Memories of Taiwan's indigo past

Can we, who dress in American, Japanese and European fashions, identify ourselves with our land? Chances are we live as though we were aliens without any memories of our ancestors, who once breathed the same air here.

So true is this that we can barely picture how the island was when filled with 2.5 million of our forefathers dressed in indigo shirts.

Signs reading "Upper Jing-shuei," "Mid Jing-shuei," and "Lower Jing-shuei" catch the eye of wanderers in Yangmingshan National Park.

Residents, however, have hardly any understanding of these Chinese words.

In fact, "Jing-shuei" is the term for the three-meter-long stone tanks still found abandoned alongside streams in the mountainous area of Yangmingshan. These tanks, most of which were severely damaged by farmers who later sought space to grow bamboo and oranges, were indispensable for their grandparents who lived by traditional indigo dyeing until a century ago.

Those engaged in the trade in Yangmingshan built these gigantic tanks along the water specifically to facilitate the preservation of fresh indigo plants leaves.

Dyeing mills

Taiwan's traditional indigo dyeing was primarily applied to the making of clothes. The natural dyes were mostly derived from plants grown in humid mountains, such as Strobilanthes cusia Kuntze (大菁) in Yangmingshan, but became dependent on imported ones later. Its prosperity peaked in the mid-19th century and started declining towards the end of the 19th century.

In Sanshia Village, Taipei County, famous for its preservation of local historic sights, signboards form the last remaining trace of the original collection of dyeing mills.

Before the decay of the industry, two thirds of the 60 stores on one street in Sanshia were engaged in natural indigo dyeing.

Liao Fu-ben (廖富本), the 90-year-old son of an indigo dyeing mill owner, recalled that the front of their house served as a shop selling indigo dye clothes made at the back of the house.

"I remember the rumble of boiled water in the big pots where the workers cooked white clothes prior to the dyeing to avoid the fading of blueness afterwards," Liao said.

As dyeing equipment slightly varied from area to area, Liao said the room was occupied with ten indigo baskets, functioning like tanks, on the two sides of the aisle. Liao said the length of each basket was about 1.5m, while the depth was approximately two meters. "The workers had to stand on stools to reach the dye inside," Liao said.

Popular color

Lee Jui-tsang, (李瑞宗), an associate professor from Tsu-Chi College of Medicine and Humanities, who has been researching the subject for four years, noted that indigo was a hugely popular color in South-eastern China and Taiwan -- where its popularity enabled the dyeing industry to thrive -- partly because stains would show less on clothes of dark blue, while most of the population was engaged in trades involving arduous physical work.

In the meantime, at the threshold of the last century, the traditional industry began to shrink. Just as farmers today seek perpetually to maximize their profits by engaging in the most lucrative forms of farming, those who had originally operated indigo-dye plants, as in Yangmingshan, suddenly switched to the cultivation of tea instead. As a result, the industry faced crisis.

Otherwise, the evolution of Taiwan's natural indigo-dyeing industry, in fact, corresponded to the general history of the island. No sooner did the decrease of the indigo dying on the island begin than Germany's development of chemical dyes infiltrated the local market. As the application of chemical dyes reduced labor costs, the use of indigo hardly stood a chance.