Taiwan's first crafts school
In April 1936, this school was renamed "Private Taichung Crafts Institute for Teaching and Learning". In February 1937, it was renamed again "Private Taichung School for the Specialization of the Crafts". This school offered courses in carpentry and lacquering, for 37 Taiwanese, and 10 Japanese students. According to teacher Chen Huoqing's memory, since the amalgamation of the Teaching and Learning Institute and the factory into the school, the relationships between master workers and students were informal, they were co-workers. If the students did not know how to do something, master workers would teach them. Their relationships would be really like masters and apprentices. Students were working together throughout the first to the third year, and the position of the masters would be as instructors for teaching techniques. However, masters' major tasks were selling the products, not specializing in teaching, while students needed to learn as well as to work. There was a cooperative union in the school, which manufactured through receiving orders from its subsidiary shop on the Zhongshan Road (Taichung), and then sold in this shop. Therefore, at that time, this school employed many master workers and staff to manufacture and to sell. After the handing over to the Nationalist government by the Japanese in 1945, Japanese Headmaster Yamanaka and his Japanese teaching and administrative staff were repatriated. Later the school was renamed by the Nationalists' government "Private Nation-building Industrial Professional School". However, due to shortage of budget and teaching materials, teachers had to appeal to either the people's representatives or the local gentry. Finally, some people had expressed their concerns after this appeal was reported; especially, the communist movement pioneer Xie Xuehong once assisted the school. After the February 28 Incident (1947), the school was abolished by the government. Most of the students were transferred to the Taichung Advanced Industrial School, although a few students were transferred to the School of Agriculture, and so this, the only crafts school in Taiwan, ended. |
Some of the most famous masters of lacquerware craft in Taiwan graduated from Yamanaka's school. Graduates became teachers in lacquerware industries in different factories or had their own workshops. In 1941, one Japanese company, Riken, established a lacquerware factory in Hsinchu, which also became the foundation of the development of lacquerware industry in Taiwan after World War Two. The products of that period were daily commodities such as bows, boxes and baskets. The factory was also liquidated after the War and some of the staff became lacquerware craft artists.
In the lacquerware craft itself, some challenges also made popularisation difficult. One was that, in contrast to ceramics, lacquerware was no longer in daily use by families in Taiwan. The other one was the complicated and time-consuming process of the workflow, which made the number of participants dwindle. Despite these disadvantages, some lacquerware artists still work in this field without attracting public attention. As I had the chance to meet some of the most famous craft artists in the lacquerware industries in Taiwan and the opportunity to learn the special history of lacquerware in Taichung from field study, I found that lacquerware craft could become a meaningful topic in virtual museums. In this work, I endeavourto give a more precise resolution of the issue mentioned above and to comment on the creative cultural industries in Taiwan as well. |