Saving books from worms, water and ravages of time
By Liang Yiwen |
July 29, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IT'S so humid," said Huang Zhengyi, a restorer of old books who frets that dampness will damage precious volumes at Fudan University library. More than a hundred camphor wood chests are used to store and protect thousands of books and dessicant products are used in the storage room to take moisture out of the air. Still, she worries.
"We are applying for dehumidifying equipment from the university," she told Shanghai Daily in an interview during the recent plum rain season. She works in the corner of a storage room filled with the aroma of camphor, which is a moth and insect repellent.
For 30 years, Huang has been repairing books that are broken, crumbling, mildewed, decayed, eaten by worms and otherwise damaged. She has been at Fudan for around 20 years.
"It's best to be a scholar (dushu ren, literally 'book reader') but if I cannot be a scholar, I told myself that it's good to be a book repairer," she said.
Huang, now age 57, spent her childhood in a library in Guizhou Province where her mother worked as an accountant and she came to love books and reading. She studied her craft and repaired books at a library in Zhejiang Province and moved to Shanghai with her husband in 1992.
Since her 20s, she has devoted herself to meticulous work that many people would find tedious, excruciatingly so. Patience, diligence and perfectionism are needed.
"Book repairing is not difficult," she said. "But you have to be very careful; otherwise you may cause new damage to fragile, antique books."
Huang repairs seven to eight pages a day and she can repair around 450 books annually. The library includes books dating from the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1276). The oldest book she has repaired was written in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and it concerns an emperor's instructions on good governance.
In repairing a work, crafts people such as Huang do not actually replace missing text or pieces of pages, they do not try to replicate the original writing and binding. A piece of paper is carefully pasted on the back of each page to reinforce it.
"We book repairers are a bit silly and dull in others' eyes," she said. "But that's why we can do our work well."
In the past two decades she estimates she has repaired around 9,000 books.
"No two pages anywhere in the world are exactly the same and each book has different kinds of damage, so I face new challenges every day," Huang said.
To repair a book, Huang first studies, decides on a plan and then chooses paper that matches the color of the damaged pages.
If books are worm-eaten and worms are still present, the books are placed in a refrigerator where extremely low temperatures kill the worms. Then she removes the thread binding, takes out pages and repairs them one at a time.
If they are badly stained, by tea or dirty water, for example, she sprays clean water on the pages and uses delicate brushes to clean them.
Then she pastes reinforcing paper beneath the damaged pages.
"Making the paste is the most challenging part," she said. The consistency must be just right. She soaks a lump of starchy flour in a cup of water, boils it and keeps stirring until she gets a lump of paste. Then she adds water, pounds the lump to make it sticky and filters the liquid so the concentration is exactly what she needs, not too thick, not too thin. It must be evenly applied.
After pasting new paper onto the old pages, she wraps them in clean paper for a day to absorb excess water. The next day she smooths the pages with a flat iron.
Finally, she rebinds the books.
She takes pride in her work and feels satisfaction when she sees teachers and students reading the works she has restored.
American book worker Nancy Norton from New York was an exchange scholar at Fudan and explained techniques for repairing Western books. They taught each other new methods of repair. The paper used in Western books is very different in density and covers are usually hard, while old Chinese books are usually bound by threads, Huang said.
"They (Westerners) have many advanced and refined tools for repair. Their methods are more sophisticated, while ours seem more simple and flexible."
Norton has given Huang repairing tools and materials, as well as reference works.
Though Huang should have retired two years ago under university policy, Fudan could not find a replacement and so she continues to work.
Few young people are willing to learn the craft of book repair because it is so painstaking and lonely, Huang said. Her son isn't interested, saying it's "not fun."
She now has a young woman apprentice, Ye Qianru who loves books, just as Huang did as a girl. When she isn't repairing, she is teaching Ye.
Huang's great wish as that the art and craft of book repair can be preserved and passed on.
"We are applying for dehumidifying equipment from the university," she told Shanghai Daily in an interview during the recent plum rain season. She works in the corner of a storage room filled with the aroma of camphor, which is a moth and insect repellent.
For 30 years, Huang has been repairing books that are broken, crumbling, mildewed, decayed, eaten by worms and otherwise damaged. She has been at Fudan for around 20 years.
"It's best to be a scholar (dushu ren, literally 'book reader') but if I cannot be a scholar, I told myself that it's good to be a book repairer," she said.
Huang, now age 57, spent her childhood in a library in Guizhou Province where her mother worked as an accountant and she came to love books and reading. She studied her craft and repaired books at a library in Zhejiang Province and moved to Shanghai with her husband in 1992.
Since her 20s, she has devoted herself to meticulous work that many people would find tedious, excruciatingly so. Patience, diligence and perfectionism are needed.
"Book repairing is not difficult," she said. "But you have to be very careful; otherwise you may cause new damage to fragile, antique books."
Huang repairs seven to eight pages a day and she can repair around 450 books annually. The library includes books dating from the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1276). The oldest book she has repaired was written in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and it concerns an emperor's instructions on good governance.
In repairing a work, crafts people such as Huang do not actually replace missing text or pieces of pages, they do not try to replicate the original writing and binding. A piece of paper is carefully pasted on the back of each page to reinforce it.
"We book repairers are a bit silly and dull in others' eyes," she said. "But that's why we can do our work well."
In the past two decades she estimates she has repaired around 9,000 books.
"No two pages anywhere in the world are exactly the same and each book has different kinds of damage, so I face new challenges every day," Huang said.
To repair a book, Huang first studies, decides on a plan and then chooses paper that matches the color of the damaged pages.
If books are worm-eaten and worms are still present, the books are placed in a refrigerator where extremely low temperatures kill the worms. Then she removes the thread binding, takes out pages and repairs them one at a time.
If they are badly stained, by tea or dirty water, for example, she sprays clean water on the pages and uses delicate brushes to clean them.
Then she pastes reinforcing paper beneath the damaged pages.
"Making the paste is the most challenging part," she said. The consistency must be just right. She soaks a lump of starchy flour in a cup of water, boils it and keeps stirring until she gets a lump of paste. Then she adds water, pounds the lump to make it sticky and filters the liquid so the concentration is exactly what she needs, not too thick, not too thin. It must be evenly applied.
After pasting new paper onto the old pages, she wraps them in clean paper for a day to absorb excess water. The next day she smooths the pages with a flat iron.
Finally, she rebinds the books.
She takes pride in her work and feels satisfaction when she sees teachers and students reading the works she has restored.
American book worker Nancy Norton from New York was an exchange scholar at Fudan and explained techniques for repairing Western books. They taught each other new methods of repair. The paper used in Western books is very different in density and covers are usually hard, while old Chinese books are usually bound by threads, Huang said.
"They (Westerners) have many advanced and refined tools for repair. Their methods are more sophisticated, while ours seem more simple and flexible."
Norton has given Huang repairing tools and materials, as well as reference works.
Though Huang should have retired two years ago under university policy, Fudan could not find a replacement and so she continues to work.
Few young people are willing to learn the craft of book repair because it is so painstaking and lonely, Huang said. Her son isn't interested, saying it's "not fun."
She now has a young woman apprentice, Ye Qianru who loves books, just as Huang did as a girl. When she isn't repairing, she is teaching Ye.
Huang's great wish as that the art and craft of book repair can be preserved and passed on.
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