Ponkan’s Banquet Celebrates Local Arts and Crafts From All Corners

Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners made a stop at the capital to celebrate the nation’s local arts.

Entrance to the exhibition Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners at Huashan 1914 Creative Park

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Last weekend, a banquet from Ponkan, present-day Beigang, made a three-day stop at Taipei city. Brought to us all the way from southern Taiwan, this sumptuous feast was arranged in the style of “bando” (Taiwanese for “to arrange tables”).

In Taiwan, bando is held when friends and family gather to celebrate important events in life, such as weddings, year-end parties, local elections, and religious activities. These roadside banquets often take place under huge tents found on the side of the road or at the square in front of temples, where the food is cooked on-site. Bando is intrinsic to Taiwan’s culinary culture as it has produced many well-known dishes.

Curiously enough, this three-day banquet from Ponkan didn’t serve any food. Rather, it served works of art presented by artisans from around Taiwan. Titled Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners (笨港五湖四海宴), the exhibition consisted of bando tables covered in pink table cloth, each presenting works of art made by a participating artisan.

Ponkan, present-day Beigang, is a town in Yunlin County where some of the nation’s oldest traditional crafts survive and thrive. The first edition of Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners was launched in 2014. Since then, it has become the town’s most coveted annual event.

Banquet from All Corners is named after the ritual that follows the Annual Matsu Pilgrimage at Beigang Chaotian Temple, where local theatrical troupes and merchants come together to celebrate the goddess’s birthday. On this special occasion, the temple would present a feast inspired by “Man Han Quan Xi” (Feast of Complete Manchu and Han Courses), a formal banquet originated from the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) in which the culinary combination par excellence of aesthetics, nutrition and flavour was allegedly presented through 108 dishes.

This year, with the support of Ministry of Culture and National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners, which was exhibited this September in Beigang, toured to the Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei city.

A simulation of the renowned Qing banquet is found in the centre of this sumptuous feast, where we see a myriad of offerings placed on a long table, leading our eyes to the main altar at the end of the room. Among these offerings is “kanzhou” (看桌), a special type of offering prepared by artisan Shih Ching-I that serves a variety of food, including carp, octopus, clams, squid, peaches, lemons, loquat, and longan.

If you were to take a closer look at these delicacies from land and sea, you would soon realise that these sacrificial offerings are actually made of dough. Using dough to achieve this high level of realism would’ve required the artisans years of hard work. The art of kanzhou is prevalent in Beigang — a centre of Matsu cult and religious activities. Though dough figurine is not an uncommon traditional art form, it was my first time seeing them being incorporated into religious offerings.

Ponkan, present-day Beigang, is a town in Yunlin County where some of the nation’s oldest traditional crafts survive and thrive.

Kanzhou, alongside other sacrificial offerings in a wide spectrum of colours, was served to the two statues of Matsu, the Chinese Goddess of Sea, sitting on the altar: Chuanyi Matsu of Beigang and Matsu of Taipei’s Guandu Temple. With solemn air, the altar is adorned by traditional lanterns made by the hands of celebrated lantern-makers Lin Tsung-Hsien and Yen San-Tai.

Artisans featured in Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners come from around Taiwan, including those who excel in woodcarving, metalworking, tin craft, embroidery, lantern making, stone-carving, paper art, and cochin ware. The two statues of Matsu overlook a sea of tables served with local arts and crafts. However, this creative feast, which originally had 108 tables when held in Beigang, only consisted of 60 tables at its Taipei stop due to space limitation.

The art of zhuangfou is a combination of woodcarving (left) and lacquer-lining (right). Both sculptures are made by artisan Lin Hsin-Fa.

Decorating the Divine

Amid the drooling arts and craft served in this banquet is zhuangfou (粧佛), or “decorating the Buddha”, the making of religious sculptures.

Zhuangfou is a time-honoured craft that combines the art of woodcarving and lacquer lining, or “qixian” (漆線). Once a wooden statue is carved, artisan would add intricate details by trailing thread-like strands of lacquer substance on the wooden surface, a process that is reminiscent of the rogan painting tradition from India. These fine lacquer threads are usually applied to simulate elaborate design and patterns emboirdered on the costumes worn by divine statues. After the lacquer linings are set, its surface would often be gilt in gold.

Today, the art of zhuangfou is still very much alive in Taiwan where both Buddhism and Taoism thrive. In the exhibition, zhuangfou is perhaps the most common type of craft found on display, with its practitioners spanning over generations. Besides the traditional style, contemporary approach to zhuangfou, particularly lacquer lining, has also been explored. For instance, Yan Jin-Yi, who has over forty years of experience in the trade, applied lacquer lining onto ceramics to create highly decorative vase.

Wu Shang-Han’s elaborate silver headdress is set with coloured gemstones

It is a well known fact that many traditional arts practiced here in Taiwan is either associated with rituals or religious activities. Among a variety of statues made in the zhuangfuo tradition is the art of headdresses, in which luxurious headdresses in precious metals — sometimes set with coloured gemstones — are made for the divine.

Though headdress is not mandatory, people would often use it to pay tribute to the divine when they have the economic means to do so. Back in the old days, headdress for deities was usually crafted with paper; richer individuals would offer headdresses made in copper or tin, with “silver and gold being the most precious,” said Wu Shang-Han, fourth generation of Chin He Cheng Silver Headdress (金合成銀帽) — an almost century-old shop in Tainan city.

Lin Chaun-Cheng’s embroidered costumes and shoes made for statues of deities

The art of embroidery is an established tradition in Taiwan, particularly in Tainan city, where its high density of temples has a high demand of embroidered religious products — from costumes for statues of deities to table covers, from eight-auspicious banners to the deity’s command flags.

Born in 1959, Lin Chaun-Cheng is the third-generation of the Long Fong Embroidery shop in Tainan. On display, we see a set of tailor-made costumes for divine statue; two pairs of dragons have been intricately sewn in silver threads on a persimmon orange fabric. The dragons, embroidered in high-relief, have been portrayed in vivid realism; its whisks rolled into animated swirls, giving life to this mythological creature. Three pairs of shoes — two in Chinese red, one in orange — are also on display. Shoes as such would’ve been worn by the statues. A dragon and a phoenix, both rendered in beautiful colour gradation using fine threads, embellish either side of these miniature cloth shoes.

Reinterpreting Religious Offerings

Besides traditional arts and crafts, artisans who excelled in the types of art that are not usually associated with religious activities also turned to Taiwan’s religious culture as their source of inspiration. Placed on one of the bando tables is a small altar dedicated to the Princes of Three Houses. From afar, this altar looks no different from what an ordinary altar would look like. But a closer inspection reveals that everything — including the statues, their costumes, and the altar itself — is crafted with paper.

The longer you set your eyes on this paper sculpture, the more details you’ll come to discover. The statues’ highly intricate headdresses — some set with tiny pearls — are constructed out of pieces of gold paper. The natural and voluminous folds found on the costumes breathe life into the seated statues. Next to the altar is a vertical banner dedicated to the Divine Goddess that is also constructed out of paper. This table of oeuvre d’art is presented by artisan Hsu Yu-Teng, whose jaw-dropping display of paper art challenges the limitations — as well as our knowledge — of this mundane material.

In Taiwan, it’s not uncommon to see portraits of deities on hanging scroll, or the doors and walls of a temple. But it’s quite rare to find divine portraiture in patchwork that contains over one thousand pieces of coloured quilts. These one-of-a-kind pixel-like images were made with meticulous care by artist Chou Hsiu-Hui.

Next to the main altar, a patchwork series, which include three hanging scrolls, is displayed on the wall. We see Matsu, the Chinese Goddesses of the Sea, being escorted by two Heavenly Kings. Besides this religious portraiture, Chou also made a banner for the exhibition — one that writes “Wu Fu Si Hai” (Five Lakes Four Ocean), the Chinese title for this exhibition.

When looking at Chou’s patchwork, I couldn’t help but to draw a parallel between each of these tiny squares to the individual artisans who have participated in this exhibition, contributing not only to this creative feast, but in keeping the nation’s cultural heritage alive and strong.

Chou Hsiu-Hui’s hanging scrolls of patchwork depicts portrait of Matsu in the centre

This year marks the second year for Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners to be exhibited in Taipei. Unlike academia-driven and theory-based exhibition hosted by museums where a certain distance is often present between the exhibits and its viewers, Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners is a lot more accessible to the general public.

Rather than spending time on works by painters and sculptors who’ve been legendised — and monetised — by world leading institutions and scholars, visitors who walked into this banquet get to speak to the artisans in person, exchanging views on the traditions that have persevered through challenging times.

Ponkan’s Banquet from All Corners celebrates the motto “Art is Life, and Life is Art”. Immersed in this spirit, I wended my way through the exhibition from one bando table to another, looking to be served of what’s to come.

Ponkan Wuhu Sihai Yen (“Banquet from All Corners”) was on view at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park from October 28–30, 2022.