Etching the turbulence of youth on wax paper: A former journalist remembers

(All photos courtesy of Chew Wee Kai.)

One night in a cafe, I asked my wife if she had ever etched wax paper? With a touch of pride, she replied: many times. During her school days, she held some small authority - besides being the class monitor and head of her St John Brigade squad, she was "hand-picked" by the teacher to etch lecture notes on wax paper and make copies for the class, in the interests of their exams.

Whoa... that was definitely way cooler than a primary school kid occasionally getting sent by the teacher to the canteen to help buy a bowl of noodles, or being told to return an atlas to the office. With that skill, one's confidence went up a few notches. As for me, I had zero experience.

It wasn't until university that I had anything to do with wax paper. In my first year, the class embarked on a major project to publish a compilation of literary writing exercises, and my roommate who was in charge let me etch one or two pages, just for a taste.

I got the wax paper, backing board and metal pen, and returned to the hostel full of trepidation. I put off starting, as my classmate had told me that one could not use too much force when etching wax paper, else it would tear.

My penmanship was always less than perfect; it lacked strength, so that the words were light and devoid of energy and spirit. Now, with the oily blue wax paper, it was difficult to make a steady etching. True enough, within ten lines, my stamina gave out - the wax paper was torn in two or three places and I was peeved enough to admit that this was not my cup of tea.

When I was in primary school, during the school breaks I often snuck into the school's narrow storage room to watch the janitor printing sheets. I always felt the words etched on the wax paper were blurry, but put them on the printing machine and give it a turn, and the words like phantom symbols were churned out on countless identical ink-scented sheets. At the time, I admired the janitor's skills: when the machine broke down, he resurrected it in an instant.

Later, I joined an activity group at university and was put in charge of writing its newsletter. As I got to know more people, I realised that in the 1970s, wax printing no longer called for steadily etching the wax paper. As long as one had enough money in the pocket, one could always give the text to a Chinese typesetter and let the staff type the text word by word on the wax paper.

The title could be left blank, so that the editor could use their metal pen to work their magic - test their etching of hollow fonts if they wished, or choose a couple of well-known quotes and show off their presumptuous calligraphy; or improvise an illustration, to satisfy some small editorial desire. At the time, among the bookstores in North Bridge Road was a Chinese typesetting agency - I vaguely remember its name as "Chung Hwa" (中华), and my classmates in the Nantah activity group liked patronising it.

Etching wax paper reminds me of something extraordinary that happened in the 1980s. In the days when most Chinese language tests and exams were still written and copied by hand, the Chinese language society in a neighbourhood secondary school held activities to teach students to use Chinese language typewriters, probably the only one in those years.

I always admired that female teacher in charge, who first mastered the skill of typing in Chinese, then personally moved the heavy equipment - which was let go by a typesetting company - into the school, so that it could continue to function. Without that stubborn enthusiasm, she would not have taken over that old equipment and let that slow, tedious process of typing continue to warm hearts in the Chinese language scene.

Sometimes, to complete the printing of the etched wax paper, one had to tussle with the old printing machines. When I first joined the workforce some 45 years ago, the only printing machine in the office was an old, decrepit shell. If you used too much force and tried to whip it into working, it would just stop functioning in protest. Over time, as I got to know its temperament, I would just lower my KPIs to prevent it from conking out.

It was only then that I realised it wasn't only in etching wax paper that one had to be steady; in printing, too, all the more one had to be tolerant and open-minded. An old machine does not get stronger with use - for the sake of printing two or three hundred sheets, one had to put up with its temperament of quitting on a whim, and force oneself to get prepared for sacrifices, fixing it at any time, trading ink-stained hands in exchange for its continued service.

Flipping through various work union materials from the 1950s and 1960s, I found a surprising amount of printings from that period. Picnic pamphlets, song books, newsletters, documents - they were nearly all printed through wax paper etchings. For the picket line at the time, printing was the cheapest and most effective way to disseminate information.

Some years ago, I was chatting with some of my seniors, and the dreams and pursuits of youth came up. At the time, the movie Third Sister Liu ran for over 200 days in cinemas, and the many rural songs in it opened the floodgates for people to follow the songs, as like a magic flute they called to thousands of young people.

One of my seniors said he and some friends boldly carried a stereo into the cinema to record the songs, and then quickly transcribed them into simple scores with lyrics. He took on the task of etching the wax paper, and he even drew a portrait of Third Sister Liu as the cover; that was how this not-for-sale music book got printed. That was how people of that generation chased their dreams - those aged below 50 would probably not have any experience of this.

Etching wax paper is a task of endurance, a thankless job like soldiers walking in the snow. Without patience and an accurate grasp of the strength needed, it would be difficult to get the inkless metal pen to move smoothly over the wax paper.

One day, I went to an old stationery store and asked the owner if wax paper was still available these days - he thought I was from the stone age. Computer printing has long taken the place of wax printing; looking back over 50 years, etching wax paper carries the sentiments and the fire of a generation of young people. On that blue wax paper was etched the turbulence of youth and the pursuit of beautiful sentiments.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as "刻写心情".

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