Taiwan's New Hunger for Antiques

There's a light mist drizzling down, and by ten in the morning the customs office at the Keelung container port is in full swing. A four-story-tall crane is running its ear-splitting engine as it lowers a forty-foot container.

As usual, it's not long before a little car carrying customs officers appears in the forest of containers. What's unusual on this particular day is that there are two antiques specialists on this assignment--the items to be inspected are listed on the customs form as "century old" furniture from mainland China.

Opening the doors of the container, the workmen first carry out tightly wrapped packages one after the other, then cut the strings with knives. The two specialists check the items over very carefully: they are, to be sure, from before the late Ching dynasty, but they are of dubious quality. What's more, they come with quite a bit of dust and spider webs.

In order to clear the back of the container, the customs inspectors and the specialists from the university jump back and forth, and the products that are farthest back are moved inside. Shortly thereafter, when it is confirmed that there is no problem with any of the items, the scholars put their signatures to the customs forms, completing another antiques inspection job.

Antique furniture is brought to Taiwan in container after container. The photo shows antiques specialists doing an inspection at the customs station.

Taiwan is wealthy, the mainland not so well off, and there has always been a certain attraction between the two. This magnetic force continually brings mainlanders crossing illegally to Taiwan, and draws Taiwan businessmen over to the mainland to invest, while mainland girls are attracted to Taiwan to become brides . . . And mainland antiques--mainly antique furniture--have been rolling into Taiwan.

Taiwan and the mainland still have not formally agreed on the "three forms of contact" (direct trade, direct mail, and direct transport). But it is possible for antiques aged 100 years or more to be imported from the mainland under the terms of the "Regulations for Permits for Trade Between the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area" stipulated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. These antiques even enjoy tax exempt status. In order to verify that furniture imported from the mainland has in fact reached the century mark, the customs service has asked the Ministry of Education to provide a list of experts, and has established a special committee, so that any time a shipment comes in these specialists can be notified to come down and make a verification.

Hsiung Yi-chung, a curator at the National Taiwan Art Education Institute, who has often had to get to the customs stations at Wutu and Liutu for this purpose, has examined as many as five or six containers in a single day, even working well after dark. "It really makes me wonder: how can a place as small as Taiwan have the capacity to absorb so much?"

So how much antique furniture really has been brought in? The customs service has no definite figures, but merely has the total weight of "antiques over 100 years old." But when you go by weight, things like calligraphy or porcelain are miniscule, so that "the vast majority of the weight must be antique furniture," ventures Hsiung.

Lin Hsin-yi (a pseudonym), who runs an antique furniture shop in Linkou, points out that in the past two years at least ten containers a month of antique furniture have come into Taiwan. Because most of this old furniture is assembled from parts, it is quite easy to break it down; operators then carefully wrap each piece of this originally bulky furniture and place it in the container for shipment to Taiwan.

Looking at customs statistics, 1988 was a turning point. The amount of antique furniture imported from Hong Kong increased sevenfold, exceeding 200 tons. In the few years thereafter the amount rose and fell, but again increased dramatically beginning last year. The amount of antiques imported from Hong Kong and mainland China surpassed 800 tons, and the figure for the first eight months of this year has already surpassed the volume for all of last year.

Total Amount of Antiques Imported from Mainland China and Hong Kong.

As for the enthusiasm recently shown for antique furniture, Hsu Cheng-fu, director of the China Culture and Art Research Center, suggests that this is an inevitable product of a society which has achieved a certain level of prosperity. "China has been pursuing modernization ever since the May Fourth Movement. At that time Britain was the most powerful country, yet they were in the midst of nostalgia for the past."

Hsu recalls that about ten years ago there was a trend toward local culture in Taiwan, and old clothing, stone flour mills, water jars, and so on, which had been seen as junk, became quite popular as decorations. People began to understand the value of folk artifacts, and stopped selling them carelessly to buyers from Japan or the United States as they had done in the past.

However, Taiwan's aged objects have not been well cared for and anyway are limited in number, insufficient to satisfy the yearning for the past among so many people. When Taiwan's holdings had been fully plundered, and prices began to exceed those of mainland artifacts (with even an old jug costing about US$80), those in the business simply started to buy antiques in the mainland.

But at that time the mainland was still off-limits to people from Taiwan, so buyers were mostly from Hong Kong and Macao, and the amounts were small. And if you wanted to buy from them, considering that the material had to be repaired and packaged and had already gone through one middleman, prices were not cheap. Today Taiwan buyers have directly infiltrated the mainland, and are at the same starting line as business people from Hong Kong. "In the past the prices for antiques were astronomical, but now you can get a piece for just a few thousand. Considering how well-off Taiwan is, everyone can play in this game," states Lin Hsin-yi. His customers are by no means all large corporations, but include civil servants and teachers who like to take a drive out to the shop and browse on their day off.

In the past two years the economy has been off, and the antiques market has also been a bit depressed. But there has been little effect on antique furniture.

"The main reason is that antique furniture is also functional. A set of late Ching chairs can be purchased for NT$10,000 or so, about the price for brand new stuff. And also it's the end of the year, when a lot of people are moving, so it is peak season for antique furniture," reveals Lin.

Recently some interior designers have begun using antique furniture for their indoor layouts. For example, one major construction company tried an entirely new approach in the show apartment of a villa apartment block in Tamsui. For each and every room, from living room to dining room to bedroom, they used antique Ming dynasty furniture--more than 100 pieces altogether. The only exception was a Shanghai Foreign Concession era sofa in the den, so that the owner of the house would have some place to go when feeling "mellow."

It became popular for the restaurant industry to use Taiwan folk products to create a nostalgic atmosphere. This was the first stage in a return to the past among people in Taiwan.

There is another reason the market is continually expanding--operators are importing new items like carved wooden window frames and Ming style furniture.

Ching style furniture, with its fine workmanship and inlaid shell patterns, is the favorite of older folks from south and central Taiwan. But it's apparently not enough for the younger generation, which has been exposed to Western education and training in aesthetics. After the mainland was opened up, and antique dealers penetrated the continent, they collected a lot of Ming style furniture from the Suzhou Hangzhou area south of the Yangtze River. This delightful old furniture, with its refined lines and cultured and literary ambience, surprised a lot of people and proved irresistible to many.

Gillian Ni, head of planning at the furniture company Eslite, which has decided to sponsor an interior design exhibition with Artasia Fine Asian Antiques and Art Consultancy, is a good example herself. Two years ago when Artasia proposed the idea of a joint sponsorship, they were refused without a second thought. But when Ni saw that Ming-style furniture this year, it changed her attitude. "I didn't grow up looking at antiques, but perhaps I just have a sentimental attachment to Chinese culture, because when I saw the beauty of these Chinese traditions I was really moved. I felt as if there wasn't the slightest distance at all between myself and this old furniture."

"When you see Ming style furniture in pictures it looks as if its arranged very casually, with more of a Taoist spirit. In the Ching dynasty, because the dynastic rulers were of a different ethnic group [of Manchurian rather than of Chinese origin], they used rigorous Confucianism to rule China, and only then did daily life become so structured, with every table and chair in a fixed location, in order to distinguish the status of each person. It was just like reciting from rote memorization without using any thought or imagination at all," notes John Ang of Artasia Consultancy, who focussed on Chinese art history while in graduate school in the United States. Modern people place more emphasis on freedom and individuality, and find Ming style furniture easier to deal with.

This is especially true in northern Taiwan, with limited land and a high population density. Residences are generally small, and the Ming furniture, with its simple lines, is quite suitable. After the market for Ching furniture became saturated, Ming furniture created a new market to contend for.

In order to push the market up to the middle levels of the pyramid, antique dealers have begun to import Ming furniture made of softer woods like fine-grained elm.

"A pear-wood table with scrolled ends costs NT$800,000. It only costs NT$50,000 for one made from elm," says Chen Kuan-hua (a pseudonym), a wholesale trader in antique furniture. When Ming dynasty officials returned to southern China to visit their home towns, they brought with them the craftsmen who had made furniture for their homes in the capital, so a lot of the workmanship found on pear tree wood furniture can also be found on elm furniture. But the lower price range of the elm pieces means that they are accessible to even the ordinary salary-earner.

This show apartment in Tamshui is aimed at attracting the social strata of elevated tastes and even more elevated incomes, with the layout done in antique furniture. （photo by Yeh Yao-hung）

Because the economy has taken off in the coastal provinces of Southeast China, the region is in the midst of "renovating" its cities. Many brilliantly carved wooden door and window frames have been torn out, and brought across the Strait by dealers from Taiwan. In Taiwan they can be used as mirror or picture frames, wall decorations, lampstands, or even inlaid into glass tables for aesthetic effect. They have even been employed by photography studios as covers for wedding albums.

These decorative wood items have obviously caught the fancy of consumers. And they're available not only in the antique shops--even the vendors at the Kuanghua Market have stacks of them.

"When people see carved window frame embellishments, their initial reaction is: 'Wow! How could they carve so delicately? It must have taken so much work . . .' And once they hear it is camphor wood, it's not even necessary to go any further with the sales pitch. They just think that it is so inexpensive that's it's an even better investment than having it made new in Taiwan," laughs Wang Shu-shan (a pseudonym), one of the earliest in the business to import carved wood from the mainland.

In Taiwan, the consumers feel happy to get it, and the dealers are also delighted. Going a step further, Kung Ching, head of the furniture department of the Hsuen Men Arts Center, feels that bringing old wood material from the mainland and utilizing it in Taiwan is also a form of conservation. But when you look at things from a deeper level, how do mainlanders feel about having all the things from the old home bought and collected?

"Those who understand it treat it like a product, and those who don't understand it also treat it like a product. If they can find a buyer, they'll sell as much as they can--make money to live on first, ask questions later," states Chen Kuan-hua.

Has anyone ever expressed regret? "The only thing they ever regret is that they charged too little on the last deal," says Wang Shu-shan, a frequent traveler to the mainland. The interesting thing is that they don't even know where they're going to get the next shipment, but still they say, "I've still got some lovely items. Do you want to take a look?"

Although many Taiwanese dealers are old hands who really know their antiques, there are also many outsider businessmen who have turned to antique furniture after seeing that there are profits to be made. In order to get the jump on the goods, they go to places where it seems like nobody will turn them down. However, "the mainlanders are secretly laughing; it's just as if the Taiwanese going there were buying garbage," says a dealer who has been doing field research into classical Chinese furniture on the mainland for many years.

Wang Shih-hsiang, an expert in Ming dynasty furniture, advises that patterns and embellishments are the best basis for verifying antique furniture. Based on the patterns in these pieces, they ought to be from the late Ming.

If you really get garbage, then there's nothing to be done about it. What's really a problem is that some antique furniture is classified as artifacts, trade in which is restricted by Communist China. Some pieces have even been torn off of houses classified as historic sites. This is a criminal issue.

The mainland's Artifact Protection Law prohibits the export of anything over 200 years old. The worst offenders can be sentenced to up to life in prison plus confiscation of all their property. But there are always those who will engage in cut-throat business practices. Cases have been uncovered in the mainland of people trying to pass old furniture off as second-hand junk or fire-damaged goods. If there are people willing to procure something, then naturally someone will be there to sell it.

When the topic of how these restricted items can be turned into exports comes up, many dealers reveal that, "we have our channels."

"If Wu'erkaixi [a student leader of the 1989 democracy movement] can get out of the country, then antique furniture can get out," laughs John Ang, who has not been to the mainland himself to look for goods but is quite familiar with this particular situation. "Where there's money, there's a way."

As a result, many antique furniture dealers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Europe, the United States and elsewhere have flocked to mainland China. They go through local farmers or "cowboys" (people who will take buyers around to check out merchandise); or else local relatives or even the individuals themselves scour the territory to look over, move, and export goods.

"It's getting harder and harder to collect goods. There's nothing left in the cities, and nothing left in the countryside. Now you have to go all the way back into the mountains to the summer homes of wealthy families. I estimate that it will be impossible to get even this antique furniture two or three years from now," forecasts one individual who specializes in decorative carvings from doors and windows. He says, quite in earnest, "I feel Taiwan is really lucky to be able to have the opportunity to acquire these precious objects."

Carved wooden windows and door frames torn off old houses in mainland China have been brought to Taiwan where they have become beloved among the decorating industry. The tables in these restaurants are made using such items.

But scholars have concerns about the large-scale import of antique furniture into Taiwan. "Everything is coming in helterskelter, the good, the bad, the mixed-together, the damaged. To blindly import these products will actually reduce the ability of Taiwan people to appreciate what's good," he concludes.

Further, Taiwan lacks any experienced craftsman who specialize in maintenance of antique furniture who could pass their craft along In order to minimize costs, dealers very rarely send their goods to Hong Kong, where there are experienced masters who will slowly restore the furniture with skill and care. Instead they just have a mainland craftsman do preliminary work and then ship the item directly to Taiwan. Treated with electric scrapers, sandpaper, and varnish, many pieces of antique furniture lose their invaluable "patina," which has a beauty derived from decades of rubbing and polishing.

Taiwan's climate differs from that of the mainland, and air conditioning is widely used as well. This causes a lot of the furniture that endures the journey across the Taiwan Strait to crack and split. "We often feel guilty, and ask ourselves whether or not we really should bring antique furniture over to Taiwan," admits one dealer.

Wood carvings on window frames have been made into a variety of wall hangings to beautify rooms.

But many feel that even if Taiwan dealers do not do the buying, mainlanders who now place their hopes in modernization and an improvement in the standard of living will sell their heirlooms anyway, just as Taiwanese once did. Americans and Japanese now go to the mainland, so if no one from Taiwan goes, many things will just flow out to foreign countries.

Hsu Cheng-fu, who often goes on buying trips to Hong Kong, likes to think of himself as a gatekeeper. When these products get to Hong Kong, he tries to think of some way to intercept them and find a buyer for them at home.

"Although they will also be well taken care of if they go to foreign countries, and we can see them in the museums there, these are after all things that belonged to our ancestors. Since Taiwan has the capability, why not keep these heirlooms here? Anyway, once the two sides of the Strait are reunified, it's all China," he avers.

Liu Liang-you, a professor in the Graduate Institute of Arts at Chinese Culture University, who also does antique verification for the customs service, is extremely opposed to this point of view.

"Any artifact only has meaning if it is preserved in its place of origin," he says. When you walk the ancient roads, read the scrolls, and go to the burial mound of the first Chin Emperor, it is like transporting your whole person into another place and time, and naturally you can sense the awesome atmosphere of that period. How could taking a few terracotta statues of horses and men from the burial site and putting them in an antique shop in Taipei possibly compare? "When you turned on the light, those terracotta statues would just look like mannequins."

Liu has held a fine arts seminar in Fujian Province on the mainland. A specialist from the provincial museum there objected to him that because Taiwan encourages the import of century-old antiques from China by making them tax exempt, this has been a tremendous blow to the local conditions for artifacts. "They have discovered many incidents, all of which turned out to be instigated by Taiwanese, who of course are also cooperating with local officials acting in violation of the law," he says angrily. "This is a problem just like that of rhino horns, and sooner or later we'll be accused of wrongdoing."

But dealers retort that "the mainland can't take care of these artifacts themselves." They say that even some museums sell off their slightly marred antiques in order to maintain even more important pieces. During the Cultural Revolution, artifacts and antiques were wantonly destroyed. "For example, the faces carved onto door and window frames have often been hacked away because the stories on which the carvings were based were considered too 'feudal,"' says Wang Shu-shan.

So is Taiwan the savior of antiques from the mainland? Or the thief?

Looking at old paintings is helpful for researching antique furniture. The photo shows a Sung dynasty painting held by the National Palace Museum. （photo courtesy of the National Palace Museum）

Faced with this question, the Chinese architectural scholar Wang Chen-hua responds that many specific questions need to be answered. He by no means opposes dealers buying up these precious old houses which are just hidden away and are perhaps so rickety that they are not considered by local antiquities specialists as being worth preserving.

But in fact there are many unscrupulous operators who will even convince poor people to destroy their old homes or altars just so they can get their hands on the merchandise. "Trampling on history in this way is an incredible crime," he says with deep regret. In order to acquire a few superficially beautiful objects, we shake the very customs, and even the living environment, of a society. Today the old mores and values of mainland Chinese are being swept away, and you cannot say that the way we do some things is not connected and that we bear no responsibility for it.

It is just as Liu Liang-you concludes: "To import mainland antiques without any scruples concerning how you do it, on the one hand just supports the corrupt officials and rich smugglers on the mainland, and on the other destroys the environment of Chinese culture. How can you call this the preservation of Chinese culture?"

Further, although antique furniture is mobile, it is also an ingredient in architecture. If the furniture is removed, valuable historic sites will become empty shells. "I went to Canglangting and discovered that the furniture inside was all wrong, so that a noble and elegant place had bizarre and misplaced furnishings," adds Wang Chen-hua.

Nevertheless, as it is true that controls and protective legislation for artifacts have not yet had the desired effect in mainland China, "taking the worst case scenario, if these things can be brought to Taiwan and given tender loving care, it's OK that they come over first," says Wang. He notes with exasperation that he has seen exquisite window frame carvings used as fences for pigsties or as warehouse doors because of the Cultural Revolution. He agrees that these artifacts are not being well cared for in the mainland.

Though the mainland does not treasure these objects, is it likely they will meet the same fate in Taiwan? Now that it has fallen to us, in our short lifespan of mere decades, to look after this old furniture that has been passed from generation to generation, surviving fire, flood, and manmade disasters like the Cultural Revolution, what should we do?

As an avalanche of antique furniture is transported across the Taiwan Strait, this is the new conundrum to which we will have to furnish the answer.

[Picture Caption]

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After contact with the mainland became legal, the flood of traditional cultural artifacts flowing out along the long coastline could not be stemmed. Taiwanese have the good fortune to live amid beautiful antique furniture .

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Antique furniture is brought to Taiwan in container after container. The photo shows antiques specialists doing an inspection at the customs station.

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Total Amount of Antiques Imported from Mainland China and Hong Kong

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It became popular for the restaurant industry to use Taiwan folk products to create a nostalgic atmosphere. This was the first stage in a return to the past among people in Taiwan.

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This show apartment in Tamshui is aimed at attracting the social strata of elevated tastes and even more elevated incomes, with the layout done in antique furniture. (photo by Yeh Yao-hung)

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Wang Shih-hsiang, an expert in Ming dynasty furniture, advises that patterns and embellishments are the best basis for verifying antique furniture. Based on the patterns in these pieces, they ought to be from the late Ming.

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Carved wooden windows and door frames torn off old houses in mainland China have been brought to Taiwan where they have become beloved among the decorating industry. The tables in these restaurants are made using such items.

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Wood carvings on window frames have been made into a variety of wall hangings to beautify rooms.

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Looking at old paintings is helpful for researching antique furniture. The photo shows a Sung dynasty painting held by the National Palace Museum. (photo courtesy of the National Palace Museum)

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During the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, many old artifacts were mutilated. The face of the figure at the right has been cut away.