This is the Furniture Manufacturing Eco Museum in Tainan
and it has over 60 years of history.
This place was built by spare factories here
and it exhibits a lot of different classic pieces of furniture,
and also the ingredients of how the furniture is made.
What’s really fascinating about this place is that
these pieces of furniture do not require any nails.
They use this special technique called mortise and tenon,
where you have two different parts of furniture,
if they are in the right size and shape,
they assemble together perfectly.
That is really cool.
And their furniture is sold all over the world and known internationally.
Let’s go discover more.
Hello!
Can you take me on a tour around the factory here today?
It’s my honor.
As Mr. Wang was telling me earlier,
there are four different parts of this factory.
We start from that corner back there and move to this corner here,
where you assemble and take care of all the details.
So right now he is gonna show me how it is all done.
This technique is called the mortise and tenon technique,
which you assemble the pieces of wood,
for example here you have one knob out and one hole inside,
so they can actually just stick right in and assemble.
So you see here there are no nails used,
Everything is piecing together.
This actually requires careful calculation
because you need the holes to be exact so that when they fit,
it’s not going to fall apart easily.
When you close it,
you actually cannot take the lid off no matter what,
but when you turn it at an angle,
the lid comes off. It’s a really smart design.
Mr. Wang is telling that the smell of wood here
actually makes you younger.
There are a variety of boxes here,
you can customize it however you like,
like we saw earlier how the lid is a lock also.
And you can have different patterns inside the box,
for example here this one has unique silver designs.
These are some different ways that they use
to assemble the pieces of furniture together.
This is more for curves
so you see the pieces assembled together,
you can take them off, and then put them back.
Here, this one holds them all together.
What we saw earlier assembling at the factory,
this is the finished product for that.
Actually all the furniture you see right here in this exhibition hall
is for sale,
so you can also come here to buy it
or you can get it custom made.
This is how furniture changed from the past to present.
From the beginning, is the Ming Dynasty.
So here we see the evolution of furniture in Taiwan,
we start from the Ming Dynasty when furniture was simpler back then
and then the Japanese colonization, post war,
and now we slowly get to modern time.
It’s really interesting to see
how furniture in a typical Taiwanese household
would look like and evolve.
This work was made by the leader of Ruban Craft Academy, Mr. Huang.
These chairs here are all award-winning chairs.
The first chair we saw earlier, it is made from vines.
What’s special about it is that it is bent like a half circle,
like a U-shape of the alphabet.
Usually bamboos don’t bend like that
so it takes a lot of creative thinking
to defy physics and its original structure.
This one right here is also made from bamboo.
What’s special about it is the arc here,
it’s kind of like a staircase.
Also here, this is very flexible.
This is the classroom used to teach woodwork.
This is the first class in Taiwan
where the technique of mortise and tenon is taught,
so there are no nails in this class, just shapes and assembling.
What’s special about this course is that
it’s an 18-week course so it’s very intensive.
Unfortunately I don’t have enough time for this course,
but thankfully there is another option for me,
the DIY fun classroom downstairs.
Let’s head to that.
Besides the exhibition here at the museum,
there is also a DIY area
where you can make your own things out of wood.
Today I am going to make chopsticks.
So my right hand is pushing down
while my left hand is pushing forward.
It’s kind of just like sharpening a pencil.
I think I just finished one chopstick.
But it takes two to be a pair,
now I need to work on my second chopstick.
After touring through the museum,
you can really see how they
used the 60 years of experience
that they have to build what is now
and to plan on an innovative future.
It was very interesting to learn about all about the furniture
and learn that they only pursue the best for their customers.
Through their creativity, innovations,
hardworking ethics and professionalism,
you can really tell that Rende is the town for enterprises.
Come here when you have time
and immerse yourself in this business atmosphere.
And maybe you will find the secret to their success.