Yunnan Xishuangbanna Day 5 Man Zhao papermaking

This is the other cool part about Man Zhao. They also make paper. Almost every household makes paper. This picture however, is not of paper making but a cool shot caught by our wonderful photographer Simon. That looks like a new robe and a new bike!

Paper is drying in the sun.

We visited the first house and the man here was taking the paper off the drying screen.

He took us in and showed us the bark piled up in his home. The bark is cooked with ash for 1 day and then sits in a rinse for a day. It is dried and pounded into a powder. The mechanism he was using to pound the bark was very similar to the one used to leash the cows in the field. There was a main support pole and a bamboo pole across the top. One end was weighted and the other was attached to a hammer. The hammer sat in mid air over a large slice of log. Cool huh, Em?

After the powder is produced, it is mixed with water and made into a sludge. The sludge is scooped out of a bucket and put into this large concrete vat. The screen is passed into the water in the vat and a thin film of paper is caught on the screen. In olden days the screen was made of thread. Today it is plastic or nylon.

The paper on the screen is dried in the sun for 1 hour and then peeled off. This man makes three thicknesses of paper.

The mans family is helping to tie up the paper that we were buying. Word spread fast that there were tourists buying paper in the village and three women came out to sell their paper. One of them was admonishing our guide for not coming further into the village. I bought paper (of course) from the man and the three women. Now I have a cool large basket and a huge roll of paper to carry onto the plane. Since each is hand made and each mixes their own pulp, each was different. I bought an especially long thick piece of paper suitable for a book cover. When I got home I opened it up and there was a thin spot that the woman had taped a small patch of thinner paper on.

The paper from this village is sold to an umbrella company. They can paint it with special stuff to make it waterproof. The paper is pretty sturdy. It is also sold to wrap ... you guessed it! Pu'er tea.

There are many activities that keep these villagers busy and the nice thing is the variety.