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Show PAPERMAKIN IN INDO-CHIN 3 and limp; as darkness came on candles were lighted in th roadside shops and the old temples and joss houses gav an cerie appearance in the flickering glow. The village of Phu Thaiand Vat Cach were hurriedly passed and th swaying omnibus arrived in the metropolitan capital cit of Hanoi just as small groups of French colonial official and theirelaborately dressed French ladies were enterin the magnificent Téatre Municipal to be present at th opening of the opera with a cast from Paris imported es- pecially for the occasion. I could not turn my thought from theslain Anamese woman nor from the coal miner and their families living and workingin the black city o Hongai; the picture of the patient peasants remorsefull throwing themselves down the rough embankments t clear theway for the onrushing Haiphong-Hanoi bus wa everin my mind There wereseveral French owned and operated hotel in Hanoiand I chose the Mézropole of the Sociéte Fonciér du Tonkin etdel" Annam. The French manager could giv but scant information regarding the nearby Villages d Papier, Yén-Thai and Lang-Buoi,-ancient papermak ing hamlets that I had travelled fifteen thousand mile to visit, but which the indifferent French innkeeper ha never thought worthy of even a perfunctory call. He wa not concerned with the problems of the native people nor was he interested in the fine old crafts in which the were engaged; he was interested, however, in procurin native workers for drudgery at pitiful wages in his hotel Digital mage© 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah, All rihts reserved |
