Making It Evergreen:

Inside the factory of Brilliant Bamboo Craft, long, slender stems of bamboo are undergoing initial processing—which involves removing waxy substances, boiling the stems, soaking them in chemicals to preserve their fresh green color, and then drying, trimming, and cutting them—before they are made into various objects that reflect market needs.

The workshop of Brilliant Bamboo Craft presents a mind-boggling array of bamboo products, all of which come from the deft hand of Lin Chun-han, founder of the business. To be able to transform bamboo into such a dazzling variety of shapes requires thorough familiarity with the material itself. Lin says with confidence: “No other material is more readily shapeable than bamboo.”

Setting sights on bamboo

Lin’s words are well founded. Originally from Yilan, he has an academic background in forestry, a field to which he devoted himself from his days at the Yilan Institute of Agriculture and Technology and the Chiayi Institute of Agriculture to his postgraduate work in the Department of Forestry at National Chung Hsing University. He owes his deep knowledge of bamboo to this formal training.

Lin tells us that the multifarious uses of bamboo as a craft material may be simplified into two major categories. First, the close-grained outer layer of a bamboo stem can be woven into various objects and implements. Second, bamboo stems can be cut into strips of predetermined width and thickness and then glued and hot-pressed into laminates.

Taiwan’s island climate means that local bamboo is subject to changeful weather conditions that serve to enhance its hardness, strength, and resistance to bending. These qualities account for the strong preference of Japanese kendo practitioners for swords made of Taiwanese bamboo.

Not only is bamboo commendable for its versatility, but it also grows remarkably fast, becoming usable in just four years. As an eco-friendly material, moreover, bamboo lends itself to the reduction of carbon emissions. Familiar with the manifold benefits of bamboo, Lin set up shop in Nantou’s Caotun Township—a major center for Taiwan’s bamboo industries—after completing his studies.

Lin Chun-han, Dr. Evergreen Bamboo.

The bamboo used to make this chrysanthemum-shaped fruit platter has been processed through Lin Chun-han’s color-preserving technology. With the passage of time, its fresh green has gradually turned into yellowish green.

Preserving the color

Lin chose to focus on the less widely studied topic of bamboo, rather than mainstream timber, for his master’s thesis research. Inspired by the botanical specimens in his laboratory, he developed a method of preserving the vibrant green color of moso bamboo.

Lin explains that after a bamboo culm is felled, the chlorophyll in its outer skin breaks down rapidly. This chemical process, combined with exposure to sunlight, turns the color of bamboo from green to yellowish brown. This is why most of the bamboo artifacts we come across look buff-colored.

To forestall this chromatic change, Lin draws on the technique of “displacement reactions,” immersing three-year-old bamboo in a chemical solution and heating it, to replace the magnesium in the chlorophyll with the copper in the solution. At the end of the heating process, the copper will have returned to the solution. This technology, which significantly slows down the breakdown of chlorophyll, is certified by SGS as leaving no hazardous chemical residues in the bamboo.

In this way, Lin has been able to preserve the enticing green color in his bamboo tableware and teaware, the likes of which are rarely found elsewhere. If the faded colors of traditional bamboo objects exude old-time elegance, Lin’s creations retain the exuberant vitality of living bamboo plants.

Lin is not formally trained in traditional craftsmanship. What he relies on is his professional knowledge of bamboo, plus his enthusiasm. Nevertheless, his mind overflows with ideas when it comes to the wonderful versatility of bamboo crafts. A longstanding devotee of bamboo, Lin sometimes feels that it is hard for bamboo to achieve the popularity of hardwoods, the latter deriving their appeal from the beautiful patterns of their wood grain and from their rich aromas. But with his expertise, Lin—dubbed Dr. Evergreen Bamboo—is able to take full advantage of the peculiar characteristics of bamboo in his works. Few are better qualified to champion bamboo than he is.

Clay and sulfuric acid were applied to the bodies of these bamboo teapots to etch the cracks and mottled patterns into the surface of the bamboo.

Tea scoops with the green of the bamboo preserved through a chemical process. Made of square bamboo (Chimonobambusa quadrangularis), the cicada-shaped scoop (left) won a Good Craft Award from the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute.