About Noypi Nation

A Personal Journey

Although the wonderful properties and uses of bamboo are just beginning to be appreciated due to environmental concerns on global warming and depletion of forest resources in the world, my appreciation for bamboo started around twenty years ago when I was searching for a craft that is inherently Filipino and can be positioned in the international market as a natural endowment of the Philippines. After several misadventures in the local craft industry, I eventually was intrigued by the properties of bamboo.

Growing up in the city of Manila, I am ignorant about native crafts and materials. I was however entranced with how ingenuity and necessity can transform natural materials into utilitarian objects of beauty. Through the years I was encouraged by the growing export industries established around native crafts and materials such as bamboo. However, around twenty years ago, China began to expand its exports of bamboo products and eventually not only encroached on a previously Philippine preserve but supplanted it in the international markets. The entry of China into international export markets was a turning point in the industry. Many companies have not survived the transition and the bamboo industry in the Philippines is littered with many sad stories of failure.

Often times it takes another generation or an outsider to take a different perspective on the industry and apply new knowledge to an old craft. I began my foray into bamboo craft as a hobby. My lack of formal training in the craft and oblivious to established practices and traditions allowed me to experiment with bamboo. Finding a way to bend bamboo became a passion as I had equated bamboo with rattan which can be bent with the application of heat. I was able to develop my own techniques on bending bamboo which I now call ‘wrought bamboo’. My interest in bamboo eventually led me into a research of the different varieties of bamboo in the Philippines. “Tinik” is the most versatile and useful of all Philippine bamboo varieties and is thus most commercially developed and readily available. My discovery of bamboo has also coincided with its growing appreciation as an alternative to wood and the trend in finding sustainable and green practices and materials.

The making of ‘parol’ or Christmas Star Lanterns led me to experiment on bending bamboo while posted in Abuja, Nigeria in 2005. Bamboo is also available in Africa but is not as widely utilized as in Asia. I was able to make my first bent bamboo ‘parol’ during the Christmas season of 2006 while posted in Los Angeles, California. The bamboo ‘parol’ brought back reminisces of home and festive traditions.

It has taken me more or less the better part of the first half of 2009 to perfect the techniques I developed for ‘wrought bamboo’. I was able to do this in due part from prolonged leave from my formal work. I suffered a moderately severe stroke in 2007 in Los Angeles, California that has left me partially disabled even to this day. At one point I thought that I would have to forget about a craft that requires the use of one’s hands. However, the fear of not being able to work has thrust me into finding an alternative livelihood. I naturally turned to my hobby as a possible alternative livelihood. There was a sense of urgency in being able to develop the technique that I thought was possible with bamboo. Disabled as I was, I had to work with a hired help (my teenage neighbor, in fact who worked part-time for me) to put the ideas into practice. Through trial and error, we were able to come up with a working relationship wherein my hired help would essentially do what my body could not do anymore. Some of the products I have developed have also come as a direct result of my disability and the need to find ways and means to adapt to my disability. I consider myself lucky that my stroke did not affect my memory, imagination and problem-solving capabilities. I am not sure if my creative side was enhanced by my stroke but it did not seem to have impaired it.

As I was relieved from other concerns in life I was able to concentrate on developing my craft. I was able to develop several products in quick succession during my leave from my official work.

Bamboo is a naturally light and yet strong material that is comparable if not surpasses the properties of other materials such as wood or even steel. The levity of bamboo lends itself to portability. In fact the native bamboo hut or ‘bahay kubo’ can be transported from place to place just like transporting a luggage. The image of ‘bayanihan’ or roughly translated as the communal spirit is often depicted with the transport of the ‘bahay kubo’ by the cooperative effort of the able-bodied men of the community. Noypi Nation

Noypi is an inversion of the word Pinoy, a name Filipinos call themselves. Noypi Nation takes advantage of the distinctive features of indigenous bamboo varieties and local sensibilities to design that sets it apart in international industrial design. Noypi Nation has developed its own innovative bamboo bending technology it has called “Wrought Bamboo”. The technology developed for bamboo can take on any shape similar to wrought iron, thus the name, wrought bamboo. Noypi Nation seeks to exploit the variety of uses that wrought bamboo offers. Noypi Nation also seeks to take traditional bamboo craft into new non-traditional uses and directions.

I have chosen Noypi Nation for the company name in large part due to my belief that the Philippines can derive its competitive advantage and its place in the world from its inherent qualities and endowments. “Tinik” bamboo is one of those endowments. The challenge today is to get people once again to appreciate the special qualities of ‘tinik’ and other Philippine bamboo varieties and develop technologies and applications that take advantage of these unique properties of ‘tinik’. ‘Wrought bamboo’ or ‘pinapulupot na kawayan’ hopefully can be a contribution to reviving the interest in the bamboo industry in the country. The possible applications of ‘tinik’ are only beginning to be explored. Positioning Philippine bamboo in the world market will be one of the advocacies of Noypi