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Concerning umbrella
making, there were not many of the villagers who were interested in
practicing and in helping the monk. When the final product was
eventually available, some of the villagers made use of them when
traveling to protect themselves from the sun or rain. When people from
other villages came and saw the umbrellas, Bo Sang became known somewhat
more.
Finally people began to
place orders to buy umbrellas and it became a source of income. From
that time until the present more of the villagers became interested in
umbrella making. But we humans must agree that there is gradual
evolution and so the process was modified as time passed. Bo Sang
villagers began to make more umbrellas, the work was a profitable hobby
as a supplement to rice farming. Once the harvest was completed the
villagers began making umbrellas throughout the village. When the
umbrellas were finished, villagers took just a few, maybe 20 or 30
umbrellas, to the city to sell.
Later some people in
Sanpatong District, in a village called Mae Wang, produced umbrellas
similar to the people of Bo Sang. It is not known where they learned the
craft of making umbrellas from silk or cotton.
When the cloth and Sa
paper umbrellas were finished they were brought into town to sell. The
Bo Sang village keenly observed the other designs and skillfully thought
up a way to make cloth umbrellas as well. They developed this gradually
and changed from using tree resin to using Mameu oil which was softer
and stronger. They also used the oil mixed with Haang to good effect.
(This Haang is a dust-colored pigment and at present is only sold in
Burma at a very expensive cost.)
After the villagers
learned the method of making cloth umbrellas, things develop the point
that in 1941 the villagers got together and formed a cooperative within
the village. The villagers called this cooperative "Bo Sang Umbrella
Making Cooperative Ltd". At that time, the organizer was Mr. Jamroon
Suthiwiwat, the head of cooperatives in the province. The villagers
produced umbrellas of many different sizes, such as 14 inch, 16 inch, 18
inch, and 20 inch umbrellas as well as large ones of 35 and 40 inches,
both cloth and paper umbrellas.
The umbrellas were painted
with oil paints mixed with Mameu oil of many different colors, such as
red, yellow, blue and green. (A that time these oil paints had begun to
be imported.)
The have succeeded
progressively to the point that in approximately 1957, the "Center for
Industrial Promotion" for the North assisted the villagers by teaching
them to make Sa paper and to print cloth in a fine plaid such as we can
see up to the present.
Umbrella making developed
prosperously to the point that they began to be painted with flowers and
landscape view scenes of various kinds. This prosperity is the result of
the assistance given and the fact that these umbrella products can be
exported and sell well abroad.
The villagers have also
been invited to give demonstrations of umbrella making that the citizens
of other countries can see this craft at various fairs and shows to the
extent that Bo Sang umbrellas have been transformed into one of the
symbols of Chiang Mai.
The villagers of Bo Sang
should remember the monk's benevolence that he brought this art form to
become a vital occupation up to the present. It is all a result of the
foresight and wisdom of Luang Por Inthaa which cannot be forgotten.
Formerly made as offerings to the monasteries, the beautiful
hand-made bamboo and paper umbrellas of Bosang are now produced in
quantity. Still reflected in the work of the skilled village craftsmen
is the sheer beauty of a tradition that began generations ago.
In addition to umbrellas and parasols made of sa paper, cotton and silk,
many other decorative handicraft items are made featuring the same
hand-painted designs and fine skills of the local artisans.
THE UMBRELLA VILLAGE
As soon as you enter the village of
Bor Sang, nine miles
east of Chiang Mai, you see them — hundreds
of them,
standing out in the sun to dry and stacked row upon
row on display. Gaily decorated in vivid colors, with
designs of dragons or flowers. These are the famous
umbrellas
of Northern Thailand, which have been made right
here in Bor Sang for the past
200 years. According to local legend,
umbrella-making first began
here because a wandering monk passed by on his travels
with a broken 'glot' or special monk's
umbrella. An old villager called
Nai Peuak mended
it for him, and
thought
it would be a good idea if ordinary people as well
as
monks could have these useful devices for keeping off
the
sun and rain. So Nai
Peuak became the first man to
make
and sell Bor Sang umbrellas.
Today you can buy them in various sizes
in paper,
cotton
or silk, for only two or three dollars apiece. There are about 50
people still making umbrellas here, and perhaps a few hundred more scattered in other parts
of the north — Lamphun,
Lampang and Chiang Rai.
There are two demonstration centers in Bor
Sang where
you can watch the umbrellas being made; one of them
employs 30 people or so, the other about half as many. Bor
Sang's oldest umbrella-maker is pushing
60, his wife
and staunch co-worker a few years younger. They have
been turning out umbrellas for the past twenty years,
and are in fact the only over-50s still carrying
on this
craft today. In one month the couple can produce about
1,000 small-sized ones. The couple used to be rice-farmers,
stopping for four months
every year to produce umbrellas, which earned them
enough extra cash to take them out of the strictlysubsistence-farming
level and enabled them to buy the
occasional
buffalo. But recently they gave up farming
altogether,
and they now work more or less full-time, seven
days a week, in the larger of the two umbrella-making
centers. In spite of the relatively small number
of umbrella
craftsmen
in Bor Sang, the competition is quite
strong; as in
most trades, the more umbrellas one can make and sell,
the more money one can earn. The veteran crafts- man
just mentioned, proudly claims to be the only one who
can draw accurate pairs of dragons on umbrellas
straight
off, without having to make a rough outline first! Out of this man's eight children, two
sons and two
daughters
arc continuing in the trade. At least that's better
than none at all — and it should please Thailand's Ministry of Industry, which is doing its
best to keep this craft
going and has organized several training courses in it. The framework of the umbrellas is made
entirely of bamboo
— the head or "duck-leg", the spokes and the handle.
Simple pole- athes, of the type used in country areas
the world over, with a springy upper pole, string
stretching
from it down to and round the work piece,
and from
there to a foot-treadle below, are used to turn all the
circular
parts. (Almost identical pole-lathes were used until
not so long ago to fashion the legs of Windsor chairs in
Buckinghamshire, just outside London). For the paper umbrellas, 'sa'
paper is used. The raw
material
for this comes from the bark of the paper-
mulberry
and other trees. The paper-making is quite a complex
process. The bark is first soaked in water for twenty
four hours, then boiled with wood-ash until it's soft.
After further boiling for another three or four hours, it
is rinsed, pounded and again put in water in large shallow
concrete trays. Next it is stirred and then sieved onto
rectangular metal screens and put in the sun to dry for
twenty minutes, forming the almost wafer-thin paper. The paper is pasted onto the umbrella
frames with a whitish
glue, layer after layer, until it's thick and strong enough.
The glue and paper are carefully smoothed by hand
during each application, until the paper is absolute- ly
taut and even. When everything is dry, the designs are painted
on swiftly and skilfully in oil
colours. Each crafts- man
specializes in his or her own particular design — flowers,
dragons or whatever. Who buys the umbrellas? In the past, it
was mainly Chinese merchants from Chiang Mai City
and the
occasional
tourists, local and foreign, passing through the
village. But nowadays export orders for the larger sizes
are coming in as fast as the umbrella-makers of Bor Sang can turn them out — by the tens of
thousands every
month. |
