What kind of bag would become a favorite with such Taiwanese cultural luminaries as Lin Hwai-min, Chiang Hsun, Feng Guangyuan, Lin Cheng-sheng, Kay Huang, and Steve Ma? No, it wouldn't be Louis Vuitton, Coach, or any of the other big-name international brands; it's The King of Bookbags, a small, low-profile firm in the port city of Kaohsiung.

Chang Shih-lun, a doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, has been a big fan of The King since his undergraduate days. He likes the simple elegance of The King's products, which combine an unadorned look with rugged utility. From books to cameras, there is very little that doesn't travel well in one of these finely crafted bags.

Teacher gets a new groove

When I first meet Lin Fang-jhou, second-generation proprietor of The King, he strikes me as a bit aloof. Reserved in demeanor, the 54-year-old Lin never accepts interviews, and though he has made an exception this once, he refuses to allow any photograph with his face in it.

But he soon notes my southern accent and asks, "So you lived in Kaohsiung as a kid? Didn't you have one of our bookbags? Oh, wait, I guess you must have moved up to Taipei before you were old enough for one. But I'm absolutely sure your dad must be familiar with them...." There's nothing like having a shared hometown to break the ice, as the saying goes. Once Lin realizes I have southern roots, he becomes chatty.

The King of Bookbags was established by Lin Fang-jhou's father, Lin Tian-an, who had originally been an elementary-school teacher during the Japanese colonial period. In those days, the families of local Taiwanese schoolkids were generally not so well off, so they just wrapped their school books in cloth, while their Japanese counterparts carried their books to school in smartly designed canvas bags made in Japan. Observing the economic gap between the locals and the Japanese students, the schoolteacher could only sigh.

Then Taiwan was recovered from the Japanese and a new government required the use of Mandarin in the schools. That was a tall order for Lin Tian-an, who soon chose to retire from his teaching post and start up a business with his seamstress wife making bookbags and other items, such as ammunition bags, gas masks, and tarp tops for vehicles. The couple originally set up shop in Tainan, where they were from, but moved in 1959 to Kaohsiung City, home to a growing concentration of small processing firms.

Shown here from left to right are some of the shoulder straps and canvas fabrics used by The King of Bookbags. The shoulder straps get sturdy stitching intended to last a good long time, then copper grommets with a warm touch are clamped into the fabric. The finishing touch is a tag bearing The King's distinctive trade symbol.

Hand-made bookbags

After half a century of Japanese rule, students in Taiwan were accustomed to using Japanese-style square canvas bookbags printed with the name of their school, and perhaps the school's emblem.

Lin Tian-an was determined that his bookbags should be every bit as good as those made by the Japanese. He used sturdy, domestically produced canvas made of 100% cotton.

That's because "pure cotton canvas feels better to the touch, and doesn't irritate the skin even after you've been carrying it around for a long time." Lin Fang-jhou points out that most bookbags are made from eight- to 10-ounce canvas, but bookbags from The King are heavier at 12 ounces per yard. It's more expensive, but more wear-resistant and less affected by a heavy load of books, and buckles don't pull loose from the thicker fabric after the bags have been used for a while.

Dyeing the thick canvas is a very laborious process. At The King, the fabric is dyed not just on the surface, but is thoroughly soaked in the dye and then thrown in boiling water to make sure it is colorfast. All-cotton fabric soaks up a lot of dye, which accounts for fully one-third the cost of each bookbag.

Lin Fang-jhou proclaims with confidence, "It's not easy to make all-cotton canvas completely waterproof, but the canvas we use features a very tight weave, which does make it highly water-resistant. If you get caught in a downpour, all you have to do is set it out to dry and it's good as new."

The King's square bookbags may be plain and unadorned, but there's no cutting corners with the stitching. This is a key to their longevity. Wherever two pieces of fabric are joined, in addition to a single pass on the front face, The King also makes at least two passes on the reverse. The seams on a bookbag from The King simply don't tear loose, no matter how long the bag has been in use.

According to Lin, producing a completely hand-made bookbag is an extremely labor-intensive process. Back in the days when all the sewing machines were treadle-operated, a highly skilled craftsman could turn out no more than 20 bags per day.

Even with today's electric sewing machines, automation remains difficult, and a single worker can still complete at best some 30 bags a day. All 10 of the veteran craftspersons now working for The King have been at their jobs for over 30 years, yet together they make a maximum of 200 bags each day, and orders are backlogged for a month.

Shown here from left to right are some of the shoulder straps and canvas fabrics used by The King of Bookbags. The shoulder straps get sturdy stitching intended to last a good long time, then copper grommets with a warm touch are clamped into the fabric. The finishing touch is a tag bearing The King's distinctive trade symbol.

Islandwide popularity

Despite the straitened economic circumstances of the 1960s, the sturdy bookbags of The King sold for NT$50 each, twice the price of other brands. A luxury item, they were mostly purchased by relatively well-off families, or as a reward for kids who tested into a prestigious high school. Over time, The King came to be associated with scholastic achievement.

And because of the high price, students treated bookbags from The King with extra special care. Indeed, the bags were often passed down from sibling to sibling, and some students kept using them after heading up to universities in Taipei. That's how the fame of The King spread north.

In 1989, a group of third-year students at the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University decided to have some commemorative bookbags made to celebrate their upcoming graduation. They turned to The King to supply them. The bags were straight black, with no buckles, and printed with a three-character phrase identifying the owner as a "graduate of the Affiliated." The bags were a huge hit, and inspired a "commemorative bookbag" tradition that continues strong today.

"A lot of the schools that date back to the Japanese colonial period have buildings on campus constructed in the red brick style of that era, and high-school students see them as a school symbol," explains Lin. "Students from Kaohsiung Senior High and Jianguo High in Taipei, for example, have adopted the moniker of 'scholars of the old red hall' for themselves, and there's no telling for sure how many schools have an image of a red brick building printed on their bookbags."

Despite the growing fame of their products, the people at The King of Bookbags remain as down-to-earth as ever. The company store still sells all sorts of products from other makers, such as bookbags for elementary school kids (with double straps for carrying like a backpack), duffel bags, and suitcases.

Not trying to get rich

The popularity of commemorative bookbags spread like wildfire by word of mouth. The simply colored, environmentally friendly, plainly designed cotton bookbags, with their unmistakable "schooldays" air, are reminiscent to adults of an earlier time in their lives.

In just a few short years, The King of Bookbags has come to be known among educators, cultural elites, and photographers alike as a symbol of education and refinement. Birdwatching clubs, rotary clubs, women's groups, environmental activists, cultural groups, religious organizations, and even highbrow academic conferences and political campaigns like to give out bookbags from The King at their activities. The King has thus moved off of school campuses and gradually acquired standing in the adult world, as well, to the point where 70% of users today are in fact adults.

Eslite Books, arguably the classiest of Taiwan's bookstore chains, zeroed in over a decade ago on the elegant simplicity of The King, and began selling the bags in its stores. The product proved very popular with Eslite's highly educated clientele.

But the very same bookbags that The King sold for NT$350 carried a price tag of NT$500 at Eslite. The markup of close to 40% made Lin Fang-jhou uncomfortable, so after a 10-year run during which Eslite bought thousands of bags per year, Lin terminated the consignment sales last year.

Lin explains that making a lot of money has never been a big motivation for his family, and surmises that it may be due to the influence of his father as a former schoolteacher. The Lin family have the steady-as-she-goes mentality of civil servants, and are happy just to have enough to live comfortably.

Even though "The King of Bookbags" brand has become a symbol of the best in homegrown traditions, Lin nevertheless has no wish to define The King as a "cultural brand." His store still sells all sorts of other bookbag-related products. In addition to those made by The King, there are ones from other makers, such as bookbags for elementary school kids (with double straps for carrying like a backpack), duffel bags, and suitcases. The King has not jacked up prices to capitalize on the brand name's cachet. And that is perhaps why Lin couldn't go on letting Eslite sell at a marked-up price.

Shown here from left to right are some of the shoulder straps and canvas fabrics used by The King of Bookbags. The shoulder straps get sturdy stitching intended to last a good long time, then copper grommets with a warm touch are clamped into the fabric. The finishing touch is a tag bearing The King's distinctive trade symbol.

Real value wins popularity

Lin may claim that he's "just trying to move a few goods," but he's always been a stickler for quality.

One source of The King's good reputation, he explains, is that "the company started off by offering free repair service in perpetuity." The only thing he's changed in 25 years since taking over the business is to strive for a product that "never needs repairing."

That's why the same grade of nylon seen in parachute harnesses is what he now uses for the shoulder strap, the one part of the bookbag most likely to fail. And for the grommets in the shoulder strap, he has switched from copper, which is relatively soft, to hard engineering plastics such as Delrin, which retain their shape and hold up nicely under loads of over 100 kilograms. "Our cost for a single shoulder strap runs to tens of NT dollars."

The upgrade has gone over extremely well with customers, and bookbags from The King just keep getting more and more popular. The firm's fame has even hopped the Taiwan Strait, apparently, for tourists from Hong Kong and mainland China now show up in Kaohsiung with guidebooks in hand, hunting specifically for this "typically Taiwanese" gift item to take back home.

Some attribute The King's popularity to nostalgia, but Lin says there is more to it than that: more important to the bags' long-lasting success is the fact that they are well made and very useful.

"Despite the economic downturn, our business has not been affected. Even when Typhoon Trami caused flooding in Kaohsiung, people were still coming to the store looking for bookbags. If nostalgia were the only motivation, people wouldn't be out braving the typhoon just for a bookbag," says Lin.

Many draw comparisons between The King and the Shinzaburo canvas bags made in Japan. Lin has been to Kyoto to visit Shinzaburo Hampu Co., however, and sees big differences between the two companies. Shinzaburo has a much bigger variety of products-backpacks, tote bags, handbags, fanny packs, aprons, caps-in a wide selection of pattern designs, which The King could not hope to match. Lin notes that the traditional crafts are accorded much more importance in Japanese culture, so there are many more craftsmen available who are well versed in the old ways of weaving textiles, dyeing fabrics, and working with metal.

"It's such a shame," says Lin, "that we don't have that kind of environment in Taiwan. It's just the few of us here at The King. Without an entire community of craftsmen to source various things from, there's no way we could turn out such a large variety of canvas bags."

Lin plans to retire in five years, but none of his children intend to take over the family firm, so it's not at all certain that The King will continue in business.

"We'll just have to wait and see how it works out," says Lin. "We could hire a professional to run the business, or sell it to someone with a genuine interest. Maybe somebody will turn up that's suitable. It sure would be a shame if handmade bookbags became a thing of thepast."

Lin Fang-jhou was very disappointed last year when Frank Hsieh, the Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate who had done an outstanding job just a few years previously as mayor of Kaohsiung, was outpolled in the presidential race in Kaohsiung by Ma Ying-jeou. To show his displeasure, he printed up a bag with the phrase "City of Ingrates," which he now carries daily.

Despite the growing fame of their products, the people at The King of Bookbags remain as down-to-earth as ever. The company store still sells all sorts of products from other makers, such as bookbags for elementary school kids (with double straps for carrying like a backpack), duffel bags, and suitcases.

Shown here from left to right are some of the shoulder straps and canvas fabrics used by The King of Bookbags. The shoulder straps get sturdy stitching intended to last a good long time, then copper grommets with a warm touch are clamped into the fabric. The finishing touch is a tag bearing The King's distinctive trade symbol.

Shown here from left to right are some of the shoulder straps and canvas fabrics used by The King of Bookbags. The shoulder straps get sturdy stitching intended to last a good long time, then copper grommets with a warm touch are clamped into the fabric. The finishing touch is a tag bearing The King's distinctive trade symbol.