Century-old paper making in Yunnan Pu’er

Today a stone house built in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties (1600-1644) stands in the Mayang village of Zhenyuan county, southwest Yunnan’s Puer city. It was once the traditional Kucong paper-making workshop.

The traditional Mayang paper showed by Luo Zhixing. (Photo by Liu Qingming/Yunnan Daily)

China first invented paper in the world. The hemp fiber paper was first made in the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C. - 8 A.D.). Later, various raw materials were used. Then, the bamboo paper appeared during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), a major breakthrough in traditional paper making.

The ancient workshop. (Photo by Liu Qingming/Yunnan Daily)

In the workshop, the ancient skill in paper making is still used by the Kucong branch of the Lahu ethnic group. This technique preserves the ancient method, which is almost the same as what was recorded in the ancient Chinese scientific book: Exploitation of the Works of Nature. Here, you can see the primitive 72 paper-making steps.

Various wooden paper-making instruments such as pulp tanks, pressing tables, baking ovens and dividing tables are preserved here. The main raw material for Kucong paper-making was local wild bamboo that was harvested in the twelfth lunar month.

And the traditional paper-making would go through the steps of bamboo cutting, splitting, soaking, crushing, pounding, pulping, steaming, spreading, sunlight bleaching, drying, slitting, packaging and more.

The ancient wooden tool. (Photo by Liu Qingming/Yunnan Daily)

The table for slitting paper. (Photo by Liu Qingming/Yunnan Daily)

  

The tank for paper pulp. (Photo by Liu Qingming/Yunnan Daily)

  

The baking oven. (Photo by Liu Qingming/Yunnan Daily)

Now the Mayang paper-making has been listed as a Yunnan intangible cultural heritage for protection, thanks to its value in studying the development of local handicrafts.

According to Luo Zhixing, the inheritor of the skill, the workshop has been passed down for six generations. And he has been working here for nearly fifty years.

The Kucong paper is rough but absorbent. It is a daily necessity for local villagers, especially useful at funerals and rituals, as well as in copying ancestral books and making firecracker. It’s also used as a mechanical cleaner or archival sealer for its endurance.

Source: Yunnan Daily; Trans-editing by Wang Yunya