The Incense-Maker

The air is hot and heavy as we traverse the maze-like side streets of Lukang. The buildings are older here, and the only traffic is foot or bicycle. Homes and shops are crowded together, but nevertheless exude an air of cleanliness. Fruit trees are hidden unexpectedly in corners. On the worn steps of a temple squeezed into a dead end are some elderly ladies, smoking and chattering. We approach, waving. We ask, do you know where the H– bakery is? Hmm, they murmur, squinting at one another. Back up that way, one says. Left and right and right again. The others nod in agreement.

The streets turn this way and that. Somewhere along the way a thick, pleasant odour wafts out into the street. There are piles and piles of little black coils lying along the outside wall of a small shop. What could these be, we wonder. We speculate: coasters, maybe? Probably not. Curious, though.

Inside the shop a man is bent over his work. He is making, as it turns out, incense. The man is a master of his trade. He explains his process. The doughy material is pressed from the machine- this is the great black iron beast the younger man is handling- which the shop owner then rolls by hand and coils on a wheel. They are then left out in the sun to harden and cure.

The shop-owner warms to our presence, seemingly delighted explain to us everything.  He does not look up from his work as he does so, deft fingers working and shaping and creating the coils with startling efficiency.

He has been at this a long time, it turns out, since he was young. All the ingredients are natural, he says, rather reminiscently. He used to gather much of it by hand. It was a family business. But there is also a grim set to his face. Business is not so good now; everything is commercialized these days, and there is competition. We’re surviving, he says finally, and it is silent for a moment.

In the end, we feel we cannot leave without having purchased a box from him. This package has little pale gold cones nestled in white tissue paper instead of the black coils, but it is not the point. It is hand-crafted, which is the point. Labor and care have been folded into each and every one of those little cones. Hard to come by, these days.