Publication is scheduled for the end of 1990. The excerpted chapter focuses on one of the two papers used in the gold beating process, rice straw paper, which also has other uses. Three terms are used which may be unfamiliar to readers. Kyat is the Burmese form of currency. One kyat is equivalent to approximately two and a half cents. Longyi refers to the national dress of the Burmese, worn by both men and women. It is a long tubular piece of fabric that is wrapped around the lower part of the body and tied in a knot at the waist. Nats are spirits in the animalist religion of the Burmese and there are both good and bad Nats. On our second trip to Burma, in 1986, we planned to find the rice straw papermakers. The bamboo papermakers of Mandalay had mentioned a small village somewhere in the vicinity of Sagaing, a former Burmese capital, located about an hour's drive from Mandalay. We needed, therefore, a guide and a vehicle. Outside the Mandalay Hotel, drivers lounge around, patiently waiting for potential clients. We looked for Tin Aung, who had so successfully guided us in 1983. But Tin Aung already had an assignment. We talked to a few others, testing their English-speaking ability and inquiring if anyone had heard of a group of people making paper in the country-side surrounding Sagaing. Kin Maung Oo seemed the most promising candidate. He assured us he knew where the papermakers lived; indeed, had driven a Burmese government official there some years earlier. It was a propitious day for us. A festival was being celebrated in Sagaing and the road was thronged with Burmese headed for various shrines or pagodas. Vendors had set up stands along the road and were shouting out their wares of foods and religious objects to the hundreds of passers-by. Pilgrims were headed for the Irrawaddy River, where boats waited to take the faithful to a special pagoda accessible only by water. We had one of the few motor vehicles on the road. Most people were walking, so our progress through Sagaing was slow, enabling us to savor the sights and sounds of the festival. Sagaing is ringed by hills, presenting a magnificent panorama of white and gold pagodas nestled among the trees or boldly outlined against the sky. Beyond Sagaing we turned off the main road and shortly reached an ancient monastery that marked the end of the paved road. Kin Maung Oo hailed a young boy walking by and asked the way to the papermaking village. The boy guided us along a narrow path. A twenty minute trek brought us to the tiny settlement of Nyaung Gone. Nine families are still making paper in Nyaung Gone, although we were informed that the official government register in Rangoon still lists twenty-nine. We concentrated on one family, that of Daw Thaung Nyunt, who told us that her family's tradition of papermaking went back more than a hundred years. There are eight people in her family, the others being U Nyunt Maung, Daw Thaung Kywe, Daw Thaung She, Daw Thaung Htwe, U Aung, U Swe Oo, and Daw Thaung Nawe. Daw Thaung Nyunt felt very honored that we had come to watch her family making paper. We were the first foreigners ever to visit their small village. Other visitors who had come to observe the papermaking enterprise had been Burmese government officials, such as Kin Maung Oo had mentioned. However, one of the officials was actually the President of their country, General Ne Win, who had paid a surprise visit to Nyaung Gone in 1967. Daw Thaung Nyunt related a marvelous story of how General Ne Win was so impressed with the rice straw papermaking process that he invited the family to demonstrate papermaking to the rice-producing farmers of southwestern Burma. Seven members of the family were transported there, along with all the necessary supplies and equipment. And finally, as a reward, they were treated to an eighteen day vacation, including a stay in Rangoon and a week at the seashore. Her final comment on the whole amazing experience was "...it was like winning the lottery!" As the entire process of rice straw papermaking unfolded before us, orchestrated by Daw Thaung Nyunt, we became acutely aware of the precision of the work. Each step is performed meticulously, very similar to bamboo papermaking, except that the processes are abbreviated or accelerated, and somewhat cruder tools are used. Nevertheless, all the steps taken in the making of paper from rice straw are deliberate and based on long-standing tradition, resulting in various qualities of paper that are quite specific as to the purposes for which they are intended. The entire papermaking process takes place outside. For the most part, papermakers are protected from the hot sun by large leafy trees. A simple roof supported by bamboo poles provides a covering over the sheet-forming vat. The first step is preparation of the rice straw. Even the rice straw must be specially selected. The papermakers do not consider the rice straw that is so abundantly produced in Nyaung Gone to be suitable for their papermaking. The local product is used only as fodder for the cows and oxen. Instead, at a cost of one kyat per bundle, the papermakers purchase the proper quality of rice straw from an area near Shwebo, located many miles north. Most of the rice straw is retted in a large concrete vat lined with bricks. Ceramic pots are also used, but only for small quantities of straw. First, lime powder is mixed with water and poured into the vat. Then a layer of rice straw is put in and more lime powder scattered over it. The layers of rice straw and lime powder are alternated until the vat is full. The rice straw is left to soak for five days. The next step in preparation is a thirty-six hour cook. The retted fiber steams in the oven, with wood fuel burning underneath the cooker. Lastly, the fiber is washed. Daw Thaung Nyunt filled a basket with cooked rice straw, balanced the basket on her head, and led us through dense woods down to the small pond behind her house. She tucked up her longyi and waded right into the water. Then, with a sweeping flourish, she swirled the basket round and round, ignoring a little boy who also walked into the pond a few yards from us, pulling his ox, which he proceeded to scrub thoroughly. Daw Thaung Nyunt finished rinsing the fiber, wrung it out, rolled it up in a large cloth, put it back in the basket, placed the basket on her head, and we all marched back to the papermaking area outside of her house. The second operation involves beating the rice straw in a foot-operated stamper. Two women are needed to provide the power to operate this massive wooden stamper, thoughtfully situated in a shady grove. The women continuously jump up and down on one end of an extremely long lever, creating a loud echoing sound as the pestle pounds the rice straw in the mortar. Beating generally lasts twelve hours. The pot of cooked rice straw produces enough pulp for five days of papermaking. Three qualities of paper are made, each quality determined by the beating time. The longer beating times produce a finer grade of paper. For first quality paper, which is the best, the pot of cooked rice straw is divided into three parts, and each part is beaten for one day. The paper is used in the final packaging of gold leaf, to separate the leaves of gold. In the case of second quality paper, the pot of straw is divided into two parts, and each part is beaten for one day. This middle quality paper is burnished by the papermakers and is used in the goldbeating process as a substrate for the initial forty-five minutes of beating. For third quality paper, which is the lowest grade and the coarsest paper, the pot of pulp is also divided into two batches, with two days of beating, but beating is stopped a little earlier in the day. The paper is used in the marketplace for wrapping goods. The third step in rice straw paper production is sheet forming. The mould is made of teakwood, with a woven cotton cover, considerably coarser than the moulds used by the bamboo papermakers. Daw Thaung Nyunt floated the mould in a large vat of water, much deeper than the vat used for bamboo paper. She prepared a small bowlful of pulp by adding water to it and dispersing the pulp with a pronged wooden stick. When she decided the pulp was sufficiently dispersed, she poured it over the surface of the mould, using her hands to distribute the pulp evenly. She rolled a round dowel over the surface of the newly-formed sheet of paper, thereby removing any air bubbles. Finally, she lifted the mould quickly from the vat, allowing the excess water to drain back into the vat, and stood the mould on end to drain further. After making a few more sheets, she carried the moulds over to a rack to complete the drying out in the sun. The entire sheet-forming process was fairly rapid, taking three to four minutes to make one sheet, in contrast to nearly thirty minutes for the bamboo paper in Mandalay. To remove the paper from the mould after it had dried, Daw Thaung Nyunt ran a carved rosewood stick around the edge of the paper, which enabled her to peel the sheet easily from the mould. On a typical summer day, the papermaking family can make 350 thin sheets or 200 thicker sheets that require a longer drying time. The first and third qualities of paper, used respectively for interleaving the finished gold leaf and for wrapping, do not receive any further treatment. The second quality paper, which will be used as a substrate in goldbeating, is burnished. The procedure for burnishing starts with the paper being cut into six-inch squares. With a very quick stroke, the papermaker smooths the paper with the palms of her hands. Late at night she dampens the paper by soaking one sheet in water and laying it on top of eleven dry sheets, making a stack of 300 to 400 sheets, each twelfth one being soaked. The whole pile is wrapped in a dry cloth, a weight is placed on top, and it is left overnight. The next morning, in a small hut which shelters the paper from the wind and dust, the worker beats one side of each sheet of paper on a convex iron plate. The beating sticks are occasionally rubbed with a little "earth oil," a crude oil also used for waterproofing the bamboo mats that form the outer walls of Burmese houses. Just as the bamboo paper is amazingly transformed by burnishing, so too is the rice straw paper. In this case, there is no translucency developed, but the paper becomes compact and very smooth, and has a waxy feel. There was one puzzling matter that we asked Daw Thaung Nyunt to clear up. At the gold leaf preparation house, we noticed that some of the burnished straw paper was a reddish color, and we wondered if this was still being made. Daw Thaung Nyunt explained that up to quite recently she used a red dye in the pulp. The dye was purchased in the market, but its price had been subsidized by the government. Now the government was not controlling the price and she had to buy the dye on the open market. Its cost was prohibitive for her and so there was no more red-dyed paper. When she finished the demonstration of papermaking, Daw Thaung Nyunt invited us into her home. Houses in Nyaung Gone are built on stilts, keeping the living portions well above the ground, a silent testimony to the occasional floods that inundate the land. We sat at the edge of the customary large, low platform in the main room, surrounded by various family members and friends, including an abundance of children. Everyone was curious about these strange-looking foreigners who had suddenly descended upon them. They were all extremely cordial and hospitable, yet stayed at a respectful distance from us. Despite their overwhelming curiosity, everyone sat or stood at the perimeter of the room and quietly observed our responses and actions. Daw Thaung Nyunt proudly announced that she had "fresh cow's milk" to offer us for refreshment. The thought of drinking unpasteurized milk in the middle of a jungle was completely unnerving to us. We had frequently encountered a similar dilemma in past expeditions through Asia or Africa. On one hand, we do not want to risk contracting dysentery or an exotic infection; on the other hand, we certainly do not want to offend our gracious hosts by refusing to eat with them. So we slowly sipped cups of warm, gray milk, served with small chunks of a delicious brittle peanut cake, all the while hoping that many good Nats were watching out for us. The next day, when we were certain that we had no ill effects from food and drink in Nyaung Gone, we formed the opinion that probably the raw milk had been heated sufficiently to kill any bacteria. And judging from the neatness and the cleanliness of Daw Thaung Nyunt's house, it was evident that these friendly people possess an entirely acceptable degree of sanitation and a knowledge of how to handle and prepare foods properly to avoid disease. Reluctantly, our visit to the papermakers came to an end. We gathered up the rice straw papers that we purchased, along with samples of the straw fiber and pulp in its various stages of processing. Daw Thaung Nyunt even found a sheet of the red-dyed paper that we had asked about. Then she insisted on carrying our large bundle herself and, accompanied by half her family, walked back with us to the monastery where Kin Maung Oo had left his car. We were delighted that the papermakers had apparently enjoyed our visit with them as much as we had. For us it was a very special experience, not only because we witnessed an ancient technique of papermaking that had existed for centuries seemingly unchanged, but also as we had experienced a little of the common ways of living in rural Burma. It is a life of hard work and simple pleasures. There is no electricity, no running water, no telephone or radio communication with the outside world. Yet the people have ample shelter and sufficient food, living in harmony with their surroundings.
