Just two blocks from the busiest road in New Taipei City’s Xinzhuang District lies a narrow alley of historic low brick buildings, Taoist temples and small shops selling products ranging from food to daily utensils. A smithy displaying knives and farm implements stands out among them.
Ri-ri-yong was launched in 1979 by the father of current owner and master knifemaker Wang Chong-de. Wang studied blacksmithing under his father, who in turn had learned the craft from his father, before taking over the shop 15 years ago.
The Wang family has been at the center of the blacksmithing industry in Xinzhuang for a century, but Wang is the only descendant who still operates a business selling products made with his own hands.
“Although today’s industrialized society is dominated by automatic manufacturing processes meant to deliver large numbers of goods in a short time, I remain committed to traditional techniques of forging knives and farming tools,” Wang told Taiwan Today June 8.
Manual blacksmithing is arduous labor, but it ensures the hardness, sharpness and durability of the finished product. “Our household kitchen knives can last at least four decades and those for commercial use up to five years,” the middle-aged Wang said proudly.
Such exceptional properties have guaranteed wide popularity among local residents for Ri-ri-yong’s knives and tools.
The small shop’s fame comes not from large investments in advertising, but from an intense focus on the production of quality goods.
“My father infused in me the importance of creating satisfying products to build customers’ confidence in us and establish our reputation,” Wang said. “In this way, they’re likely to introduce our products to friends and relatives.
“Word-of-mouth advertising is the best, most sustainable strategy to promote our store—and it’s free of charge.”
True to its name, which means “daily use,” Ri-ri-yong sells gear for everyday life, with its best-selling merchandise varying over time as the result of social developments.
When it first opened, the store featured a myriad of farming implements such as hoes, sickles and rakes—all reflective of Taiwan’s traditional agricultural society. Even earlier, in the 1960s, Wang recalled, the blacksmithing industry was so prosperous that small smithies occupied several Xinzhuang streets.
As Taiwan gradually began its transformation into an industrial economy in the late 1960s, many people moved to more developed urban areas such as Xinzhuang to work in factories, and numerous traditional-style markets sprang up to cater to their basic needs.
“This social context led to an increasing demand for household kitchen knives and specialty knives used commercially by butchers and chefs,” Wang said. “These have been our most important items ever since.”
Blades currently on display at the shop range from regular kitchen knives to long razor-sharp watermelon knives and others used to slaughter chickens, pigs and fish. An assortment of agricultural and construction tools is also for sale.
All these gleaming cutting tools undergo a labor-intensive blacksmithing process and exhaustive checks before they reach the store’s shelves, according to Wang.
The first step is to place a piece of steel between two chunks of iron and put them inside a furnace—as hot as 1,400 degrees Celsius—to soften and melt the hard metal, Wang said. “This procedure guarantees a trio of pieces to be integrated into one.”
When the metal is a reddish color, it is taken out of the furnace in a clamp and then pounded by a triphammer to forge a knife. The next step is to further hone and polish the piece, finishing with a specific shape to meet the purpose of the knife.
Determining when to remove the metal from the furnace requires precise judgment, and finely tuned skills are needed to grind a knife smoothly so there are no protruding angles or corners. For Wang, who has been working metal for more than 30 years, this expertise is now second nature.
The master blacksmith also welcomes challenging requests from customers for knives in unusual shapes and specific weights. “My extensive experience in this industry enables me to successfully manage these orders and deliver satisfying results,” Wang said.
He added that all the knives and most of the farming tools manufactured by Ri-ri-yong are engraved with the three Chinese characters of the shop’s name. “We also had the trademark registered after finding knockoffs of our products circulating on the market.”
Over the past decades, Wang has witnessed firsthand the rise and fall of blacksmithing in Taiwan. Realizing that he runs one of the very few traditional smithies still in operation, he did not sound optimistic about the future of his shop.
“If my son doesn’t want to take the baton from me, it will be time for Ri-ri-yong to come to an end,” he said. “But until then, I’ll continue doing my part to keep the store up and running.
“Recently I’ve started to see blacksmithing as an art, and not merely as a way to make a living,” Wang said with a smile. “With this change in attitude, I’ve really come to enjoy knife-forging.” (THN)
Write to Elaine Hou at elainehou@mail.gio.gov.tw