Jiājiāng

Jiajiang in Sichuan developed a celebrated tradition of making paper from bamboo. Local official histories trace the craft back to the Tang period and describe its expansion under the Ming and Qing. Its reputation rested on paper suited to both writing and painting, produced through skilled manual work rather than a single standardized product.

During the reign of the Kangxi emperor, Jiajiang paper was designated tribute paper. Under Qianlong it was selected as paper for civil-service examination scripts. These uses connected a local bamboo-working craft with imperial administration and the examination system. The demand was for the finished sheet as well as the raw material: the papermakers' knowledge turned bamboo into a surface on which candidates wrote and calligraphers and painters worked. Jiajiang's historical identity consequently includes the craft labour behind institutions and artistic practices far beyond the county.