Seen in every traditional Burmese home would be the Betel Nut Box, a cylindrical box made of woven bamboo and fitted inside with a pair of shallow trays to hold essential items for making quids of betel.

In pre-colonial times a Betel box was an indispensable item of hospitality in a Burmese house, and was offered to visitors in the way liquid refreshments would be in a Western home. A guest would take a Betel leaf from the bottom of the box, smear it with lime paste, and wrap it around thin slices betel nut and other selected ingredients, such as shreds of tobacco, dried orange peel, cardamom, cinnamon or others. Young Burmese women also used to chew it as a beauty aid to redden their lips!

Betel nut boxes were important items of regalia at the Burmese Court. Sumptuary laws all carefully regulated their size, material composition and the extent of their decoration. To be the bearer of a Royal betel box or an accompanying spittoon was an honorable position and could be a stepping stone to greater things.

For further reading please refer to:

Burmese Lacquerware
Author: Sylvia Fraser-Lu

This book is also o­n sale at The Silk Route Gallery, Langkawi Fair Shopping Mall

Burmese lacquer is very distinctive in its form, colour and production methods. objects created in this long and fine tradition since the time of the first urbanised inhabitants of burma 2,000 years ago, are still very much a part of the daily culture in the country that is today called myanmar.

In burma, lacquer coloured with cinnabar, a brilliant red colouring agent comprising mercuric sulphide, was traditionally used to decorate the sophisticated wooden palaces and sumptuous buddhist temples. lacquer also formed part of a rich cultural tradition of diplomacy between burma and china in which there was a regular exchange of gifts, mostly vessels, which were finely decorated with lacquer and other precious materials.

Today, burmese lacquer is generally applied to vessels made from coiled bamboo or jackfruit wood ranging from small cups and bowls to temple jars, alms bowls and betel boxes, the latter used for storing betel nut ingredients for social and ceremonial use.

The decoration of burmese lacquer products is dominated by a technique known as “yun”. in burmese, this word means lacquer as well as the form of engraved decoration with colour added. another burmese technique is relief moulded work, which is much less common today.

An additional curiosity associated solely with burmese lacquer is ‘horsehair-coated lacquer’ in which strands of horsehair are woven around a finely split bamboo frame and then eventually covered in a paste of lacquer and ash known as thayo and then normal layers of lacquer, resulting in very pliable containers. production of horse hair lacquer requires special skills and experience.

The art of lacquer making in burma is still very much alive, if o­nly to supply buddhist monks with alms bowls and temple jars. At the Silk Route Gallery,we have some old original pieces for purchase although these are now generally very hard to come by.

The production of lacquer products pre-dates written history. the use of lacquer in asia grew out of a desire to enhance the durability and beauty of wooden utensils. in china, excavations unearthed red lacquer bowls that date back to the neolithic period. in japan, it is believed that that lacquer-coated eating vessels pre-date ceramic tableware. by the time of the shang dynasty in china (16th - 11th centuries bc), sophisticated painting designs show that the production of lacquerware was already a highly developed art.

Lacquerware was first discovered by the europeans in the 15th century ad at the height of the ming dynasty. however, it was not until the early 18th century that europeans first realised that lacquer was the sap of a tree.

European demand very quickly outstripped supply. european artisans worked hard to imitate the lustrous surface of asian lacquerware using their own familiar natural resins, including shellac, a resin exuded from the insect ‘laccifer lacca’. this name is the origin of the word ‘lacquer’. “lakh’ is sanskrit for “one hundred thousand”, referring to the hordes of insects that produce this resin. european lacquer also became known as “japanning”. whilst the final appearance of asian and european lacquered surfaces was very similar, differences in quality became apparent with the passage of time. the word ‘lacquer’ is still mistakenly and confusingly used to describe any type of glossy coating, even including plastics.

In the early 20th century, there was a resurgence of popularity of asian lacquer as a group of designers working in france began to use asian lacquer for furniture and other decorative arts. eileen gray and jean dunand are two renowned artists who produced a wealth of screens, furniture and paintings using asian lacquer and eggshell technique.

Today, lacquer production continues to flourish throughout asia, each country having developed its own idiosyncratic styles and methods of production, all of which are derived from the same handcrafted traditional processes and materials developed over the last 6,000 years.