Boycott Ivory products

[gili]

Three simple reasons:

1. First of all, ivory sales is illegal in most parts of the world, most likely including the country you are living in.

2. Secondly, ever wonder what happens to an elephant without their tusks? Elephants use their tusks to dig food and protect themselves for the harsh wild environment. They use their tusks like humans use our thumb and finger. Elephants without tusks are often aggressive and attempts to steal food from other animals because they cannot find food effectively. Commonly, tuskless elephants end up dying of starvation, period.

3. Thirdly, the possibility of plastic technology is endless, only limited by human creativity. In many cases, plastic has been proven to perform better than most horns and bones. Still, some of us yearn for the touch of animal's teeth, bones and horns.

Maybe it's time to consider ivory exploitation as history and simply outdated for our era.

[carol]

I would love to participate. However, I can't give up my zitan ivory bridges. That little tip has done magic to me! All my guzhengs are set with zitan ivory bridges. They are simply way better than bone or plastic tips. I'm sorry......

I won't buy ivory for decoration purpose though.

[Charlie Huang]

One has to question whether stuff labled as 'ivory' is really ivory...

[Bryan]

true, killing elepants for ivory is really a sin

[Vi An]

If we boycott ivory -- we may as well boycott hawks beak tortoise shell finger plectrums. Have you seen how they break the shells off of these sea turtles? While they are still alive? Every day I place my genuine tortoise shell picks in front of my Kuan Shi Yin shrine and offer respects to those creatures..

We may also boycott most of the exotic woods used in making guzhengs. The demand has far surpassed the supply obviously. Soon playing a guzheng will be like driving a car -- bad for the environment?

Exciting times will come, a Renaissance perhaps for guzheng making and practices? More environmentaly sound to match its already humanitary good. We can try alternative woods and materials to come up with similar or better results, we wont know until we alter our habbits and experiment.

I always use these examples:

My friend Mizue is a koto player from Tokyo who specializes in 17 stringed bass koto, she has a few sets of large and thick finger picks made of old ivory. They are very strong and do most of the work for you. She picked me up a set of highest grade resin (plastic) picks and bridges for my 13 stringed koto and I don't notice the difference from when I tried her ivory pics on her koto with ivory bridges. If what you use produces a sound -- what ever that sound it should be desired. It is in the ears of the performer and in the soul of their performance that makes the audience will hear magic. I have a piece of crap student guzheng I only paid 500 Canadian for, this instrument sounds 10 times deeper and louder than my DUNHUANG dual cranes. When I perform in public I chose this instrument for its transportability and its loud sound but not for its superb expressiveness. For that I choose my Scarlet Bird (sonorous, expressive and profound).

A performer's control over her instrument will give sound and life to the instrument no matter what its grade. Guzheng is a special instrument which requires the deepest of thought and consideration, the most profound of attention to its miniscule resonance and you need to apply the most supple approach to hear its great emotional voice. Simply thrashing on the guzheng at high speeds and with complex techniques to achieve the purest sound through so called purest materials -- I don't believe one can achieve great sound. Its inside of you. I have had to learn guzheng on the poorest of instruments and taught myself to find its beautiful tones by heart and by feel and by ear, not by depending on knowing what the instrument was made out of..

I have been so consumed, so consumed these last few years over this and that, all this "stuff"!

I have almost forgotten about my love to perform and share from my heart on the guzheng. I am so ashamed..

[Charlie Huang]

I heard that tong wood supply is beginning to dwindle. Even though it grows rather fast, a lot of instruments use it. I know zitan is dwindling fast coz it grows so slowly, plus it's an aesthetically pleasing wood.

As for ivory, luckily the qin uses no such. I read that qin makers should avoid gold and jade (or any other precious stuff) in qin hui cos people are more likely to steal and gouge it out destroying the qin. The only animal product that is used in qin making is deer horn powder. I dunno how they obtain it, but hopefully, they don't hack it off. I heard deers shead their antlers from time to time, or they get sawn off if they get too big.

[Vi An]

I' m not impressed with the lack of musical quality in zitan, yes it looks just fabulous and I love the darkness of this wood and its heaviness. Perhaps if it was gifted to me I wouldn't go out anymore to aquire it myself. I have a very old zitan Kuan Yin statue -- the color is so dark its near black / grey. Old piece of wood. Weighs a ton! I love it. Only expensive piece of zitan I own..

Personally for guzheng I think rosewoods is the best tonal wood thus far.

[carol]

I think I'm very practical when it comes to guzheng. I like anything that will improve the overall sound quality, and won't pay any attention to things that don't affect the sound quality.

If the ivory is used as design, I won't find out if its real unless it's so obvious plastic like the Jinyun Rosewood Bone Inlaid model.

If the ivory is used as the bridge tips, it got to have the effect for the reason I'm buying it.
Currently, only a couple Yanzhou companies make zitan ivory bridges. And they all have to be custom made. Dunhuang doesn't make any ivory bridges.

I've tried a few companies' ivory bridges, and they all bring out the extra solid power, punchy and clarity to my guzhengs compare to the bone or plastic bridges I have. I would never know whether the ivory is real or fake, but it certainly has the effect I desired.

Bone tips are ok, retain 70% of the effect.
I can't use plastic tips any more. They can't take as much finger power.

[Charlie Huang]

Look at the grains. Ivory has cross-hatching grain, like diamonds.

[gili]

It is a shame that China is one of the biggest importer and exporter of illegal ivory. While most parts of the whole world is working to minimize environmental damages via animal protection and pollution control, China is leading the road of environmental damages and killing natural habitats. China is not the only one to blame. Poachers of poorer countries cannot wait to shoot the elephants down in exchange for money to fuel their economy without consideration of long-term environmental consequences. Sadly, the United States, being the biggest environmental activist in the world, is the culprit in doing all the wrong things in their own backyard in elevating the demand of illegal ivory because their laws on ivory ban are so confusing. Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars of ivory is imported from illegally killed elephants.

In general, the use of ivory product is rather backward in itself because countries without advanced technologies or the right to patents of sophisticated high-class plastic relies on animal products including ivory, turtle shells and hones to supply market demands. Many consumers have the misconception that all plastics are cheap. What most consumers do not know is that plastics are available in many grades and types with capability beyond natural animal products. Often plastic can be more expensive then their equivalent animal parts. Sadly plastic is often associated as being ‘cheap’ because those plastic we often see are common plastic in the market.

Most people completely ignore the fact that ivory has its imperfection because ivory is a natural animal product. In fact, the quality of ivory is perpetually deteriorating because elephants are often malnourished and do not get enough to eat in the wild because their territory is increasingly challenged to make way for people and industrialization. Not only that ivory does not have the consistency plastic can provide, ivory cannot even compete with plastic in many ways. With plastic, human can have complete quality control in formulating the desired results. Plastic can be durable, resistant to decay and attractive with a broad range of physical properties for resilience, touch or sound purposes. Most importantly, the possibility of plastic is beyond ivory.

An example of consumer’s ignorance to ivory’s imperfection to their expensive plastic counterparts is diamond. Diamond is essentially crystallized carbon with imperfections. Currently diamond can be duplicated to eliminate imperfections. However, DeBeers want to defend their interest by essentially marketing that a diamond is not worthy unless it is formed naturally. Man-made diamonds is composed of the same mineral and cut to surpass real diamonds in very way. With a flawless diamond natural and man-made diamond, a buyer cannot even tell one from another with a microscope. Sadly, ‘real’ is still a novelty despite impeccable human technology.

Luckily, with increasing applications of plastics, new uses are continually being discovered and improved. However, most of these new discoveries are patterned and are not readily available to the international market. For the less developed countries including China, they do not have access to these technologies until much later or when the cost is comparable to their equivalent counterparts. The average consumer is often backward; often lacks the knowledge of plastics technology, thus support the illegal market for ivory. Furthermore, the question of being ‘real’ ivory still remains a novelty over plastic. For a number of deviant reasons, illegal ivory continues to flourish for the sake of this novelty.

Despite justifications for using ivory products, continual support for using ivory products is insensitive to our environment, harsh and inhumane to the elephants without consideration human does not own other living creatures in the world. Acknowledging that ivory is illegal and should not be exploited is just the beginning for our responsibility as part of the natural environment. Finally, it is our responsibility to find solutions or alternate ways to substitute ivory, not to justify ways in using ivory products nor support the ivory trade to do further harm to the elephants.

[YouLanFengChune]

Currently, most legal "ivory" used on pipa below $5000 is camel done. Elephant tusk ivory cannot enter most countries.

Ivory Tip of Guzheng Bridges is made using buffalo bone.

Dizi ends us either plastic, cow bone, or buffalo horns.

The best pick for pipa is now cellulose and fibreglass compounded plastic. Tortoiseshell guzheng picks are still better than the cheap plastic ones, as they seeming create the best tone. Nevertheless, i still support the creation of good plastic ones.

[carol]

For my recent custom-made zitan ivory bridges from Tianyi, it actually took the factory 2 months to find a small portion of ivory to make 8 sets of bridges. Now, I want more sets, but they don't have the ivory any more.

Jinyun has more connection in getting ivory. Every time, I request ivory bridges, they are able to make it for me in 3-4 weeks.

Some clarification on the buffalo bone and ivory tips. I think guzheng companies never claim their tips are made of ivory. They always say its made by buffalo bone. For example, Dunhuang uses buffalo bone and stated the fact on their Q&A book. Actually, the factory manager thinks buffalo bone is the best material for bridge tip.

So here are the materials the major brands use on the tips of the bridges that come with the guzheng:
Dunhuang/Yun and other Shanghai factories with Dunhuang herritage - buffalo bone
(I thought they were great on my Yun Old Rosewood until I changed to the ivory set from Tianyi. The Ivory set brings a robust bass to my Yun that I couldn't recognize its my Yun. However, the sustension in the high is a little short. So, I put the Dunhuang buffalo bone back to the highest 8 strings.)

Jinyun - Plastic (It actually works better on Jinyun guzhengs. Jinyun guzhengs have long sustension, and ivory bridges will kill the sustension. The Jinyun zitan mica is the only guzheng I don't use the ivory bridges.)

Scarlet Bird - Plastic (I would replace to ivory or at least bone bridges for the lower half strings. The superb bass of SB doesn't shine with plastic. )

Tianyi - Buffalo bone (ok quality. I throw them away.)

Long Feng - Buffalo Bone (I'm not sure now. I haven't touch a dragon pheneoix for years.)

I really hope there is a high-tech plastic that makes my guzhengs sound better than using the ivory bridges. I wouldn't mind paying twice as much as what I paid for the ivory sets.

[Vi An]

I'm really, really content with my Scarlet Bird bridges, they transfer sound extremely well for what I need it for (period), very solidly and very rapidly and accurate sound transfer with no unwanted noise -- with great results.

It is really a matter of taste.

All these above mentioned bridges are high quality hand carved with great intent. Their application is to transfer sound from string to sound board and the rest of the instrument so it really doesn't matter if they are bone, ivory, plastic or bare wood, as long as it is done right and with the necessary research behind it the instrument will sound great.

I think to some degree its in our minds as well as how we feel and associate with materials that are quoted over time as being "better", "more", "expensive" -- all these subliminal messages drive us to obtain these items which satisfies our desires. There will need to be actually proof and scientific experiments with sensitive sound equipment to really truly measure the results...

I will stick to the practical and inexpensive route.

Vi An

[Vi An]

On the topic of alternative plastic materials to replace bridges. The Japanese have already been doing this. Ofcourse though, Koto bridges only work on tetlon strings on kotos because of their thickness and braided style. If used on guzhengs they cause much unwanted buzz and noise and it is terible at transfering sound because guzhengs use steel / nylon strings which require different contact surface on bridges.

Plus applying new technically advanced plastic materials into guzheng making would be a profound and INEXPENSIVE move! It would save us costs too. Plastic materials can not become more expensive than ivory etc. It would be unrealistic. I wouldn't buy into a plastic alternative if it was more expensive or unreasonable in cost.

PLUS:

Would producing plastic materials also be harmful to the environment??? Just as bad as pochers killing elephants just for tusk, or driving our cars??? Burning fuels???


Interesting I'll have to research this...

[Charlie Huang]

Plastic only becomes harmful to the environment when you throw it away, coz it takes forever to bio-degrade.

[gili]

There are biodegradable plastic. They are just more expensive. Most common ‘cheap’ plastics are not biodegradable. That is why they are cheap because there is no cost to making them biodegradable. Scientists are constantly taking innovative measure to improve biodegradability so anything we throw out would be biodegradable. Advanced plastic is very expensive just as precious metal. Not all plastic are equal just as metal. People are the only creatures that create trash. All other living beings are very efficient in nature.

The environmental damage that China is doing mostly has to do with pollution from their uncontrollable factories and machineries. Six out of the world’s ten most polluted cities are in China. Environmental damage does not extend to just pollution but wiping out natural habitats. Every species of animals have their own responsibilities in nature. A world with just humans is not fun because we simply cannot perform all the tasks. Extinction does not reverse itself. Every bit of thing we do has impact on the global environment.

Didn’t mean to sound like such an environmentalist, but many of us have taken raw materials for granted. It comes at the expense of depleting remaining resources. Wood is considered a renewable resource if we manage it right. So enjoy the nice grains while we can.

[gili]

I agree that quality matters and probably is the key to minimizing waste. For every bad guzheng we buy, there is extra material wasted because that guzheng would end up in somebody’s attic. Guzheng to the minimum should be tunable. Bad guzhengs that goes out of tune during use set a bad standard for beginners. That type of guzhengs shouldn't even exist. Professional guzheng should definitely surpass this minimal quality. Sadly, most self-proclaimed professional guzheng simply delivers a minimal standard. I believe every inventory guzheng of a respectable guzheng manufacturer should adhere to this minimal quality. On top of boycotting ivory, we should boycott bad guzhengs too.

[carol]

I will participate. I boycott all bad guzhengs!!!

My minimal standard for a guzheng is:
1. even tone
2. clean and clear
3. tunable

It really doesn't have to be thick or deep or loud or bright, as I put that for higher grade guzhengs. However, not many guzhengs meet my standards. Too sad. Most guzhengs are just cloudy and unclear in the middle part. It took me so much trouble to find some basic guzhengs with clean sound.

[YouLanFengChune]

Actually, If the pauluwania is good, and even, the middle tone will be clear.

[blonderedhead]

i'm not supporting the use of ivory but i don't think plastic is the answer. but since we are on the subject of the environment, plastic is already used almost everywhere as it is. do we need anymore plastic substitutes? all plastic is made from petroleum. it is heated and treated with chemicals to form a liquid substance. then molded into shapes by machines. the production of plastic uses a lot of energy and creates many poisonous wastes. when the waste leaves the factories and pollutes the air and water, it harms the fish and other wildlife.

yes, some plastic can be recycled but you'd be surprised to know where it ends up. it can be melted to make new products such as pails, hair combs, furniture, floor tiles, polyester clothing, which all of these goods will eventually thrown away afer it's useful life and cannot be recycled again. it can't be burned bc it will release poisonous substances into the air and can't be buried bc it could last dozens, hundreds of years and pollute the soil where we grow food. regardless of whether it's expensive or cheap plastic, the problem with plastic garbage is that it does not turn into another harmless material. it turns into poisonous products. plastic pollutes the earth so plastic is "litter that lasts".

i think using plastic poses a bigger problem. the best way to protect our environment is to use fewer plastic products. i mean, think of how much plastic we use in our daily life? look around....or what isn't plastic?

[gili]

Blonderedhead has a good point. While plastic can be recyclable and biodegradable, most applications of plastic in use are not biodegradable. Despite increasing recycling effort, plastic ends up in the landfill and would take forever to decompose. Why is it that biodegradable plastic is available but we do not see it applied? Maybe the manufacturers can adopt an environmentally-friendly approach, but at a cost to the end-users. Even something as simple as ‘paper or plastic’ in an American supermarket does not extend to an Asian supermarket. The question is not whether if manufacturers can avoid using hazardous material, but if it is marketable to the consumer who would be paying the extra cost.

Plastic was initially made from organic plant-based material cellulose, invented to replace ivory and used as dental plates, but has involved since then. If today’s biodegradable plastic is not effectively marketable to replace ivory, maybe scientists need to come up with ‘artificial ivory’ or an equivalent that is organically grown to mimic ivory without harmful defects. If scientists can grow skins or organs today to save the diseased, they can grow teeth or bone to save the endangered tomorrow. Since the ethic behind stem cell research is beyond the scope of discussion here at the guzheng forum, I will just stick with the topic of ivory. Even if we put ethic aside, there is simply not enough elephants to supply demand.

Everything about plastic:
www.americanplasticscouncil.org

Yes, plastic is all over the place, from plastic bags to pacemakers. Most people cannot live without plastic, but can without ivory. According to American Plastics Council, ‘despite the fact that plastic plays a role in almost every facet of our lives, its production accounts for only 4% of the United States' energy consumption.’ Without plastic, waste content would multiple fourfold. I believe the key is not to dismiss plastic, but to encourage improvement in plastic or to find a better, but realistic alternative. Meanwhile plastic will remain an important part of our life, not ivory.

[blonderedhead]

i know we should stick to the issue of boycotting ivory ...but to come up with 'artificial ivory', well i don't think it's the scientist's priorty because it won't generate capital.

natural biodegradable plastic...hmmm. well, i question the problems that will arise out of the maufacturing and use of this 'new technology' of biodegradable plastic. here's an article if anyone is interested:
www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Biodegrade/Green-PlasticsAug00.htm
it's an issue i won't get into in this forum.

i'll agree on boycotting bad guzhengs though!

[gili]

Very interesting article. For every answer to a question, there is a counter-question, just as any pharmaceutical product with side effects. While listing what is not workable is important, it is not the solution.

This thread is initiated to boycotting ivory. The ethic of not using ivory as part of the effort to our ecological and environmental awareness is certain. The suggestion of artificial ivory may not be a priority for scientists to invent for guzhengs, but it may well serve other demands including billiard balls and jewelry. The scientist’s priority is beyond the scope of our discussion.

The initiated ‘green plastic’ may rise question for some people as whether the rate of releasing carbon dioxide and methane would be offset, or if it would be all that effective. If we can come up with a better solution to biodegradable or green plastic, that would better. Not taking a step toward replacing ivory and non-biodegradable plastic is worse. The first step starts with boycotting ivory. The second step is finding an optimal solution to ivory. While we can curb the damage before a solution becomes available, it is not to say we should continue adding to the damage until we find a solution. At this time, at least green plastic is a beginning.

[gili]

I also strongly support boycotting bad guzhengs. The issue of bad guzhengs draws similar problem from bad plastic. It is not the manufacturer’s priority to boycott bad guzhengs either if those are the breadwinners. It comes down to who is willing to take the cut. If consumers refuse bad guzhengs, then we have to pay the extra bucks for better guzhengs. Analogously, if consumers refuse to buy animal products or bad plastic in demand for something more ecologically-friendly, manufacturers would start selling ecologically-friendly guzhengs to in order generate lost capital too.

[sunny]

While I also am not supporting the killing of elephants just for their tusks. But as a matter of fact, if someone killed the elephant for tusks they will NEVER devalue it by cutting into small pieces and sell it for making other small thing ie; tip of guzheng's bridges !!!! they always sell
in the original whole piece of tusks, it is so much more valued. Nowadays, the ivory comes from farming elephants in South East Asia. So don't worry, they have someone to feed them daily. Everything has both side, plastic also has the bad side about the environmental effect.
Nothing is perfect !!