The painter Yen Shui-lung, sometimes known as the godfather of Taiwanese handicrafts, once observed that artisans have to balance aesthetics with utility and user satisfaction. Unfortunately, a close study of the handicrafts for sale in Taiwan’s markets reveals that greater success in meeting users’ needs often corresponds to poorer aesthetics. This is especially true of the folk handicrafts that feature in people’s everyday lives. The papier mâché objects burned after Daoist ceremonies and funerals are a case in point.

In Taiwanese-style papier mâché (huzhi), artisans build a bamboo framework, then decorate it by gluing paper to its exterior. Generally speaking, modern Taiwanese-style papier mâché products lack much of the aesthetic appeal they used to have. With the simplification of Daoist rituals and funerals,

their only purpose nowadays is to be burned at the end of the ceremony.

Changing times have wrought many changes on Taiwanese papier mâché and on folk customs in general. Not surprisingly, the more industrially developed the location, the more apparent the changes. Urgent action is therefore required to preserve traditional arts and crafts. Fortunately, there are currently several papier mâché masters who are preserving the traditional techniques and continuing to create new work. Most of these masters are the heirs to family craft traditions. One example is Wang Hsu-sheng, a 64-year-old master craftsman carrying on the traditions of the Wang family of Magong, Penghu.

Wang Wenliang, an arts teacher at National Magong High School and a member of the Penghu County Cultural Affairs Bureau’s cultural heritage review committee, explains that Penghu is home to several papier mâché producing families, but the Wang family produces the most refined work and has preserved a great many techniques. Folding and shaping sheets of paper with meticulous care, the Wangs continue to produce amazingly lifelike sculptures of people and beasts.

The Wang family also produce wooden “plague boats,” which are burned in a religious ceremony intended to ward off disease. Wang Hsu-sheng’s elder brother Wang Hsu-hui has refined and developed the family’s techniques to the point that their boats have a recognizable style that differs markedly from that of the plague boats made along Taiwan’s southwest coast.

The Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Cultural Heritage is now working with the brothers to preserve and pass on the skills they learned from their late father, Wang Zongtian,

by organizing study sessions at which the brothers teach their techniques.

Folk handicrafts are a reflection of folk culture. Anyone seeking to learn about Taiwan’s traditional folk customs should consider becoming familiar with the folk handicrafts that still survive. l