some artisans there is even better than those in Taiwan. Nevertheless, Taiwanese products still stand a good chance in the market across the strait, he says. Mainland Chinese craftspeople make fine quality teapots, for instance, but Taiwanese artisans start by familiarizing themselves with the art of making tea, and improve their designs from the experience of actually using teapots. “Mainland China sells well-made crafts, but Taiwan adds our attitude toward living,” he says. “Our advantage lies in Taiwanese aesthetics and culture.”
Given that participating in shows and coming up with marketing strategies might be beyond the ability of most craftsmen, the NTCRI’s Craft Innovation Incubation Center is another important component of the institute’s assistance to Taiwan’s craft sector. The center provides artisans and craft companies with a range of services, including branding, marketing assistance, financial planning, product development and patent-related consultations.
“Our work here encompasses many fields and the process sometimes seems complicated, but the approach is simple,” Hsu says. “We apply traditional techniques to innovative designs, bring them to the global market and make a name there.”
Write to Jim Hwang at cyhuang03@mofa.gov.tw