ABSTRACT
WHILE we were in Luts’un, it was the paper industry which attracted us to the village of Yits’un. This industry continued to be the center of interest in our investigation. The villagers naturally thought that the reason for our making such an effort to come to them through the mountains must be to open up a new paper mill. Some of the people there urged us to buy up all the supply of bamboo and to start a modern factory which should produce foreign-style paper. Some of the paper-mill owners of Chwan K’ei had appeared quite willing to adopt new methods of manufacturing and had even proposed to us that we start a joint enterprise with them. Others in that region had asked us to use our influence in helping them to procure loans from the government. But in Yits’un there were a number of owners of paper mills who were frightened by our presence, believing we were going to compete with them and reduce their profits. They tried different ways of preventing our work and even started something like a boycott against us. These varied reactions made very clear the fact that the paper industry is, without question, the center of economic interest for this region. Those who have no chance to profit by the industry look at the flourishing bamboos and listen to the grinding of the millstones, while dreaming that someday they, too, may have a share in an enterprise of this sort. But those who own the mills hold tenaciously to their privileges and are sensitive to any threat of outside competition.
