Shiqiao, in Danzhai County, is named in the national inventory for bark-paper making. The catalogue identifies paper mulberry bark and fir roots among local materials and describes a process that includes preparing pulp, forming sheets, pressing, drying and peeling. That sequence turns fibrous material into a flexible, light-catching sheet, but the craft’s next chapter came from a different demand: paper able to sit safely within old books.
From the journal
A Sheet Tested for the Palace Museum
In Shiqiao, papermaker Wang Xingwu adapted bark-paper knowledge to the measured demands of repairing old books.
In the same city · Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture ↗
A local material with a national use
Repair paper has exacting requirements
A 2023 People’s Daily report says the National Library and the Palace Museum were looking for book-repair paper in 2004, bringing Shiqiao into contact with conservation specialists. Wang Xingwu had learned paper making from his father from age fifteen. He travelled to the Palace Museum to study the feel and requirements of repair paper, then worked on thickness, fibre distribution and raw-material proportions. The task was not simply to make a beautiful sheet: repair paper had to resist tearing without adding excess thickness to a damaged book.
Seven samples a day
The report describes Wang making seven different samples a day and adjusting them in response to experts’ advice. He spent two years refining the process. In 2006, the resulting Yingchun paper passed expert assessment on measures including weight, colour, thickness, fibre and acidity. Those details show craft as testing: experienced hands and material knowledge met conservation criteria, and each batch of samples narrowed the distance between a local paper and the needs of an ancient volume.
Production organized around shared work
Wang’s representative-bearer profile records that in 2008 he began teaching apprentices through larger-scale production and established a cooperative. The 2023 report adds that he organized 36 households and 89 villagers in 2009 to make several types of hand paper and coordinate sales. Later work expanded into design and contemporary uses, but the repair-paper story remains specific: a village skill adapted through repeated tests to meet a demanding material brief. Its next chapter belongs to the makers who continue to decide what paper is for.