Chiang Mai

The Old "Bor-Sang" Umbrella Village

What I know about the area was called Baw Sang. Since it is a translation by sound, the name of this place could spelled in more than one way. I took special notice of this place since I knew that they made umbrella out of wax papers. Something nostalgic that in my early years umbrellas available to ordinary people  were not made from cloth yet.

Even more fascinating was that these wax papers were made in situ, from the bark of  a tree. Since 1995, I always long to be back to see how progress had degenerated this place. I saw the slow transition. No one except those with memories would want such bulky and smelly umbrella.

By 2006, the place had indeed changed dramatically. What was once waste land, is now an industrial and tourist hub. Authority named the place as Northern Handicraft Capital. The Borsarng & Sankamphaeng Road. [In dialect - San Kampaeng sounded like Kampong Bahru]

What souvenirs could be sold and wanted by tourist are here. All shop having the same aims were concentrated here into one long road. The looks of the shops? Huge factory style building. The list of merchandise - Lacquer ware, Celadon, Silk & textiles, Wood carving, Umbrella making, Silverware, Hill tribes crafts and Sa paper products. We even visited one that handled Jewellery and Jades.

Back to the topic of umbrella. In 1995, they were producing paper umbrella with diversification. Painting on cloth. Today, they do not make umbrella any more but display a production line to lure visitors to the show room. The staff were artist did a variety of painting, like Making door gift for Club Med.

I am from the old school, I love seeing old umbrella.

The rest? Pictures will show you the place. The Umbrella Factory.

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Sense of where we were

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Marking the tourist street - they shifted the business of San Kampheang here to convenient Tourist

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Nicely jazzed up district

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The old place that I knew

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No lack of opportunities for souvenir pictures

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Lone Mulberry tree as icon

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Tried smashing the soaked barks

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A table to get uniformity

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More soaking and now seived

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Left in the sun for drying

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Manually preparing the ribs

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Making the spindle

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Ha! ha! See manually doing the sawing

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Carving

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Drilling

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I took lots of pictures for this page. I had mixed feelings on the progress made here. A trip to Bo Sang allows visitors a rare glimpse inside the delicate process of making these brilliant, artfully decorated umbrellas that have become instantly recognizable the world over. The reality is, this trade started when they took the bark of the Mulberry trees, crushed it and convert the residues into tough papers. They then waxed it and made into useful umbrellas.

A couple of stations still exist on how umbrellas are made. Making umbrella for Thai are no longer trendy nor competition as factories could generates at a fraction of cost. This place is now doing ornamental umbrellas and souvenirs for tourist.

I came to this place to go down memory lane. This place having to survive were doing what is relevant. So a mismatch in expectation