More than 1600 years ago, the great Jin dynasty calligrapher Wang Xizhi and his friends were sitting in an Orchid Pavilion along the banks of a river. They filled cups with wine and put them into the water upstream. Whoever was sitting closest to where a cup ended up would have to drink the wine and write a line of verse. Knowledge of "these cups winding their way downstream" has been passed along to the present. And the leading players in this drama-those water-tight, oval-shaped wine cups with two earlike handles-were examples of lacquer ware. Of the 180-some pieces of lacquer ware dug up in the Mawang Tomb in 1972, half of them were these double-handled cups. In many of them were written the Chinese characters "jun xing jiu"-which means "Please drink." Sufficient to show that hosts back then pushed drinks on their guests with all of the best intentions.

7000 years of lacquer ware in China

Lacquer ware can be made from a base of any of various materials, including wood and metals such as bronze. These objects become lacquer ware once a coat of lacquer has been applied. Just as any industrial-made product is finished with some sort of protective coating, the resin taken from the sap of the lacquer tree was the best natural protective coating the ancients had.

Raw lacquer is made when impurities and excess water are removed from lacquer sap. Exposed to air, the lacquer resin reacts with the oxygen by drying and hardening. It forms a surface as hard as stone, resistant both to strong acids and strong alkalines. It is rustproof, waterproof and insect-proof. In the waters off Korea a Ming dynasty wreck has been found whose cargo of lacquer ware came up looking brand new after sitting at the bottom of the salty sea for 400 years. And an experiment with two pieces of iron exposed to aqua regia have shown that the lacquer-treated piece still looks as good as new when the untreated piece has wholly disintegrated. Hence, most of the tables in chemical laboratories are coated with this natural substance.

Many people mistakenly hold that lacquer ware originated in Japan. In truth, Japan and Korea learned the craft from China during the Han and Tang dynasties. The history of lacquer ware production in Europe only started in the 17th century after merchants introduced techniques from China. No one knows for certain when and where people first started to use implements made of stone, pottery, bronze and jade, but there is no doubt that lacquer ware is a Chinese invention.

References to lacquer ware go far back in China's recorded history. For instance, the book Han Fei Zi describes Shun, King of Yu, eating on ware coated with black lacquer, and notes that Yu, King of Xia, had ceremonial vessels that were coated with black lacquer on the outside and red lacquer on the inside (both kings lived in the late third millennium BC). In the Zhou dynasty the use of lacquer was even more prevalent, and an imperial department was set up to oversee the planting of lacquer trees, the production of lacquer and the taxing of lacquer profits. The great philosopher Zhuangzi, a lover of nature, was once an official charged with overseeing lacquer plantations. Because of the high value placed on lacquer ware, many fortunes were made growing lacquer trees and refining lacquer. So much so that the government imposed a tax of 25%!

At a Neolithic site at Hemadu in Yuyao County, Zhejiang, archeologists have dug up a speckled and peeling wooden bowl, the outside surface of which was covered with a light, shiny red lacquer. It proves that lacquer ware has at least a 7000-year history in China.

Ancient luxury

In ancient times, before the invention of plastic, lacquer was valued for shining like gold or pearls, and for being a surface in which gold, silver, pearls and jewels could be set and fine decorative lines could be carved. It was therefore loved by emperors and nobility. At times the use of lacquer ware by emperors fueled charges of extravagance.

Over the course of history many of the processes for making lacquer ware have been quite complex. Yantielun, a Han dynasty book by Huan Kuan, describes the division of labor required: "A single lacquered cup requires the labor of 100, whereas the production of a screen can provide work for 10,000." From this it is evident that lacquer factories employed great numbers of people. In light of the tremendous amount of labor required to make lacquer ware, it is no wonder that it was labeled a "luxury item."

Suoo Yu-ming, who used to work in the National Palace Museum, points out, "Since ancient times frugality has always been considered one of the virtues of great rulers. Consequently, the use of lacquer ware by rulers used to be viewed with suspicion. Even good rulers such as King Shun and King Yu were criticized for extravagance because they used lacquer. In the Tang dynasty pingtuo was a particularly outstanding type of lacquer ware in which thin engraved sheets of silver or gold were applied over the base. After these were coated with lacquer and polished, gold and silver decorative lines would appear. This kind of lacquer ware was widely loved at court, and the emperor Xuanzong and his imperial consort Yang Guifei bestowed gifts of it on An Lushan before he rebelled. After the rebellions by An Lushan and Shi Siming at the end of Xuanzong's rule, the following emperor, Suzong, made a strict declaration prohibiting the manufacture of this sort of lacquer.

But the truth is that in ancient China bronze ware and jade implements were also labor-intensive objects of exquisite beauty. So why was lacquer ware singled out for harsh treatment? Suoo Yu-ming points out that literati traditionally viewed bronze tripods and ritual jades as ceremonial pieces symbolic of the emperor and the state. Irreproachably sacred, they were immune from similar charges of being extravagances.

Cheating the emperor

Among the many sorts of lacquer ware, the diao lacquer of the Song dynasty is particularly renowned. The base of a diao piece would be coated with hundreds of layers of lacquer. After a certain thickness was reached, most of the lacquer would then be rubbed off leaving decorative lines of lacquer in relief. The layers could be of red lacquer (called tihung), black lacquer (tihei) or both (ticai). Because diao lacquer ware required more raw lacquer to produce and more labor to craft, it became one of the most precious kinds of lacquer ware. Almost all of the lacquer ware in the collection at the National Palace Museum are examples of diao lacquer ware, particularly the red type.

The diao lacquer ware made in the Song dynasty often used a gold base. In one type the gold was exposed, and in another type it was entirely obscured. The Qing dynasty book Jinyu Suoji declares that Song dynasty diao lacquer ware was marvelous and costly. The book says that one day an antique dealer accidentally broke one of his pieces of Song diao and discovered that it was gold inside. From that time, many people struggled to acquire pieces of Song diao and then stripped them of their lacquer. Now there are few examples of diao lacquer ware with a base of gold left. It is a history that makes one of Zhuangzi's lines about the undesirability of being of value poignantly prophetic: "Lacquer trees can be used, so they are hacked."

Apart from the Warring States period and the two Han dynasties, the Ming dynasty was another period in which lacquer ware flourished. During the rule of the first Ming emperor, Hong Wu (1368-1399), there were more than 5000 artisans at work producing lacquer ware. The third Ming emperor, Chengzu (1403-1425), received tihong red lacquer ware as tribute from Okinawa. He loved the stuff, and only then learned that tihong lacquer ware originated from Jiaxing in the distant regions south of the Yangtze River. As a result, a famous lacquer master was brought to the palace from Jiaxin in Jiangnan, and officials set up the "Orchard Factory." Various kinds of extremely elaborate and beautiful lacquer ware were made there. Unfortunately, during the reign of Xuande (1426-1436), the great masters died out, and the skills of the following generation were not nearly as impressive. The lacquer ware produced was much less pleasing to the eye and met with the emperor's disapproval. Instead of striving to improve their lacquering skills, the students of those former accomplished masters who were now in charge colluded with the eunuchs to steal lacquer ware from the palace and change the marks on pieces made during Chengzu's reign so that it appeared as if they were made during Xuande's rule. They were able to fool the emperor by offering him such pieces.

China to Japan, Japan to Taiwan

The lacquer ware in the National Palace Museum collection in Taipei comprises works that master craftsmen devoted their lives to creating so as to please the emperor. Yet in Taiwan's early days, when the Han pioneers were struggling to wrest a living from the soil, lacquer ware would not have been part of common life. It would have appeared only on the tables of wealthy families, on altars at temples, and in dowries. Yet during the Japanese era, lacquer ware, which was brought from China to Japan, where it would eventually become a highly valued part of the national heritage, did thrive for a short time in Taiwan. There was even a government-supported lacquer ware school in Taichung, one of whose master teachers was Chen Huo-chin.

The Japanese took control of Taiwan in 1895. Because lacquer ware was considered a household essential among the Japanese, and because Taiwan, with its warm and wet climate, was well suited to growing lacquer trees, in 1921 the Japanese introduced Vietnamese lacquer trees to Tongluo, Miaoli County and Puli, Nantou County. Large areas were given over to lacquer plantations. At that time, a graduate of the Tokyo Fine Arts Academy named Yamanaga established the Yamanaga Fine Arts Lacquer Factory in Taiwan. When Chen was 13, he went to work there as an apprentice and began to learn the craft.

"Before I started working there I didn't even know what lacquer was," recalls Chen, who is now 84. "I became a student of Mr. Yamanaga because my father put great stock in the adage 'giving your son a trade is better than giving him 1000 pieces of gold.'"

In 1928, concluding that it was necessary to pass along lacquering techniques in Taiwan, the Taichung City government established the Taichung City Vocational Arts Academy, which was the only school ever to teach lacquering in the history of Taiwan. Chen worked at Yamanaga for 18 years, as an apprentice during the first five years, and a master craftsman during the last 13, at which time he did double duty as a teacher at the Taichung school.

Rashes and sores

Every year the school would enroll five new students, but only two would finish their studies. Those who dropped out did so overwhelmingly because they couldn't stand their allergic reactions to the lacquer.

There is a substance in the lacquer resin used to make lacquer ware that can eat through skin and which many people are allergic to. Of 100 people exposed to it, 99 will have allergic reactions. Those with relatively mild cases develop itchy rashes and sores. Those with severe cases may become seriously ill for a whole month. What people find particularly hard to accept is that one doesn't develop an immunity after the first outbreak: the allergic reactions often recur throughout life. (After the lacquer surface dries, however, it is safe and stable, and poses no threat to human health.)

"I'm still allergic to lacquer!" Chen says. "Yet my reaction to it isn't severe. I just get red eyes and an itchy rash." Regarding these "lacquer bites" and the pain they cause, Chen says, "When you're bit, your bit. Leave them alone and don't scratch them, and they will be gone in about ten days." It may sound easy, but to endure it over a lifetime requires extraordinary willpower and perseverance. Taking these allergic reactions in stride as an unavoidable part of life, the 84-year-old Chen humorously recalls stories about others' allergic reactions:

"When I was studying lacquering, there was a Japanese kid who was also an apprentice there, and once his whole face was swollen and covered with sores. When the time of the month rolled around for his father to visit, I told him to go out in the street to wait for his dad, but his father didn't recognize him! When the boy stepped in front of his father, and said, 'Dad,' his father jumped with fright! Ha-ha. He truly had a bad case. After the retrocession of Taiwan, a young woman came to me to study making lacquer ware. When she was exposed to the lacquer her eyes swelled. When the swelling subsided, her single fold had become a double fold. I comforted her by saying that she had gotten much more out of the course than most people: not only had she learned about lacquer, but she had naturally obtained a second fold in her eyelids. 'You really hit two birds with one stone!' I said."

Putting one's conscience first

Though Chen has made lacquer ware for more than 70 years, he has never asked that his children learn the craft. "Making lacquer causes too much hardship," Chen says. The high rate of failure when making lacquer ware is even harder to bear than the physical suffering.

When making lacquer ware, you first use sandpaper to smooth what you are using as a base. Then you start applying the coats. After each one, you've got to polish. Each piece requires anywhere from several to several dozen or even several hundred layers. The coats have got to be applied very evenly. If one side is thick and one side thin, it will crack. Just a slight unevenness in the lacquer thickness near one corner is enough to get a large table stripped and have the process start all over again.

"The most difficult part of the process is applying the final coat. You've got to control the temperature and humidity, and also guard against dust and mosquitoes. Lacquer is 'alive' and will change at any given moment. It's very difficult to control," says Chen Huo-ching. "In particular, when applying lacquer to large pieces of furniture, you've got to work at night when the other members of the house are resting and not moving about. It will take three to four hours to apply a coat of lacquer to an altar table. Then you've got to hang a mosquito net around it to keep out mosquitoes and dust, and keep the net moist so as to maintain a constant humidity. As you wait for the lacquer to dry and see if there are any blemishes, the suspense can excruciating." Chen explains that if just one speck of dust falls onto the surface of the lacquer, then the lacquer solution will bubble and cause a small bump. If a mosquito falls on it, then it will form a large bump. In either case, Chen says that you've got to sand it down and start all over again. Much time will be wasted, and the hoped for profits on a piece may entirely disappear.

"Most people, in fact, don't care about a minor imperfection, but my father simply wouldn't give customers work with any flaws," says Chen Chih-ming, Chen Huo-ching's third son, who now runs a lacquer processing plant. "Later, when we opened up our factory, the workers would get extremely nervous when they saw him coming, because if he saw a single flaw he would always tell them to start all over."

Japanese flavor, Taiwanese style

Because of differences in lifestyle, the Taiwanese still used little lacquer ware during the era of Japanese rule, and the vast majority of the ware the island produced was sold to Japanese businessmen as souvenirs. At the Yamanaga Factory Chen Huo-ching produced lacquer ware with entirely Taiwanese style designs, such as tea platters showing aboriginal Taiwanese grinding rice, or other plates featuring bananas or pineapples or other indigenous tropical fruit. "This kind of Taiwanese 'paradise island' lacquer ware was vastly different from the lacquer ware produced in the mainland for the court," says Huang Li-shu, a researcher for the Taiwan Provincial Handicraft Research Institute who once oversaw a plan for passing on lacquering skills. "It's unique in the history of lacquer in China."

In his spare time Chen Huo-chin designs and produces some artistic lacquer ware. He only makes one of each piece, many with up to 30 coats of lacquer. Some pieces can take up to two months before completion. With their dragonflies and butterflies, they have a naive, folk flavor to them. In 1986 the Kanazawa College of Art in Japan established its Museum of Taiwanese Lacquer, at which time scholars came to seek out Chen Huo-chin. After their earnest pleas, he half-sold, half-donated eight pieces. "It's a bit of a pity that I sold those pieces because I have neither the energy nor the inclination to do the same sort of works over again." As we hear Chen sigh, are we not hearing the lament of Taiwan's lacquer ware industry?

Lacquer's second spring

After the retrocession of Taiwan, the lacquer ware school and Yamanaga factory both closed. As the Japanese left Taiwan, lacquering skills were gradually lost, and the masters of the craft one by one changed professions.

Chen Huo-chin worked out of his house to make various accessories for the home, such as tea plates and containers for crackers and cigarettes. He also found work putting on new coats where original applications of lacquer had been damaged on safes, pianos, fishing poles and furniture. Chen Huo-chin says, "In the old days important things would all get a layer of lacquer. Even cars would get a coat." With Chen thus getting by with odd jobs, his family of seven had, as Chen puts it, "enough food to eat, but not quite enough clothes to wear." And so Chen Huo-chin later got a day job applying chemical paints and varnishes at an ROC Air Force base in Shuinan, Taichung County. He continued to make lacquer ware when he came home at night.

In the 1970s, as forest protection measures caused the cost of raw lacquer to rise and the cost of labor rocketed in Japan, it became very hard to make money in the lacquer trade in Japan, and many saw no future for it there. Some were prompted to come to Taiwan, where they looked for Taiwanese lacquer masters and raw lacquer.

In Japanese the character _* refers only to natural lacquers and not to chemical paints as well (as it does in Chinese), so when the Japanese saw this character on numerous shop signs in Taiwan, they mistakenly believed that the lacquering industry was thriving here. Yet most Taiwanese who had been trained as lacquer masters during the Japanese era had long since changed fields, and it turned out that searching for the right person to work with was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

On one afternoon during a thunder shower, a Japanese businessman in the lacquer trade, acting on the recommendation of a factory that made the wooden bases for lacquer ware, called upon Chen Huo-chin. Chen and he talked in Japanese about the manufacture of lacquer ware, and it soon became clear that the businessman was testing Chen, intentionally using a lot of technical terms. Chen deftly answered one question after another. The Japanese then took out a piece of lacquer ware he had with him and asked Chen if he could reproduce it. Chen told him to come back a week later. The businessman, who had originally planned to return to Japan in three days, extended his stay. When he saw Chen's reproduction, he was momentarily stunned. Later, he would tell a Taiwanese import-exporter that Chen Huo-chin was just the person he had spent three years looking for!

Taiwan's lacquer renaissance

After the Japanese went into business with Chen, he would bring Chen various kinds of lacquer ware from different regions in Japan, where there are many local styles. The lacquer masters of Okinawa, for instance, are famous for pressing flat sheets of lacquer paste, which are then carved and cut as ornamentation. The lacquer of Nara, on the other hand, is embedded with mother of pearl. Craftsmen from one place won't know how to manufacture lacquer ware styles produced somewhere else. Yet Chen Huo-chin not only knew where each piece of Japanese lacquer ware came from and how to make it, but he was even able to make kinds of lacquer ware that the astonished Japanese businessman had never seen.

"In the past Taiwanese masters would make whatever their customers wanted," Chen explains. "Furthermore at Yamanaga we not only had instructors from every part of Japan but also had two instructors from Fuzhou in mainland China. We learned how to do everything."

When the Japanese started to work with Chen, they opened the gates to a flood of Taiwanese lacquer ware exports to Japan. In the area around Fengyuan in Taichung County, 30-40 factories would eventually start producing lacquer ware, mostly relatively simple wooden bowls, tea trays and forks. Total yearly exports would reach NT$620 million. Back then, many called Fengyuan "the home of lacquer."

The heyday of the production of lacquer ware was naturally also a golden era for the production of raw and refined lacquer.

The golden days

Lacquer trees originated in mainland China and were not planted in Taiwan until the Japanese era. Imported from Vietnam, lacquer trees were planted in Tungluo in Miaoli County and Puli in Nantou County. When the plantations proved successful, the first Taiwan factory refining lacquer was established in Tungluo as well.

After the retrocession of Taiwan to the ROC at the end of World War II, the Taiwanese company that took over the Japanese company's holdings in Tungluo proved inept at planting and cultivating lacquer trees, and Puli gradually established a dominant position. By the 1960s Puli was responsible for 90% of all lacquer production. The Lungnan Co. of Puli became the largest producer of lacquer in Taiwan, making more than 80 tons of the 90 tons exported each year in early 1970s.

Hsu Yi-fu, the second-generation CEO of the family business, is also the director of Taiwan's Lacquer Museum. A fount of tales about the history of lacquer production in Taiwan, he details the history of the Taiwanese lacquer industry's rise and fall:

In the early period of Taiwanese lacquer production the raw lacquer was shipped directly to Japan without being refined. Because there was little produced in Taiwan, it was extremely expensive. As early as the 1950s one kilo of raw lacquer cost NT$600. With the same money you could have bought 600 catties of rice. Afterwards, because numerous unscrupulous businessman added water to their lacquer, it destroyed the reputation of Taiwan-produced lacquer, and prices fell by half. Then in the 60s and 70s, with new quality controls and with supplies from the mainland cut off during the Cultural Revolution, the price rose to NT$900, and for six months even rose above NT$1000.

"In those days the only way I could obtain raw lacquer from lacquer planters was to go to them with cash and beg," recalls Hsu of those boom years. "In Puli one out of every four people was involved in lacquer production, and when people who smelled of lacquer went to buy things in the markets, prices would rise."

But the high times didn't last long. Typhoon Wayne in 1986 (which toppled 80% of Taiwan's lacquer trees), rising wages and growing competition from the mainland and Vietnam pushed the Taiwan lacquer production industry into dire straits. Now domestic production doesn't reach one ton a year. It hasn't helped that the work of tapping lacquer trees is dangerous and done in the middle of the night: "Last year there were only three people still tapping lacquer trees in Puli, and this year the grand total has dropped to one," says Hsu Yi-fu, pointing to his old friend Chen Chun-fu and laughing.

The sap of the lacquer tree

In ancient times the Chinese character for lacquer was written '_. It is composed of three parts: the top (彷) is the character for wood or tree, the sloping lines in the middle symbolize channels taking the sap from a cut in the tree, and the bottom is the character for water (戒), symbolizing the flowing out of sap. The method for harvesting raw lacquer trees seemingly hasn't changed a whit since this character was first written.

In Taiwan the season for tapping lacquer trees runs from April to November. Because the flow is greatly diminished once the sun is out, the work of tapping lacquer trees is done in the wee hours of the morning. Tappers wear small flashlights on their foreheads. On their backs they lug tool boxes filled with various sorts of knives and hatchets, and pails for catching the lacquer sap. Groping their ways up slopes in the dark, they are best off taking along mosquito coils to burn. Otherwise, the mountain mosquitoes can bite right through their pants.

Climbing to stands of lacquer trees half way up mountains, they hack into the trunks of the trees every two feet, and in the holes they place shells to catch sap. Then they wait for the sun to come up, when they start collecting the sap in the shells. An average tree produces only about 250 grams of raw lacquer a year. When you realize that this would fill only the smallest of milk cartons, it is easy to see why the lacquer tappers assiduously scrape every last drop of lacquer off the shells. "Lacquer sap is the blood of the lacquer tree, it has life," says Hsu lovingly.

But the resin used for lacquer ware comprises only about 65% of lacquer sap, so it must be refined. After the sap is filtered through two thin layers of cloth, it is then put into a heated beater for eight hours to remove water, creating refined lacquer. Then iron can be added to make black lacquer or cinnabar to make red lacquer. The Lacquer Museum has an extensive collection of the tools used to tap and refine lacquer, and it explains the processes in great detail. More than 200 antique lacquer artifacts, including a lacquer table Japanese Emperor Hirohito used when he came to Taiwan as Crown Prince, are also on display. Though the industry may have fallen on hard times, the museum will at least give visitors an understanding of why lacquer is so precious, and Hsu, by establishing it, has done his duty as a lacquer lover.

Export industry to art form

When the lacquer school closed at the end of the Japanese era, this craft whose origins lie in ancient China broke its kite string here in Taiwan, and now only a few old masters know its techniques. Ten years ago, in order to repair damaged lacquer ware, the National Palace Museum's science and technology department specially hired Chen Huo-chin to act as a technical adviser. Staff from the museum came down regularly to study with Chen.

"The history of lacquer ware in China is 7000 years long, and there once was a school in Taiwan that was entirely devoted to the craft," says Huang Li-shu, a researcher at the Taiwan Provincial Handicrafts Research Institute. "Now, there is not a single college class on lacquering offered in Taiwan, and very few scholars are doing any research in the field. The skills are disappearing as the old masters pass away. It's no wonder that most people can't even recognize lacquer ware when they see it!" Huang studied with Chen for nearly ten years, and Chen is proudest of him among all his students.

Two years ago Huang designed a plan for the Handicrafts Research Institute to "Teach and learn the lacquering skills of the master Chen Huo-chin." Because Chen suffers from asthma, other masters from both Taiwan and the mainland helped out to teach ten young students the best of lacquering skills. When every one of these young students bore with the discomfort caused by allergic reactions to lacquer and finished the course, Chen felt both gratitude and admiration.

Is there indeed any future for lacquer ware in Taiwan? Huang feels that there is little chance of the industry reviving itself, and that lacquer ware will never again play a significant role in people's daily lives. Nonetheless, plans aiming to keep the legacy of lacquer alive from the standpoint of art and cultural preservation should be devised and tried. Thus lacquer in Taiwan has turned from being an export earner to becoming a form of Taiwanese artistic creation.

Oriental tenderness

When speaking of lacquer, Chen, a lifetime lover of the stuff, says, "Lacquer is smooth and warm to the touch, like a baby's skin. The colors are always very soft and pleasing, and they only get more beautiful with age." To Chen's student Huang Li-shu lacquer ware has Zen-like meaning: "Lacquer ware is like the character of oriental people. When striking and bright colors are coated by transparent amber lacquer, they become muted. After being rubbed, lacquer's sheen loses its glare to acquire a subdued beauty. When using a piece of lacquer ware, you catch a glimpse of your own reflection, and holding a piece of it in your hand is calming to the mind."

The Japanese novelist Tanizaki Junichiro once described lacquer ware thus: "For eating on, earthenware plates aren't bad, but they don't have the dark and deep feeling of lacquer ware. When you hold earthenware, it feels heavy and cold. Because it is a good conductor of heat, it is not good for holding hot things. Furthermore, use of the stuff can cause quite a clatter. On the other hand, lacquer ware is soft to the touch, and makes virtually no sound. When holding a lacquer bowl filled with hot soup, it offers a pleasant sense of weight and warmth, like the flesh of a new born baby." To Japanese, who live in a cold northern climate, because a lacquer bowl filled with hot soup won't burn your hands or lips while simultaneously keeping the soup hot for a long time, lacquer ware has been elevated from the realm of mere eating utensils to acquire a culture of its own.

Just call me a craftsman!

In recent years, as folk crafts have gotten more attention and Chen has received various awards, Chen's works have become valued by collectors and he has come to be called an artist and his lacquer ware regarded as works of art. About this, the old man says, "Personally I don't care for these designations. My attitudes toward what I do haven't changed. I have the same feelings for my work that I always have: I just hope that people like what I do, both use and enjoy it, and treat it tenderly as something loved. It's too much to call me an artist-just call me a craftsman!"

A favorite lacquer vase of Chen's bears a design featuring an old plum tree in bloom. "The tree may be old," Chen says, "but it still flowers."

As a metaphor, would the plum tree be the 84-year-old gentleman or this more than 7000-year-old craft?

A red solid-lacquer vase by Chen Huo-chin. It was made applying lacquer over a clay mold that was later removed. （courtesy of the Taichung Provincial Cultural Center）

A "banana tray" by Chen Huo-chin. The wood base was carved before it was lacquered. （courtesy of the Taichung Provincial Cultural Center）

Chen Huo-chin, an old master and lover of lacquer ware, holds one of his favorite pieces, a golden vase with an old plum tree in bloom. It's a lot like himself, old but still budding flowers of creativity. Chen's third son Chih-ming, who is owner of a lacquer ware exporting firm, sits next to him.

A draft of a design from the Japanese era. Designs that capture the life of Taiwan's aborigines are a distinctive feature of Taiwan lacquer ware.

Some of the many tools of this labor-intensive, time-consuming trade.

From a poem by the Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei, we know that he once planted lacquer trees in his garden when living as a hermitscholar. Shown here is a Songdynasty work by Kuo Chung shu that was based on Wang Wei's painting Wangchuan Vista. （courtesy of the National Palace Musuem）

The harvesting of raw lacquer: First the tapper hacks into a lacquer tree. Then he places a shell into the cut and waits for sap to flow into the shell. Finally he uses a spatula to scrape every last drop of sap out of the shell.

The harvesting of raw lacquer: First the tapper hacks into a lacquer tree. Then he places a shell into the cut and waits for sap to flow into the shell. Finally he uses a spatula to scrape every last drop of sap out of the shell.

The harvesting of raw lacquer: First the tapper hacks into a lacquer tree. Then he places a shell into the cut and waits for sap to flow into the shell. Finally he uses a spatula to scrape every last drop of sap out of the shell.

This piece of red lacquer ware made on a base of wood proves that Chinese have used lacquer ware for at least 7000 years. （courtesy of Suoo Yuming）

In the Ming dynasty, one of the high points in the development of Chinese lacquer, the government established a lacquer ware factory. Production flourished during the rule of Yongle （1403-1425） in which this exquisite tihong and ticai carved lacquer ware was produced. Later lacquer ware masters found it a hard act to follow. （courtesy of the National Palace Museum）

Lacquer sap must be filtered and beaten and its excess water removed to make "refined lacquer.".

Refined lacquer keeps best in natural materials such as wood and paper.

Hsu Yi-fu （far right） founded Taiwan's Lacquer Museum. He and his brother, sister and mother have all gathered evidence for posterity about the development of lacquer in Taiwan.