苑裡婦，一何工，不視桑蠶廢女紅，
十指纖纖日作苦，得資藉以奉翁姑，
食不知味夢不酣，人重生女不生男，
生男管向浮梁去，生女朝朝奉旨甘，
今日不完明日織，明日不完繼以夕，
君不見千條萬縷起花紋，織成費盡美人力。
—“草蓆歌” 蔡振豐 作
‍

What’s Yuanli women doing every day? No sericulture or needlecraft. 
They are weaving hard everyday to supply income to their parents-in-law 
They work so hard that they can’t even eat or sleep well. 
People all want to have daughters rather than sons, as sons are lazy while daughters are willing to serve parents. 
They are weaving day and night endlessly. 
What’s hidden behind these tens of thousands of bunches as well as the elegant pattern is the hardworking of beauties.
‍—"Rush Mat Hymn" by Cai Zhen-feng

In the sloping foothills of Miaoli, tucked into the back section of a Mazu temple is the workshop of the Taiwan Yuanli Handiwork Association (臺灣藺草學會). The scent of dried rush and sound of rustling grass permeates the air; women sit, legs crossed or splayed open on raised wooden platforms; their fingers whirr, deftly plaiting strands of rush together; they murmur and chuckle softly against the soft rustle of dried grass as a radio crackles with the local news station.

The women in the workshop have been weaving rush since they were girls and have now returned to the craft after decades; they returned with hesitant fingers—now unfaltering—called upon by a desire to sustain the heritage and memory of the rush weaving craft for future generations. For more than three hundred years, rush weaving has been woven into the fabric of the earth and community in Yuan-li, sustaining the livelihoods of the region. With no systemic method of tutelage, the craft has been passed down from mother to daughter through generations through sight, touch, and sisterhood alone.

Taiwanese rush-weaving dates back more than three centuries ago to the plains-dwelling indigenous Ping Pu people (平埔族群) in the 1700s, who wove flat mats with wild rush from the Da-an River (大安溪). Han Chinese settlers took up the craft upon learning of its fragrant, skin-soothing qualities. It is told that Hong Yang (洪鴦), a mother so distressed by her child’s head ulcerations, fashioned a hat from the rush grass for him, creating the first rush hat in Taiwan: an expression of pure motherly love.

While rush grass grows all over the world, triangular rush—so-called for its distinctly triangular cross section—is particular to Yuanli; it differs from rush grass found in Japan, China, Vietnam, and even other parts of Taiwan. Yuanli, nestled between ocean and mountains, is ideally suited to growing and imbuing the rush with exceptional moisture-wicking qualities, strength, elasticity, and fragrance. 

The rush is harvested three times a year: the early spring harvest is best suited to the weaving of small, delicate pieces; the autumn rush is best for hats and mats; the winter rush for thick rope. After harvesting, the rush is spread out in the sun to dry. It is then processed by hand before weaving: trimmed, split into pieces by needle, pounded to soften.

The women then weave the rush grass into intricate patterns—pineapples, turtle shells, plum blossoms, feathers. A hat may take two days to weave; a blanket up to a month—the more skilled the craftsman, the finer the weave. 

During the Japanese colonial period, woven rush products were among the third largest exports to Japan, falling behind to only sugar and rice. In Yuanli, the center of the rush industry, the number of weavers numbered in the thousands: every part of the town was immersed in the rush industry and every woman’s fingers knew the trade. The demand was so great for the luxury, handmade items that every last piece was sent to Japan—no hat was left behind. The mothers, daughters, and wives of Yuanli were able to sustain their families through rush alone. 

After the end of the Japanese colonial period and with the Chinese Nationalist occupation of Taiwan, the craft declined sharply, leaving the women to seek their livelihoods in the rising manufacturing sector—the craft began to quickly fade into memory.

Seeking to preserve the tradition so vital to the roots and memory of the region, a retired school teacher named Ye Wen-hui (葉文輝) and others in the Shanjiao Community (山腳國小日治後期宿舍群)  launched a grassroots effort and established the Taiwan Yuanli Handiwork Association (臺灣藺草學會) in 2009. They sought out the few remaining women whose fingers still remembered and  found the sole farmer still growing a tiny patch of triangle rush grass. The association gathered the once thriving but disorganized weavers under a formal structure, reviving the techniques and memories of the craft, and facilitated training programs and apprenticeships with the master weavers. Deeply mindful of the necessity of innovation for the revitalization of the craft, they pursue design-minded collaborations with contemporary designers, both locally and internationally.

Due to the grassroots efforts of the community, the revitalization of the Yuanli rush craft looks brighter. New generations of designers continue to visit Yuanli to learn from the master weavers; the association continues to explore the potential of where craft and design intersect. The craftswomen in Yuanli now weave not only for their children or their livelihoods, but for the sustainability of their shared tradition and craft. They weave for a future that is filled with the scent of Yuan-li rush grass—a future that is touched by the warmth of their hands and hearts.