China, Europe and the Netherlands: Opportunity Is Knocking at Our Doors

080 
  Apr. 2015
M
yanmar has the longest border with 
China of any country along the Mekong 
River  Basin.  Since  the  Ming  Dynasty 
(1368-1644 CE), vast amounts of jade have entered 
China’s Yunnan Province via Myanmar’s Mandalay 
region. This trade route has not only fed Chinese 
consumers’ desire for one of their favorite gem-
stones, but, more than a millennium ago, led to the 
introduction of Chinese lacquer ware into Myan-
mar, where it has since gained pride of place as a 
traditional skill.
On my book shelve stands a lacquerware ele-
phant, brought back from Bagan a year ago; its 
wooden formwork is overall black, with a simple, 
clean thin bamboo strip and copper wire pattern re-
stricted to its four legs and back. I also have a set of 
cups, formed of thin bamboo strips, which although 
very pliable, do not leak or scald your hands. Their 
black base color is covered with yellow decorative 
patterns, painted so finely they might have been 
done with ants’ feet. From a simply decorative point 
of view, the two works are examples of Myanmar 
lacquer ware that appear different from each other 
as chalk and cheese, but from a production point of 
view, they are equally complex. As a first step, the 
formwork must be created using bamboo, leather, 
paper or wood, before undergoing 4-5 layers of 
painting and polishing. Onto this, paintings or col-
lages are then applied, with each item taking sever-
al days or even months to complete.
Bagan itself is a sea of workshops which produce 
lacquer ware, and people spend vast amounts of 
time producing and studying lacquer ware. On my 
visits to some of the largest shops and backroom 
workshops, I soon realized that almost all of the lac-
quer ware is for everyday use, with few items being 
purely decorative art pieces. Might this perhaps be 
the reason that lacquer ware has not become a firm 
favorite among the Myanmarese: not only is a piece 
for everyday use, but it is also an art piece and gift, 
all at a very reasonable price.
In Mandalay, friends strongly recommended that 
I see a puppet show. The venue was a small, 50-
seat theatre, with a live orchestra struggling to play 
traditional instruments. The performers on stage 
were speaking and singing in lilting tones, their 
hands tweaking the puppet strings to breathe life 
into them, making them laugh and cry, fight and 
dance in front of the backdrop. Once the 40-min-
ute performance was over, the audience rose from 
their seats to give a long ovation – the puppets, so 
vividly brought to life to perform for us, were truly 
astounding.
After seeing the performance, everybody inevita-
bly wants to take a puppet home. These are mostly 
characters from Myanmar tradition, history and 
fairy tales, and include everything from magical 
generals to mighty kings, and chubby girls to aus-
tere monks. The entire menagerie of characters on 
show in the theatre, with painted facial features and 
beaded and sequined clothes, hang from the walls. 
When I examine them again after the show, they 
seem to have come to life, full of their own person-
alities. The simplest have five strings to move the 
four limbs and the head; more complex puppets 
have more than ten strings, which move not only 
the limbs and head, but also the eyes, lower jaw, hat 
and even fingers!
The finest Myanmar artistry: lacquered wooden carvings
Burmese Lacquer 
Ware and Puppets
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Apr. 2015 
  081 
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Lao wooden carving
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082 
  Apr. 2015
Photo Story 
图片故事
Myanmar wooden puppets
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Apr. 2015 
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084 
  Apr. 2015
F
acing the Yunnan border port of Mohan 
is the Northern Laotian town of Luang 
Prabang, a temple-lined tourist destina-
tion, which, in addition to the charms of its many 
shrines, and warm and friendly locals, also offers 
another major attraction – a seemingly endless 
range of traditional handicrafts!
Wood-carved Buddha hands, beaded tapestries, 
hand-stitched fabrics, silken scarves, paper lan-
terns … But my favorite by far is Laotian paper art 
and brocade. These two crafts originally came from 
China, but their creativity comes from their integra-
tion into the local culture, making them a source of 
pride all on their own.
The raw material for hand-made paper is the 
bark of the Kadam tree (also known as the paper 
mulberry) commonly found in tropical regions. 
The bark is soaked, boiled, pulped, formed into 
paper and then dried. This process is no different 
from the handmade paper production method still 
in use in China today. However, the Laotians have 
developed the decorative features of this paper to a 
fine art. They pick a variety of fresh flowers which 
bloom year-round in tropical regions, pluck off 
their colorful petals, and sprinkle these freely into 
the paper pulp; mix a few leaves or small flowers; 
once dried, this becomes Sa paper. Sa paper pulp 
is thick and tough, yet bright and translucent. The 
Laotians use it for packaging, to make lampshades, 
curtains, notebooks, and all kinds of other paper 
handicrafts. When held up to the sun, the contours 
and stunning colors of the petals and leaves become 
apparent, filling you with a sense of beauty.
My first encounter with Laotian brocade was in 
a boutique at the hotel where I was staying in the 
capital, Vientiane. A brocade with a deep red hue, 
approximately 50 centimeters in width and 3 me-
ters in length hung by the entrance. It portrayed 
the many legends of a Laotian tribe. But this bro-
cade was not painted, or embroidered, but woven! 
Weaving is entirely reliant on the regular action of 
the loom; regular geometric patterns and blocks of 
colors are relatively easy to achieve, but irregular 
patterns require painstaking care and time to con-
ceive and bring to fruition. And lest we forget, this 
piece was a major biographical record incorporat-
ing many hundreds of people, animals, objects and 
scenes! Think of the countless shuttle spools, each 
with their different colored threads, which must be 
threaded through to the base thread in exactly the 
right place. The thought of the slow progress which 
went into creating this piece was enough to make 
me break out in a cold sweat. Sadly, the asking price 
was one which I could not afford.
I later visited a textile village, where the pric-
es were much more reasonable, and I joyously 
snapped up four cotton scarves, six large shawls 
and two pictures, all of them brocaded in stunning 
colors.
Lao wooden carving
Brocade
Laos Sa Paper
and Brocade
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