Master Wan Taipei Times article
Pottery stores along Yingge Old Street (鶯歌老街) won’t sell teapots made by Tseng Tsai-wan (曾財萬) these days. “They’re too expensive. A single teapot fetches up to NT$70,000 these days,” he tells us.
Tseng, also known as Master Wan (阿萬師), gestures expansively, sending one of the teapots on the table crashing to the ground. Momentarily distracted, he waves a hand, and his son comes forward to sweep up the pieces. I don’t think it was one of the expensive ones.
Master Wan is still making teapots at 84. Born into poverty, and missing out on a proper education in the instability in the immediate aftermath of the war, he started working in ceramics in his early teens, but originally only found success when he started making fake Chinese antiques. It was only when collectors became wary of buying antique teapots, with increasing numbers on the market virtually indistinguishable from the genuine antiques, that he started developing his own.
Nowadays, he is known for his zhuni (cinnabar clay) pear skin teapots (朱泥梨皮壺), using a special clay blend that produces the pear pip skin effect — white grain specks on the surface — during the firing process. These pear pip skin teapots are prized for the extra sweetness they give to the tea brewed in them. Over the years, the tea will gradually stain the white grains yellow. Collectors call these “huangjinzi” (golden grains).
Tseng was born in 1932 in Yingge, in Japanese colonial period Taiwan. The family was so poor that his father kept him back from school from eight to 10 years old. He remembers the Japanese cops constantly trying to get money from his father, and beating him when he couldn’t pay. The family fled to Taichung, and were forced to stay in people’s pig pens or cow sheds.
His sister died aged two in one of the pens, when he was 13. “She died because my father only looked after the boys,” Tseng said.
At 13, he started studying how to make ceramics, to bring in some money. He made braziers, medicine storage jars, and then large water pots.
In the 1980s, with the arrival of plastics decimating demand for pottery storage jars, he turned his hand to teapots.
Back then, nobody was making teapots by hand in Taiwan. He had to learn the techniques by himself. “I was the first person to make teapots by hand. I was also the first person in Taiwan to make the pear skin teapots.”
An unknown, he discovered he couldn’t cover his costs selling these under his own name. He decided the only way was to make fakes of antique Chinese Shantou pots (汕頭壺).
At that time, according to Tseng, making fakes was very lucrative. He had a family to feed, he was finding it difficult to make ends meet, and he could get NT$5,000 or NT$6,000 for a single fake antique teapot, NT$8,000 for a larger one.
He became so good at making fakes indistinguishable from the authentic antiques, collectors became wary of buying antiques after he exhibited three of his teapots at an exhibition at the Yingge Ceramics Museum. After that, he had to go far and wide to peddle his wares, seeking out dealers in Kaohsiung and Pingtung.
Kujiang District near the Port of Kaohsiung was known for selling antiques. It was also known for selling smuggled goods. “They would sell anything. So, I took my stuff there.”
After a dealer reneged on a big order for fake antique teapots, Tseng decided it was time to sell under his own name. He started getting a reputation for making high quality teapots.
In the 1990s, descendant of Banciao’s Lin (林) family paid him a visit from Hong Kong, and offered NT$5 million for all the teapots he could make. He turned him down.
“His idea was that I hadn’t been making teapots all that long, and after I passed away he would make a lot of money selling them to collectors.”
All his work now is commissioned. He has more orders than he can cope with, and is not taking any more this year. Life is more stable.
Two of Tseng’s sons are following him in a pottery career. They are now his assistants. Another two can make pots, but have looked elsewhere for work.
He does have his regrets about the career he has chosen, and feels that had he been better educated he would be able to charge more money for his pots, he has reached a certain degree of contentment.
He thinks about how things would be now had he accepted the Hong Kong businessman’s offer.
He says that money isn’t all that important to him, and that now he can do what he pleases. “Had I been chained to making pots for that one guy, I wouldn’t have that freedom. And without that freedom, I wouldn’t be happy.”
A version of this story appeared in the Taipei Times on June 5, 2016.
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