You Wenfeng, who belongs to China’s tiny Hezhen ethnic group, is one of the few people in her community who can still make clothing from the skin of fish.
She was not yet born when her kinsmen were thrown into labour camps during Japan’s occupation of Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s.
“Many Hezhen clans perished, but my mother survived to pass on her fish-skin knowledge to me,” said You, 68.
Photo: Reuters
A Tungusic people native to Siberia and on the Black Dragon river, as the Amur is known in China, the Hezhen rebuilt its population to 5,000 from 300 after World War II.
But that hasn’t stopped the decline of Hezhen culture, including the tradition of making garments from the skin of carp, pike and salmon.
Few in the current generation are interested in learning the craft. Fish-skin clothing is also no longer a regular part of daily Hezhen attire.
Sensing the end, You started to impart her knowledge to some local Han Chinese women in Tongjiang, a quiet city near the northeastern border with Russia where she now lives.
Her disciples also learn the Yimakan, a storytelling genre that switches between speech and song in the Hezhen language.
The education is arduous, with You’s acolytes committing to memory songs of fishing, hunting and ancient tribal conquests through phonetics alone.
With little prompting, You burst into song in her studio apartment, singing of a woman’s wish to bear a son for her hunter-husband.
Hezhen hunters rode on canoes made from birch, or “swift horses,” You said, smiling.
Such is their skill on water that legend says the Hezhen descended from mermaids.
“When the forests flooded to the treetops, there’d be fish everywhere,” she said. “Just throw your spear into the water and there’d be fish.”
These days, fish are sourced from the marketplace. And instead of tiger bone and deer tendon, embroidery needles and cotton thread are used.
A top and a pair of trousers for a woman require 50 fish, and for a man, 56, You said.
She would de-skin the fish and dry the skin. It is then repeatedly passed through the wooden jaws of a rudimentary press to soften it. The process takes a month. Sewing requires a further 20 days.
Finding commercial functions for fish-skin might save the craft.
Fish-leather has inspired some luxury fashion houses such as Dior and Prada to occasionally include it in their garments and accessories, but the fabric is still largely a curiosity.
“Look at the criss-cross pattern on the skin,” You said. “It’s stronger than most skins.”
In recent weeks the Trump Administration has been demanding that Taiwan transfer half of its chip manufacturing to the US. In an interview with NewsNation, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that the US would need 50 percent of domestic chip production to protect Taiwan. He stated, discussing Taiwan’s chip production: “My argument to them was, well, if you have 95 percent, how am I gonna get it to protect you? You’re going to put it on a plane? You’re going to put it on a boat?” The stench of the Trump Administration’s mafia-style notions of “protection” was strong
Every now and then, it’s nice to just point somewhere on a map and head out with no plan. In Taiwan, where convenience reigns, food options are plentiful and people are generally friendly and helpful, this type of trip is that much easier to pull off. One day last November, a spur-of-the-moment day hike in the hills of Chiayi County turned into a surprisingly memorable experience that impressed on me once again how fortunate we all are to call this island home. The scenery I walked through that day — a mix of forest and farms reaching up into the clouds
With one week left until election day, the drama is high in the race for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair. The race is still potentially wide open between the three frontrunners. The most accurate poll is done by Apollo Survey & Research Co (艾普羅民調公司), which was conducted a week and a half ago with two-thirds of the respondents party members, who are the only ones eligible to vote. For details on the candidates, check the Oct. 4 edition of this column, “A look at the KMT chair candidates” on page 12. The popular frontrunner was 56-year-old Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文)
“Eighteen years ago, people didn’t even know the name of this ingredient,” says 58-year-old Gil Sa-hyeon, holding up a cluster of dried brownish stems. “Now it’s everywhere.” His shop, Joseon Yakcho, sits in the heart of Seoul’s Yangnyeongsi Market, South Korea’s largest traditional medicinal herb market, its streets lined with shops displaying buckets of herbs such as licorice root and cinnamon bark that spill on to the pavements, filling the air with their distinct, earthy aroma. The ingredient Gil is referring to is hovenia dulcis, known in Korean as heotgae — the oriental raisin tree that’s become the cornerstone of South Korea’s
RSS