In a world where everyone seems to be chasing after the latest new trends, one nevertheless can find the occasional person who has found a way to breathe new life and excitement into the handicrafts of a time gone by. Hong Wei­jin, having grown up in a family of ta­tami makers, is now being groomed to take over the family business that his grand­father has spent a lifetime building up. He sees something precious in it, though others may not.

After graduating from the Oriental Institute of Technology in the Tai­pei suburb of Ban­qiao, Wei­jin returned to Tai­nan and took a job in a textile factory, where day after day he inspected fabrics. Short of age 30, he got tired of his job and remembered what older relatives had often said: “If you’ve got a special skill, you’ll never go hungry.” Rather than mope around in an unsatisfying job, he decided to step into the ta­tami making business that his family had been running for a half century. There he would keep alive a traditional craft that has been fading into oblivion.

Highly honed sewing and cutting skills are needed to produce tatamis. Grandpa Hong is passing on a lifetime of skills to his grandson.

In 2008 Wei­jin, then 26 years old, decided to return home and learn from his grandfather, Hong Shi­ming, how to make ta­tamis. As a boy, Wei­jin had often watched his grandfather in action. The latter would place a core of rice straw weighing nearly 20 kilograms into a wooden frame, encase the core in woven rush grass, staple the ends in place, sew a cloth border over either side, then lop off any extra straw from the ends with a sharp knife. Wei­jin had often watched it done, and it always looked so easy, but when he tried his own hand at it he at last understood the complexity of the task.

A standard Taiwanese ta­tami measures three by six Taiwanese feet (one Taiwanese foot equals 30.3 centimeters). A total of seven or eight processes go into the making of a single ta­tami, which generally takes from 40 minutes to an hour to finish.

When Wei­jin first started out, the inexperienced young man practiced on downsized ta­tamis. “The toughest part is sewing up the tops and bottoms. To keep stray ends from showing, you’ve just got to develop a feel, so that the needle pulling the nylon thread goes into the same needle hole each time.” Wei­jin lets his fingernails grow long to aid in the task.

For the past four-plus years, Wei­jin has witnessed his grand­father’s rigorous adherence to the old methods, and become frustrated with a lack of respect in Taiwanese society for craftsmanship. “In Japan, if you’re a chef or a craftsman or whatever, as long as you’ve developed a certain skill, you can hold your head high for what you’ve achieved. But I don’t feel like that in Taiwan.”

At Ming­zhang, the ta­tami making process goes on in full view of curious passersby, who always seem to look a bit askance at the business, as if to ask: Does anyone still sleep on ta­tamis these days? Implied is a question about how much longer ta­tami making skills will survive. One time, a very young boy asked his father: “Can you earn any money making ta­tamis?” Wei­jin cannot hide his resentment as he recounts the incident.

The market for tatamis today is weak, but that was far from true in the past. Hong Shiming has been making tatamis for over 60 years, and has seen the tatami market decline from once great heights.

Ta­tamis may be disappearing from modern homes in Taiwan today, but there was a time when they were in very high demand. Set to turn 81 this year, Grandpa Hong has been making ta­tamis for over 60 years, a period that has seen the tatami market decline from once great heights.

Born in 1932, Grandpa Hong’s formal education came to an end during the fourth year of elementary school due to war. To earn a living, he moved to the town of Ma­dou in Tai­nan County, where he took up as an apprentice to a Japanese tatami maker. “That Japanese master would yell and hit me. I never had a chance to practice, so I had to do my sewing on the sly at the noon hour, when he napped.” After two years there, Grandpa Hong took a job at a yarn shop, but business declined as durable nylon fibers hit the market, so Hong decided to get back into ta­tami making. He opened Ming­zhang Ta­tami Shop in 1963 on Tai­nan’s Min­quan Road, and he’s done business at that location ever since.

Many government-run companies back then had Japanese-style guesthouses and employee dormitories with tatamis in disrepair, and they frequently posted public tender announcements in newspapers for contractors to repair or replace the ta­tamis. Grandpa Hong scoured the newspapers and traveled all over Taiwan to bid on jobs as far away as Luo­dong in Yi­lan County. Blessed with excellent people skills, he frequently managed to get jobs working for the Forestry Bureau, Taiwan Railways Administration, Taiwan Sugar, and other government-run entities.

Among the several fading black-and-white photos on display around the shop is one which shows a number of ta­tami makers sitting next to wooden frames, working away on their ta­tamis. This is what the shop looked like in its heyday. At the peak, Grandpa Hong employed a dozen or more master craftsmen, and each time he set out for an offsite project he’d lead a team of six or seven to do the job. He worked at least 16 hours a day, and delivered as many as 200-plus ta­tamis per month.

Highly honed sewing and cutting skills are needed to produce tatamis. Grandpa Hong is passing on a lifetime of skills to his grandson.

With Japanese-style structures disappearing and box-spring mattresses growing ever more ubiquitous, the use of ta­tamis has been on the decline. There were once more than 10 ta­tami shops in Tai­nan, but the number is now down to three. Craftsmen of Grandpa Hong’s generation have either died or have no one to whom they can pass their skills.

Recently, however, many architects and designers who’ve relocated to Tai­nan from elsewhere have become big clients, and are sparking a revival of the local ta­tami market. Young Wei­jin understands that appeals to nostalgia will not sell to younger consumers, so the Ming­zhang blog shows photos of ta­tami floors in restaurants and playrooms, as well as living rooms partially floored with ta­tamis. The idea is to impress upon people that ta­tamis today need no longer be confined, as in the past, to rooms where people sleep or rest.

Wei­jin had never thought as a kid that he would one day take over his grandfather’s business, but now he bends intently over his work, impervious to the raised eyebrows of onlookers. Quietly toiling away beneath the old shop sign, he will use his hands to carry forward skills built up within the family over the course of a half century, one stitch at a time.