In Hakka village Xinpu Township, Hsinchu County, there is a paper pasting folk craft shop with a long history. In the shop, paper paste works representative of traditional religious practices can be seen, with many of these works made to depict deities. Along with hundreds of old photos, the intricate and retro art catches the eyes of visiting tourists.

The 75-year-old Liu Xing-xing, who is in charge of the shop, has been involved with paper pasting for more than 60 years. At the age of 7, he followed in the footsteps of his father and worked with paper pasting in Xinpu. Liu commented that “my older brothers were all in the same line of work. Back then, the entire street in Xinpu was full of paper pasting shops. The price war between neighbours who clamored for business along with the change to the technological age eventually resulted in my shop being the only one of its kind left. I feel quite lonesome, and worry that this traditional craft would fall prey to the changing times and be lost for good.”

Liu stated helplessly “from my generation, I’m the only one of 6 sons that is still in the paper pasting line of work. The rest of my brothers gave up due to the financial burden. Now, my two sons have joined the business.” He ruefully expressed that if there was no market demand, the industry would be destined to end.

Every year, following the end of the 7th month on the lunar calendar comes the end-of-winter opera along with sporadic temple festivals among other events. Liu’s family is responsible for supplying an average of nearly 20,000 Dashi Ye puppet heads, which accounted for about three-quarters of the market in Taiwan.

(Photo: CNA)

Dashi Ye (大士爺), commonly known as the King of Ghosts, possessed a blue face coupled with a mouth of fangs and a head of flaming-red hair, and is in charge of all ghosts. In traditional Zhongyuan Pudu celebrations, Dashi Ye puppet heads would frequently be displayed. Due to the high degree of difficulty in crating the puppet heads, nearly all temples in Taiwan rely on the Lius to supply them with the puppet heads.

Construction of the puppet heads is both a time-consuming and arduous process. At least five layers of paper are needed, beginning with joss paper, then newspaper, coarse cloth, another layer of newspaper, and finally an outer layer of joss paper. It would then need to be dried in the sun for 12 hours. A 7-meter high and 3-meter wide puppet would require 7 to 10 days of work by hand to be completed. These puppet deities which require much time and effort to be made would all be burned to ashes at the end of the ceremonies.

In order to make ends meet, Liu Xing-xing not only undertook the task of meeting the ceremonial needs of the temples, he also took on the task of manufacturing lanterns and installation art for the Lantern Festival. As a result, Liu was able to expand on his business and even built two 3000-square-foot factories in Xinpu, employing about 30 employees – a feat Liu is most proud of.

In order to revitalize the traditional paper paste industry, Liu adopted a business-style management of his factories, replacing the traditional manual style with computer graphics and design. He structured his team into different departments such as design, construction, painting, chemical, gardening, and so forth. In the early years, Liu even outsourced production to factories in China. These changes were the key to the continued prosperity of the Liu family paper pasting business to this day.

The Lius consider paper pasting not only as a business, but also as a cultural innovation, in hopes that everyone can participate and understand this traditional art form and folk craft from Xinpu.

(Translators: Chloe Hsu, Jasmine Hsu, Clare Kao, Vicky Yang

In collaboration with Fu Jen Catholic University, Department of English)