One of the last metalsmiths in Greater Kaohsiung’s Cishan District (旗山), Chifeng Smithy Shop owner Lin Chi-kuang (林吉光), is feeling the pinch that automated production has put on handcrafted goods from stores like his.
Despite the wide acceptance of farming tools and kitchen knives produced by modern machinery, many residents in the Cishan area continue to endorse Lin’s shop because of the reliability of his tools.
Lin, 74, started as an apprentice more than 60 years ago in Jiasian Township (甲仙) in what was then Kaohsiung County, and started his own shop after finishing his mandatory military service.
Photo: Chen Yu-cheng, Taipei Times
Lin said he practically lived with the furnace and forge due to the lack of industrial advancement, while his wife, Hsu Mei-lan (徐梅蘭), took care of the business side of things.
His tools were so popular that the heat of forging had barely dissipated from the tools before they were sold, Lin said.
However, business these days is a far cry from what it used to be, he said.
Hand-forged steel is more dense and durable, suffering less wear and tear even when used roughly, Lin said, adding that older people usually favored hand-forged steel over machine-forged equipment.
Sometimes, elderly people say they want their children to have kitchen knives like the ones they have been using for 30 or 40 years, asking him to forge new ones like theirs, Lin said.
Getting such a request is quite a moving experience, he added.
Mass production by modern machinery at lower prices has hurt smiths greatly, Lin said, adding that the increasing mechanization of agriculture is also cutting back farmers’ reliance on basic tools such as hoes and sickles.
Other favorite tools, such as axes, have also been a source of income, but now the shop barely sells five axes per year, Lin said, adding that he and his wife often worry about how bad business is.
The couple said they have begun to gradually pass the store on to their children and are branching out from forging kitchen and farming tools.
“We are now accepting customized orders, and create our own handles and blade shapes to draw in new customers,” Lin said, adding that he hopes his efforts will open new paths for the traditional industry.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift