In the Meiji period, Japan imported Western paper from Europe and the US which was made of wood pulp containing a large amount of artifacts. In order to differentiate existing Japanese domestic paper from Western paper, a new word and concept was created – “washi”. The definition of washi has been unclear for a long time, but following the success of washoku, Japanese cuisine, “Washi, craftsmanship of traditional Japanese hand-made paper” was nominated by UNESCO’s as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2014 the “Craftsmanship of Japanese hand-made paper manufactured by the traditional method such as the use of paper mulberry as the only raw material” was registered. This is the narrowest sense of “handmade Japanese paper”, but more commonly washi includes paper which was machine-made at a slower speed as well as paper with materials other than the three traditional ingredients (Kōzo, Mitsumata, and Gampi), such as wood pulp.
Paper-making was originally imported from China with the ritsuryō political system, in which papers were in high demand and needed in large volume for the records of family registers and tax books. For a long time, washi has been considered in Japan to be an infrastructure to maintain society and culture. The peak of washi production was in fact during the Meiji period. In 1901, in response to rapid demand, the washi industry grew to include 70,000 households which employed over 200,000 people. Soon after, the production system of Western paper in factories was established. In the early Showa period, a massive famine hit the farmlands, and the controlled economy during World War II caused further damage, resulting in a continuous decay of washi productivity.
According to research by the All Japan Handmade Washi Association, in 2009 the number of manufacturing households involved in handmade washi was 295. This is a decrease of one 230th in comparison to one hundred years ago. Shipment values in the last ten years exceeded 3 billion yen by 2002, but did not reach 2 billion yen by 2012. (Source: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry).
The productivity situation around one of the raw materials, domestic Kōzo, is even more severe. While the number of households designated to handmade paper-making decreased by almost half between 1976 and 2014, the production of domestic Kōzo shrank to 8% in yield between 1975 and 2004, and to 11% in growing acreage. Approximately 70% of the material for washi was imported from China, the Philippines, and Thailand. By comparison with the domestic material, the cost of imports is under one-tenth. (Source: Japan Special Forest Product Promotion Association)
The ageing of manufacturers and processors and the shortage of successors due to the drastic change in social structure and lifestyle after World War II are essential issues shared by many traditional crafts in Japan. In washi the problems are reaching a crisis level. It will be a challenge for The Future of Traditions, if we cannot present some kind of solution.
