Covering an area of slightly more than 21 square kilometers, Yingge is a small township at the southern tip of Taipei County. Small though it is, Yingge is known as Taiwan's capital of ceramics, boasting some 900 factories that manufacture everything from reproduction antiques to toilet bowls. On top of this there are several hundred stores and workshops selling Yingge's produce.
An easy way to get an overview of Yingge's ceramics industry is to visit the Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum. Casual visitors depart happily after purchasing souvenirs. Enthusiasts may want to continue their trip to the China Art Ceramic Company--the manufacturer of much of the museum's collection--in a narrow, quiet alley a few minutes' drive away. "It's neither the oldest nor the largest company, but China Art has played a key role in the development of Yingge's--and even Taiwan's--ceramic industry," says Chen Hsin-hsiung, a professor at National Cheng Kung University's department of history.
Chen, who specializes in ceramics history, notes that historically there were two kinds of ceramics: the official ware or guan yao manufactured for official and palace use, and common ware or min yao, daily utensils for ordinary people. In 1804 Wu An, from Quanzhou in China's Fujian Province, started the first pottery in the town. As the industry expanded in the town, its factories produced common ware, the official ware used by the rich and high-ranking government officials being imported from China.
Taipei's Loss, Yingge's Gain
Although Yingge's ceramics industry has a 200-year history, it did not really take off until the late 1960s, when its competitors, based in Taipei City, were forced to close or relocate due to the city government's banning of coal-burning in the metropolis, the main fuel for Taiwan's kilns. Many of the businesses and craftsmen forced to relocate went to Yingge. While the town's production rose, neither product quality nor the local environment benefited. "There were chimneys everywhere and the sky was always gray," recalls Scott Hsu, China Art's president. "The pollution was so bad that two fifths of the townspeople had tuberculosis."
At the time, Hsu Tzu-jan, Scott's father, ran a grinding wheel factory in Yingge. To meet foreign buyers and attend trade shows, Hsu Tzu-jan had to travel frequently. During these trips he had frequent opportunities to see guan yao in various foreign collections and museums. He was well aware that no Taiwanese factory was capable of making such collectors' pieces. So, hoping to recreate the elegance of Chinese antique porcelain, Hsu Tzu-jan decided to set up China Art Ceramics.
Porcelain works should be judged by their material, shape and pattern. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Chen, who had many talks with the company founder before he passed away in 1978, notes that a key reason behind Hsu's decision was the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement, initiated in Taiwan in 1967 as a response to the Cultural Revolution in China. "The purpose of setting up the company was for cultural preservation," Chen says. "It's not uncommon for businesses to support cultural activities when they can, but it's rare that someone would actually set up a company to work on a cultural project."
Mapping the Revolution
The first problem was an utter lack of resources. Hsu first organized a trip to Japan, the result of which was the introduction of new kilns to Taiwan. These kilns, using natural gas as fuel, are easier to control and more stable compared with the coal-burning variety and are much more environmentally friendly. Chen says that the introduction of gas kilns was a revolution for Taiwan's ceramics industry, improving product quality and minimizing failure rates literally overnight. Combined with Japanese raw materials, kilnsmen and glaze painters, China Art started operations in 1972, making reproduction antiques.
Scott Hsu thinks that a piece of porcelain can be judged by its material, shape and pattern. There was not much problem in terms of shapes and designs since plenty of references could be found at Taipei's National Palace Museum, but there was something wrong with the patterns painted by Japanese artists. "They were basically copying from Chinese antiques, but it just wasn't right--it looked Japanese," he says. "I guess there's something rooted in the culture one grows up with that surfaces no matter how you try to avoid it." To make the products more Chinese, Hsu Tzu-jan recruited some artists from Hong Kong, and the results were encouraging.
One of the most successful products China Art developed--or rather recreated--during this period was the "antique" blue-and-white porcelain that was first produced in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and reached its apogee under the Ming (1386-1644). Scott Hsu explains that there are countless shades of blue and white and as many combinations of them. The best blue-and-white is the one with a blue that has a little purple in it and a white with a little blue in it, known as "duck-egg white." Its blue-and-white porcelain earned China Art a reputation as a modern "official kiln," and its products became popular for presentations to foreign dignitaries, including George Bush, Ronald Reagan and Lee Kwan Yew. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' warehouse was full of our porcelain--at least before our foreign friends' tastes shifted from vases to laptops and cellphones," Scott Hsu says.
Art and Commerce
The craftsmen and artists from Japan and Hong Kong also did a good job in training locals. Many of their apprentices later left China Art and started their own operations. Since the late 1970s, Yingge porcelain has become popular both domestically and in the Japanese and European markets. In addition to imitations of Chinese antiques, there have also been orders for imitations of Japanese Imari and Satsuma ceramics. For about a decade, making reproduction antique porcelain kept Yingge kilns busy and profitable; as the local saying goes: "Just mix earth and water, and you're nine-tenths of the way to earning your first dollar." And in addition to reproduction antiques, Yingge also exported huge amounts of plain, unglazed vases and cisterns to Hong Kong where they were painted and glazed. But with lower production costs, reproduction antiques from Hong Kong and China gradually replaced those from Yingge.
An older piece painted by one of the company's first generation of craftsmen recruited from Hong Kong. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Financially supported by other family companies manufacturing grinding wheels, crucible furnaces and other products, market changes are not really China Art's main concern. Even when Yingge's reproduction-antique business was at its peak, Scott Hsu wanted to be more than just a copycat. One of his approaches was to invite Western artists for cultural exchanges. Lee Hoffman, a New York-based artist, stayed with China Art between 1983 and 1988. In addition to designing some products for the company, Hoffman completed about 150 pieces of his own, which were later exhibited in Paris. In 1996, Damian Evans, from London's Royal College of Art, also worked with China Art on a short-term basis. A few of these cultural exchanges turned out to be successful. Combining traditional Chinese images with modern abstract patterns, the "hundred-bats" vases (bat has the same pronunciation as blessing in Mandarin) designed by Hoffman won several craft awards.
Many of the designs by foreign artists, or even local designers China Art later worked with, however, remain as drafts or one-offs due to production difficulties. "The problem is the difference between making porcelain as an art and actually manufacturing it," Hsu says. "A color on paper or on a color chart doesn't necessarily transform into the color of glazes on a vase." Citing the traditional "three-fish bowl" depicting three red fish, Hsu explains that none of the bowls in the National Palace Museum's collection has three complete fish. "Red is a very unstable color; it fades or even vaporizes when fired," he says. "Such high failure rates can be tolerated when creating an art piece but are not acceptable when manufacturing a product."
The Shock of the New
There has also been an effort to modernize traditional Chinese elements. "It's like writing novels," Hsu says. "There needs to be something that can reflect the time of the author." Chinese dragons, for example, differ from dynasty to dynasty. Dragons from the Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367) founded by Genghis Khan were fierce since the Mongolians were always at war, trying to expand their territory. The late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) dragons, after a couple of hundred years of peace, were what Hsu describes as "fat and clumsy, with funny short legs." In addition to re-working traditional Chinese patterns, China Art has also made changes in colors. The use of golden luster on blue-and-white porcelain, Hsu explains, is aimed to reflect the prosperous lifestyle in Taiwan.
Though financially worry free, Hsu also makes less expensive porcelain, hoping that, if ordinary people can afford it, they might thereby acquire a taste for it. Consumers have slowly been maturing. Hsu says that 10 or 15 years ago, buyers walked in and asked for the most expensive items. When asked why they bought a certain piece, the answer was often: "It's expensive, so it must be good," though they had absolutely no idea why it cost what it did or what was good about it. Nowadays, there are more people who know what they like and why they like it.
From reproduction antiques to foreign elements and modified tradition, China Art eventually returned to native roots. Hsu explains that when it comes to skills, Taiwan cannot compete with Japan and Europe, which have been making fine porcelain for centuries. And when it comes to Chinese tradition, Taiwan is no match for China where the tradition, though interrupted once in a while, has been in existence for thousands of years. So if Taiwan wants to go any further, the only direction is through devising patterns and motifs from the island's own heritage.
In the past six years, China Art has used a lot of Taiwanese images such as the black-faced spoonbill, orchids and patterns from the island's indigenous peoples. But is there an image, a shape, or a color that can be identified as Taiwanese not only by locals but by the rest of the world as well, in the way Mt. Fuji represents Japan? Hsu has been searching for well over a decade, but has had no luck so far.
China Art's Web site:
http://www.chinaart.com.tw/
Write to Jim Hwang at jim@mail.gio.gov.tw