Tibet has been known throughout the centuries as 'The Forbidden
Kingdom' or 'Land of the Snows' - remote, inaccessible, and not
particularly hospitable to foreigners. It is largely an arid, barren,
and harsh land, marked by the highest mountains in the world, giving
the country its spectacular, rugged, icy beauty. Both the topography
and the climate of Tibet have had a distinct bearing on the nature of
papermaking there, as I would eventually discover.

My travel in central Tibet, where I was able to visit the great centers
of Tibetan Buddhism - Jokhang Temple, Potala Palace, Drepung, Sera, Palkhor,
Ganden, Samye, Mindoling, Tashilungpo, and Zhalu - revealed no evidence
of current hand papermaking. Some of these monasteries had formerly been
noted for the printing of Tibetan prayer books, but now there was only minor
printing to be seen at Tashilungpo and Ganden. The paper used was
machine-made and of a quality decidedly inferior to the handmade paper of the
old Tibetan texts. Through questioning of a former papermaker at Shigatse, I
learned that papermaking had disappeared at the time of the Chinese takeover
of Tibet in the late 1950's, at which time a commercial paper mill was set up
east of Lhasa.

Despite the fact that I was not able to witness hand papermaking in Tibet,
I did managed to find the extraordinary plant which yielded the fiber used
there for centuries in traditional papermaking. I found this plant,
Stellera chamaejasme, growing at altitudes of 4,000 to 4,800 meters in
rocky, desert terrain, where little else could grow. Throughout my journey,
I dug up many specimens of this shrublet, recording data on its
habitat, morphology and variations. Stellera is an herbaceous plant with a
woody rootstock, a member of the Thymeleaecaea family of plants, which also
includes the Japanese papermaking plants, mitsumata (Edgeworthia chrysantha),
and gampi (Wikstroemia diplomorpha); the Negev desert plant, 'Mitnan'
(Thymelaea hirsuta); and daphne species, all of which yield a strong bast
fiber excellent for papermaking. Stellera is unique among them, however,
in that the root of the plant contains the bast.

After digging out a number of stellera plants myself, which necessitated
digging holes often 48 cm. deep in order to extract the entire root, I
contracted with Mr. Wang Ha, the manager of our guest house in Shigatse, to
arrange for the digging of a large number of roots. Coincidentally, it turned
out that he had been involved in papermaking himself when he was a teenager,
and he described the process to me.

The stellera was dug in the fall, when the roots were largest. The
top of the plant was removed, and the outer sheath of the root was scraped
off. The roots were boiled in water for several hours, then beaten to a
pulp with a heavy mallet. Paper was made at the Nanjoon River, each sheet
formed by pouring a bucket of pulp onto a cloth-covered mould floating
on the river. The pulp was dispersed over the surface of the mould and
the mould lifted from the river, allowing the excess water to drain from it.
The mould, with its attached sheet of paper, was left to dry. Finally, the
dry paper was peeled from the mould.

A similar method had been described to me by another Tibetan papermaker
several years earlier, in Darjeeling. (4) The papermaker was Adar Jondhem,
who lived in the Kong-po region of Tibet, an area northwest of Lhasa. Jondhem
had made currency paper for the Tibetan government. At the time of the
Chinese invasion, he fled from his country, settling in Darjeeling, India, at
the Tibetan Refugee Center. Apparently, the climate in the Kong-po region was
quite different from conditions in the parts of Tibet I was now exploring.
Jondhem had been able to gather wild daphne and edgeworthia for use in papermaking.
There must have been abundant rainfall in order for these shrubs to grow wild.

The sheet forming operation described by both Wang Ha and Jondhem paralleled
very closely the method that some historians ascribe to the earliest papermakers
of China. (5) It would seem that after papermaking spread from China to
Tibet, the early process did not develop further in Tibet, not a surprising
circumstance in light of Tibet's physical environment and cultural isolation.

From the data I collected on this trip, I would say that it is extremely doubtful
that any hand papermaking still exists in Tibet, delineating that country as the
Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Of course it is possible that an occasional
person could still be making paper by hand somewhere in the far corners of that
country for local use. At the present time, however, travel restrictions by the
government prevent exploration outside the areas I visited in 1985. Nevertheless,
Tibetan papermaking certainly survives in other Himalayan regions, in Nepal,
Bhutan, and the Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. (6)

The hand papermaking situation in China itself is entirely different from
that in Tibet. Papermaking definitely evolved in China over the centuries,
undoubtedly aided by the diversity of materials available for tools and fibers
as much as by the ingenuity of the Chinese. A number of hand papermaking centers
still flourish there despite China's immense strides toward mechanization. My
investigation during a trip to China in 1982 indicated that after the Chinese
Revolution was completed in 1949, papermaking became organized and nationalized,
along with all other aspects of life in China. In the cities, papermaking was
established in factories; in more rural areas, papermaking became part of the
communes that were set up. By 1984 the picture had changed somewhat, and the
new regime guided by Deng Xiaoping now permitted a small amount of 'free
enterprise'; indeed, the commune system was largely disbanded. Therefore,
it was possible in 1985 to visit some individual hand papermakers, albeit
their production was still part of a cooperative enterprise.

My information about centers of hand papermaking in China was not easy to
gather. The Chinese people are quite secretive about many processes, of which
papermaking is one. Perhaps they are embarrassed by the seemingly primitive
processes of papermaking that are still practiced in certain provinces. Or
their secrecy may simply be the same that many artisans display upon investigation
by others in the same field of endeavor. Whatever their reasons, it is extremely
difficult to see actual hand papermaking in China at the present time, and the
situation is not a new one. More than sixty years ago, an American scientist,
Dr. Floyd McClure, Professor of Botany at Lingnan University in China from
1920 to 1940, expressed his feelings of frustration in researching Chinese
handmade paper. A section of Dr. McClure's work has been published based
upon my cataloguing, arrangement and writing about Dr. McClure's remarkable
collection of Chinese paper. (7) His notes reflect my own observations,
namely that "...Potential visitors may be viewed with suspicion by the
Chinese...Specific information as to how to reach a papermaking group is
hard to ferret out... Official permission to visit a papermaker is extremely
difficult to obtain..." (8) Nevertheless, with determination, courage, and
a measure of luck, it was possible for me to witness some hand papermaking
centers. (9)

Two general categories of paper are made by hand in China, Xuan Zhi and
Cao Zhi. Xuan Zhi refers to fine paper, used for art and special writing
papers. The paper is usually made from bast fibers, namely paper mulberry
(Broussonetia papyrifera); Edgeworthia chrysantha; and Quin-tan (Pteroceltis
tatarinowii maxim, also called Celtis sinensis); or fiber from various types
of bamboo, or a combination of the bast and bamboo. The second type, Cao Zhi,
literally means 'grass paper'. It includes coarse papers made from rice or wheat
straw, hemp (Cannabis sativa), bamboo (less refined than for the making of
Xuan Zhi), or waste paper. This paper is used for wrapping, insulation,
sanitary purposes, coffin liners, and window coverings.

My first view of Chinese hand papermaking was in 1982 at Tian Fang Commune
in Jingxian County, Anhui Province. Paper was made here from bamboo. The
commune leaders were very proud of their Hollander-style beater, which macerated
the wetted bamboo thoroughly, eliminating a lengthy fermentation process and
laborious manual beating methods that we were to observe elsewhere. The beater
was operated by a generator, as there was no other electric power coming into
the village. The sheet forming took place in a small building, from which a
trough extended that brought the beaten bamboo pulp directly to the papermaking
vat. The one-room building was very dark, the only light coming from the doorway
and the hole which admitted the pulp.

Two workers were involved in sheet forming, a man at the vat, and a woman
brushing the damp sheets onto a heated wall. Pressing of the sheets was
accomplished by placing boards and heavy rocks on the post of papers. The
papermaker's mould consisted of two parts, a wood framework with ribs,
with handles on each end, and a bamboo screen that rested on the framework.
There was no deckle or deckle sticks. To make a sheet of paper, the worker
dipped the mould into the vat once and couched the sheet directly on the
post of papers, with no interleaved felt or fabric. No other substance was
added to the bamboo slurry. The sheets of paper measured 48.5 by 38.5
cm. The paper was mainly used for toilet paper, and sometimes as spirit
paper by the superstitious, although the latter use was discouraged by the
current governing regime.

In the neighboring province of Zhejiang, I visited another papermaking
commune, at a village in the suburbs of Lingan. I had been assured that
paper was made by hand there, but upon arrival learned that just the year
previously the commune had earned enough money to purchase a paper machine.
And there it was, a very small version of a Fourdrinier, of a type made
expressly for third world countries! The paper made here was also in the
Cao Zhi category, and the fiber used was rice straw, pulped in a Hollander-style
beater. Nevertheless, there was a second commune in the Zhejiang Province,
which I did not visit, that still produced by hand a very coarse paper from
rice and wheat straw.

Dr. Pan Jixing wrote an excellent description of hemp papermaking by
hand in Fenxiang County, Shaanxi Province, at the village of Chihfang Tsun,
based on his visit there in 1965. (10,11) In 1982 I found three more locations
where hemp paper was still made by hand. At Hunxiang in Shanxi Province, about
70 km. south of Datong, a hemp paper measuring 51 by 50 cm. was made. Also
in Shanxi Province, at Xinxian, a much cruder hemp paper was made, with a mixture
of waste paper and/or straw fiber added to the hemp. The paper was not as white
as that made in Hunxiang, and had a much rougher surface. The sheet size was
46 by 42 cm. The third type of hemp paper was made in the city of Huhhot, in
Inner Mongolia. It was a finer paper, more similar to the Hunxiang hemp paper,
with a sheet size of 54 by 49 cm.

All of the hemp papers were used primarily for window coverings, instead
of glass. The paper served as an excellent wind break, was translucent,
and was far less expensive than glass. Often these paper windows were gaily
decorated with painted designs. Paper for windows was also made by hand in
Hebei Province, in Qian'an, outside the city of Luan Xian. The sheets were
of a much finer type than the hemp papers of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, and
were probably a mixture of bark fibers and waste paper.

There were two other types of Cao Zhi we found being made in Shanxi
Province. One was an extremely crude paper made of wheat straw, used to line
the bottom of coffins and to insulate the walls of houses. The individual
sheets were thick but small, measuring 43 by 26 cm. The other paper was
made in the outskirts of Xian. The fiber of the paper was called 'black hemp',
or 'root of the wild cotton plant'. Neither designation was helpful in accurately
identifying the plant used. The sheets were a natural brown in color,
fairly thin, 48 by 48 cm., containing some outer bark fragments and considerable
insufficiently cooked or underbeaten fiber. The chief use of the paper was for
the insulation of roofs, for wrapping paper, and for stuffing quilts.

When I returned to China in 1985, I had the opportunity to see the
making of Xuan Zhi, the fine paper favored by Chinese artists for brush painting,
calligraphy, wood-block printing, and other purposes for which a high quality,
handmade paper is desired. I spent a day in Jia Jiang and the neighboring
Ma Village, where bamboo has been made by hand for hundreds of years.
Jia Jiang is situated southwest of Chengdu, in Sichuan Province. In Jia Jiang
a factory was located, employing about one hundred workers. Although sheets
of paper were formed there by hand, the rest of the processes were mechanized,
including the beating of the fiber and the pressing of the paper.

More interesting were the papermakers of Ma Village, where all the procedures
were done entirely by hand. I saw the ponds where bundles of bamboo strips
(cut from bamboo, 6 months old) were retted for a month. Large stone ovens
with staved wood cookers were placed throughout the village. The bamboo
fiber was cooked in alkali for several hours. After rinsing, it was
beaten by means of a foot-operated stamper, a process that took about two
hours for each batch of fiber.

The moulds consisted of a wood framework with ribs, on which was placed a bamboo
screen. The framework had one handle on the left side, to which a rope could
be attached, leading to a counter-balance mechanism. The paper being made
was large in size, 140 by 70 cm., so the counter-balance was a great convenience,
although we noticed that some papermakers did not use it. One deckle stick
was used, placed on the right side of the mould. To form a sheet of paper,
the worker normally dipped the mould into the slurry twice, the first dip
picking up the pulp from the front edge of the mould, while on the second
dip, the far right corner of the mould was dipped into the slurry and a layer
of pulp was washed over the screen.

To make white paper, a commercial bleach was used on the pulp. A deflocculent
made from the leaves of the Sichuan birch tree was added to the pulp
in the vat to aid in sheet formation. The sheets were couched directly on
top of each other. When about 300 had been made, a simple press was set up
with blocks of wood resting on the stack of papers. Pressure was exerted by
means of an ingenious rope winch. After the paper was pressed, it was brushed
onto the smooth walls of the houses in the village.

A similar bamboo paper in the Xuan Zhi category was made in Zhejiang
Province, at a factory in Fuyang. Paper was made here both by hand and by
machine. A foot-operated stamper was used to beat the fiber. The handmade
paper was formed onto moulds that were similar to the tray-like configuration
of the moulds at Tian Fang Commune, but these were much larger
and counter-balanced. The size of the handmade sheets was 138 by 68 cm.
The pressing mechanism was the rope-winch type we had seen at Ma Village.
There was another handmade paper operation in Zhejiang Province, at Feng Hua.
Paper for brush painting was made there using the inner park of mulberry for
fiber. Mulberry inner bark was also used in papermaking at Danzhai in Guizhou
Province. Again, this was a high quality Xuan Zhi utilized in art work.

One of the best known handmade papers in China is the Xuan Zhi made
at a factory in Jingxian, in Anhui Province. I first learned about this
special paper in Hong Kong in 1976, at an art supply shop where I saw bundles
of the paper wrapped up ready to be shipped to Chinese people in the United
States and Europe. The paper was made in several sizes and weights, for a
variety of art purposes. What made it different from other fine Chinese
handmade paper was that the fiber used came from the inner bark of the
Qing-tan tree, mentioned previously. Because I was unsuccessful
in gaining admission to the factory, I cannot comment on the exact procedures
used, but the esteem with which this paper is considered would indicate that
it was made with very great care.

There was evidence of other factories or villages of hand papermaking
that still remain in China. For instance, I recall buying some large, thin
sheets of bamboo paper that was made somewhere in Fujian Province. And in
Xian I came across small sheets of a very soft paper, obviously handmade,
used as cigarette wrappers. Undoubtedly, more centers could be documented.

Based on my recent research in China and Tibet, my feeling is that
the hand papermaking tradition will definitely continue in China, at least
in the making of Xuan Zhi, the fine paper used by artists. In 1985 I sensed
a very positive attitude on the part of certain government officials toward
the importance of maintaining the art and skills of hand papermaking.
It is the low-grade paper, Cao Zhi, which will probably diminish rapidly
as a hand operation, and will be phased out completely as more paper machines
replace hand labor.

In the Autonomous Region of Tibet, however, the papermaking tradition
was completely disrupted by the Chinese in 1959. Moreover, from 1966 to
1976, the Chinese 'cultural revolution', which extended to Tibet, resulted
in the destruction of the monasteries, accompanied by a halt to the overt
practice of the Tibetan Buddhist religion. Prayer books were burned,
not printed, and so one of the major uses of handmade paper immediately
disappeared. Demands for paper of an ordinary sort could easily be met by
the commercial mill near Lhasa, while paper for art could be brought in from
China itself. Therefore, although the Chinese are now helping to rebuild the
ruined Buddhist monasteries and Tibetans are allowed to worship in their
own way, some of the former skills, such as papermaking, are most unlikely
to be revived. The old papermakers have either settled in other Himalayan
countries or taken up other occupations. There is no succeeding generation
to learn and practice the art of papermaking in Tibet itself.

As a practicing papermaker myself, I found it highly satisfying to
discover that handmade paper is still flourishing in China. It was sad to
see the opposite situation in Tibet, although I know that the tradition is
alive in other Tibetan Buddhist areas. And it was truly an exciting
experience to track down the Stellera Chamaejasme, the small, wild, highly
unusual plant which played a vital role in Buddhist culture as the sole
papermaking material readily available to the people living in the barren
regions of central Tibet.

REFERENCES:

1. Elaine Koretsky, Hand Papermaking in Nepal, Cannabis Press, Kasama, Japan, 1981.
2. Elaine Koretsky, Guild of Book Workers Journal, Vol.XXII, #2, 1984, New York.
3. Elaine Koretsky, International Paper Historians - Information, Vol.18, #3-4, 1984,
Netherlands.
4. Elaine Koretsky, Guild of Book Workers Journal, op. cit.
5. Asao Shimura, Early Chinese Papermaking, Cannabis Press, Kasama, Japan, 1980.
6. Elaine Koretsky, Guild of Book Workers Journal, op. cit.
7. Floyd McClure, Chinese Handmade Paper, Bird & Bull Press, Pennsylvania, 1985.
8. Ibid.
9. The data I am presenting here is due not only to my own persistence, but also
to the great kindness of certain individuals in China. Those who rendered enormous
assistance included Dr. Pan Jixing, Associate Professor at the Institute
of the History of Natural Science, Academia Sinica, Beijing; Su Wen Chang,
Chief of the China National Native Produce Corporation, Tientsin Branch;
Huang Xun Pei, Assistant Director of the Shanghai Museum; Mr. Chao, Manager
of the Paper Factory of Hangzhou; Mr. Tong Mun Ket, Director of the Papermaking
Unit in Jia Jiang; Mr. Shi Fuli, Master Papermaker of Ma Village in Sichuan
Province; Mr. Zhu Xian You, Director at the China Science and Technology
Museum, Beijing; Nancy Zeng Berliner, our interpreter in 1982; and Miss Chang
Rong, our interpreter in 1985.
10. Pan Jixing, Hemp Papermaking in China, Cannabis Press, Kasama, Japan, 1981.
11. Pan Jixing, The History of Papermaking Techniques in China, Wen Wu Press,
Beijing, 1979.

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