About
Ashi makes pretty and practical purses, wallets and pouches. These beautiful and durable products are handmade in Cambodia using fibres from banana tree stems.
Our Products
Our pouches come in two different sizes and are the perfect way to organise the little things that we carry with us every day. Children love the smaller size for their pocket-money, and they're perfect for holding a mask or cards and small change. The larger size is great for makeup, pens, and keeping your cash safe. We also sell beautiful wallets, purses and cardcases. Take a look at Our Designs to see the whole range of our designs.
Ashi's banana leaf paper is a uniquely lovely material, which is sustainable, ecologically sound and very durable.
Ashi products are created by a small team working in Anlung Pi, close to Siem Reap, a notorious 'garbage mountain' where adults and children sift through the rubbish to make a living. Ashi provides alternative employment to its small team of women in Anlung Pi who perform each process - from picking the banana leaves, processing the fibre, printing designs and sewing the products - by hand. We are proud of the quality of our products and the sustainable methods we use in production as well as being able to offer employment to our team in Anlung Pi. You can find out more about our processes and the people we support below.
Information about Ashi
Ashi (亜紙): papers of Asia
Ashi was founded in 2014 by Takuya Yamase, a Japanese national who lives in Cambodia. He founded the business with the aim of providing alternative employment to villagers working on the 'garbage mountain' in Anlung Pi, a village about 25km from Siem Reap and the world heritage site Angkor Wat. The work is dangerous and ill-paid but is frequently all that the villagers have available to them.
Takuya now runs the business with his partner, Kanha Rathakanha Sour. Through Ashi, Kanha wants to encourage other Khmer businesses to create and manufacture good quality goods locally, using local methods and resources, rather than depending on imports from China, Thailand and other Asian countries. Kanha is particularly passionate about empowering women to work and earn a fair living, bringing about positive and empowering change in her community. Women in Anlung Pi make up the majority of Ashi's workforce. Takuya and Kanha work with the team in the village to produce designs inspired by the culture and heritage of Cambodia, and with creative designer, Yoshiro Kitayama.
Takuya also established a Japanese school in the village for children which has been teaching Japanese since 2013. This gives young people the skills to assist them in working in the tourist industry in Siem Reap, discouraging them from working on the garbage mountain where many children work from a young age.
Ashi sells its products from a shop in Siem Reap and in the Siem Reap Old Market.
How we make our products
Our banana leaf paper is created using approximately 75% natural banana leaf fibres combined with recycled plastic. Since fruit can only be harvested from banana trees once in their lifetime, the leaves or 'pseudo stems' of the banana tree are often discarded after harvesting. Banana trees grow abundantly and quickly in SE Asia and are an excellent sustainable resource. The fibre from these 'pseudo stems' of the banana tree is so strong and durable that it can also be made into yarn and other materials.
The most important part of our process for making high-quality banana paper is the removal of the soft fibres found in the stalks of the banana tree. These valuable fibres lie in the outer layer of each banana leaf sheath. Using a knife, we strip off individual layers from the stem, sheath by sheath, until only the fibres remain.
We then take these fibres and boil them for 3-5 days to soften them. Taking a traditional Khmer tool, a 'Kderng' (ក្ដឿង) the boiled banana fibres are smashed and pounded to further break the fibres down. Back in the day, Khmer farmers used the Kderng to remove rice seeds after harvesting. Our use of the Kderng saves us lots of time and helps to keep the Khmer traditions alive. Pounding the fibres by hand with a hammer takes up to 1-2 days to complete, while the Kderng takes only 2-3 hours. Although... it takes 5 of us to use the Kderng. It is very heavy!
Next, we cut the pliable banana fibres into tiny shavings. A single bucket of banana fibres takes 2-3 days to produce. To help pass the time, our team sit together during the cutting process chatting, gossiping and sharing stories.
Once the fibres are cut, they're blended with water, and plastic taken from recycled bottles to give them their water-resistant quality. We then use frames to stretch out the material to determine the size of the paper being produced, before drying the paper and applying our distinctive prints to the paper by hand.
