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Show PAPERMAKIN I INDO-CHIN 3 four winds which made it convenient for the hawkers beggers,and drones to push their way from one shelter t another, bantering back and forth in a babble of tongue well beyond my understanding. Old Tonkinese wome stood behind low wooden stalls selling the produé of th community. There were neatly-tied packages of coars bamboo spirit-paper for burning in the crowded temple before the altars of the gods, and for use in various othe religious ritesand ceremonies also there were displayed but in lesser abundance, the fine, thin absorbent paper that would eventually find use in secluded sanéuaries t be written upon by Chinese scholars in firm, sure stroke of the brush. These calligraphic papers when made fro superior materials are much stronger and more durabl than the produd of the paper-machin that is fast replacing the traditional hand methods in Indo-China In Tonkin filth, disease,and morbid life mingled han in hand with industry, patience, and skill; never befor had I seen papermaking, one of the most noble and mos useful of all the crafts, carried on in such utter confusio orin an environment so depressing There is no recor of the precise time when papermaking had its origin i Tonkin, Indo-China, but it is thought that the forebear of these present-day workers commenced making pape almost seven centuries ago My first day's visit in the paper villages of Tonkin wa bewilderingand disheartening. Althoughin past yearsi had been my privilege to sce the craft of papermaking i |