Shining On: Bamboo Lanterns In Taiwan

Paper lanterns have long been symbols of joy and celebration throughout Asia. Believed to be first created in China and fashioned from oiled paper stretched over bamboo frames, paper lanterns were used to celebrate happy events like weddings and births. Beyond that, they served a practical function of lighting homes and streets. They even served in a religious role so that people could send supplications to heaven.

Paper lanterns also play a major role in many festivals throughout Asia. During the Mid-Autumn festival celebrating a successful harvest, a parade of lanterns featuring a myriad of shapes and sizes highlights the festivities. In fact, when the festival originated in the Tang Dynasty, emperors would commission lantern-towers as tall as 1500 feet high.

The Lantern Festival held on the 15^th day of the Chinese New Year serves as a colorful way to mark the formal completion of the New Year festivities and light the way into spring and a new year. Lanterns are often created in the shape of Chinese Zodiac symbols and other popular symbols of good fortune including lions and dragons.

And this traditional lantern is helping some companies take a modern lease on production. A small company in Taiwan is using the bamboo framed lantern to give its company a new lease on life.

Taiwan has seen a mass exodus of companies dependent on manual labor over the past two decades and the remaining businesses are worried about an economic cooperation framework agreement with China that would lead to an influx of cheap Chinese-made goods.

Ever Shine Enterprise Co has managed to carve out a niche to keep them resistant to Chinese competition by using the traditional manufacturing models from which they emerged. Ever Shine has proven itself innovative over its 60 year history and its evolution should be admired and emulated by other small and medium-sized manufacturers.

Originally an umbrella factory, the company underwent its first adaptation when its market was undermined by the influx of umbrellas made with synthetic fabrics in the early 1960’s. Instead of closing up shop, owner Hsieh Yi-huang transformed Ever Shine into a producer of traditional lanterns.

When rising labor costs threatened the business again in the late 1980s, Hsieh’s youngest son, Hsieh Chih-cheng sprang into action to keep the family business afloat. He improved the basic structure of the lantern frame to make it stronger, more flexible and more resilient. He introduced new printing and sewing technologies to upgrade productivity and lower costs, as well as developing new lantern styles to stay competitive.

However, modernization only went so far. Instead of replacing the frame with aluminum alloy or steel wires, Ever Shine kept the traditional bamboo frame to preserve the lanterns’ special feel.

“The bamboo lantern is a traditional Chinese handicraft that has enormous historical significance. For me, only a bamboo frame gives a lantern heart and soul,” Hsieh said.

Moreover, bamboo represents growth and its nodes symbolize moral integrity, he said.

“I believe using bamboo frames add culture and history to our lanterns,” he said.

This combination of the modern and traditional, and attention to detail shown in the lanterns, has helped the company survive against cheaper Chinese rivals.

An Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) official said his superiors at the Ministry of Economic Affairs sometimes received Chinese-made lanterns as souvenirs but often found their flimsy frames to be bent of warped.

But soon they were threatened with more modern challenges when their main client base, temples, began shrinking in numbers and then using electric ornaments instead of lanterns. Once again, they adapted and created new lantern styles to appeal to the household market.

Accounting for 30% of the company’s annual sales, these artistic lanterns have a unique character that embodies a delicate balance between fashion and functionality.

Ever Shine even opens its doors to visitors so that tourists and countrymen alike can see how they manage to make traditional bamboo framed lanterns with a modern twist.

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