Paper’s a worldwide obsession: Japanese paper dangles delicately from racks in Darlinghurst, Sydney

I wonder who uses paper these days, and why?

* Are you using paper for anything today? [toilet paper excepted]

* Do you use it often? What do you use it for?

* Is there a particular kind you prefer? i.e. handmade or machine-made, a certain thickness or color, plain or lined or gridded

* Has your paper consumption changed over the last 10 years? How?

And speaking of paper, here’s a tale of trickery and toilet paper:

Trading Toilet Paper for Treasure

From the memoirs of a British physician at the 19th century court of Siam

One day he was attending an antique lady of 65, one of four who remained from the harem of the deceased Second King, in the Wang Na Palace, Bangkok. In one of her drawers there was newspaper, all carefully torn into pieces of the same size.

’What is that?’ said I.

’Toilet paper,” she replied with a peal of laughter.

She did not of course call it that, for [manufactured toilet paper] was unknown to her…When I explained to her what toilet paper was she became interested.

‘If you bring me some,’ she said, ‘you can have a piece of pottery.’

So on my next visit I took her six fat rolls and came away with a beautiful vase of the K’ang H’su period (circa A.D. 1700) worth at least fifty times as much. Exchange is no robbery, I thought; she will enjoy my paper as much as I shall enjoy having her vase.

p. 100-101, A Physician at the Court of Siam

Ms. Sompat peels paper from the mold

This woman is one of the first papermakers to set up a professional mill in her region of Lampang, northern Thailand. I met her earlier this year when I travelled through Southeast Asia to explore handmade papers and to meet the people who make them.

Most of the papermakers I met on my travels were women. Why? I found out the answer from a PhD student in Bangkok, who surveyed papermakers in northern Thailand. According to her results, papermills owned/run by women have nearly triple the exports and double the number of products compared to those run by men.

“The study’s findings erase all irrational doubts about whether female leaders, and substantial numbers of female members, can be successful….too much self-reliance [not enough contact with other papermakers] and poor financial record [by men] limit success because these factors limit the ability to learn from others, form networks and gain assistance in improving record keeping. The findings …suggest that women leaders…motivate their groups much more possibly because they are more persuasive and are more open to new ideas.”

Kanchana Sura, Factors Influencing the Success of OTOP Mulberry Paper Enterprises in Chiang Mai Province p.135

Two of Thailand’s most famous exports: chillies dry in a papermaker’s mold in Bo Sang, the papersellers street outside Chiang Mai

As I write my book of explorations through southeast Asia earlier this year – in search of paper and surprises – I am bombarded with sensory flashbacks. These days I’m writing of Thailand. Again my skin burns as it did when I was there at the hottest time of year; I taste the searing savory dishes available at street markets and tourist restaurants; and smell jasmine garlands and underwashed foreigners at guesthouses.

Every morning I keep up with online work and paint every afternoon. Then write a thousand unpolished words every night. My notes are fleshed into raw narrative that links encounters and a trail of clues from cultures two thousand years old or more. Only after the first draft’s complete will I refine my writing further. Every day I experience the same terror as I sit down to the keyboard: “I’m not a writer,” I think. “I’m an artist. What the hell am I doing?” Then I scan the scattered phrases I’d jotted in notebooks, often while riding pillion behind a motorbike driver. They bring me back to roads through mountains and isolated villages, to conversations with hilltribes and noodles spattered all over my guides. I forget I’m not a writer, and just write – as long as it takes that day.

Handmade ink is spooned from a bowl in Dong Ho village near Hanoi, Vietnam.

This black sludge was once bamboo growing near the village. After the artisans burn the bamboo, they soak the charcoal for a year, and only then is it ready to be made into ink. I filled a water bottle with the ink, and used it for the illustrations for my paper book which will be published next year.