00:00As a fourth-generation apprentice, if you're not careful,
00:04the whole burden of it can almost destroy everything.
00:07My name is Zhiyong, I'm the fourth-generation apprentice craftsman at Say Tian Hung Buddha
00:32shop. We're a heritage business in Singapore and we were established in 1896, so we are almost
00:38130 years this year. We're located on the fringe of Chinatown along Neil Road and we've been here
00:44for the past 30 years. So effigy making is an ancient craft. What we do is handcraft Taoist
00:52and Buddhist wooden statues. We do new commissions, we also do restoration and we do this using
00:58traditional handcrafting techniques, some of which date back to the early Qing dynasty.
01:07So if you look around this shop you'll see you know maybe about five, six hundred statues and
01:12together they represent a very diverse, very inclusive picture of divinity. Every one of them
01:18has its own special origin story and a value that they represent.
01:23In 1896, my great-grandfather and my great-granduncle migrated to Singapore. They were like maybe 19, 20
01:32years old and it was to set up a Singapore branch of the original shop that was back in China.
01:37And it's this lineage of closely guarded secrets that has been passed down through the family for
01:43many generations.
01:53She's 93. She's been doing this since she was 18 years old.
02:01My grandmother, she runs a shop together with my dad and I come to the shop one day a week
02:06to apprentice and I'm trying to find a way to have this shop continue.
02:24I don't see just a statue, I see a story. Precious objects of your loved ones, our grandmas
02:35and our grandpas, the things that gave them the strength to persevere through their lives.
02:41Where did the resilience come from? It's not like they were born resilient, you know. I think for a
02:45big part of them it was religion, you know. It was through learning that okay there's going to be a
02:51God that will take care of us, be compassionate to us, that will guide us and there's so much part
02:55of the fabric of the everyday life of Singaporeans. So to have these statues being thrown away is a bit
03:02of a pity. So there's a difference between art and craft. Art means you create something like
03:10an expression of your vision of the world or your perspective and it's pretty much
03:14take it or leave it, you know. That's me, you don't ask me to change it. As craftsmen we're not
03:19genius, you know. We make things, you know, it serves a purpose, they have to look a certain way.
03:23That's the whole idea about this craft. So it's all about perseverance rather than an unattainable
03:30level of skill. This craft is dying out in Singapore but also in the region and
03:37the reason for that is a lot of this cannot be machine-made using modern techniques.
03:42I didn't wake up one day and decide that I'm going to, you know, continue this business.
03:47It was a place where I grew up in. I used to do my kindergarten homework, you know, on the drain
03:51outside. It's a place where I played, where I came to visit my dad, my grandparents. There was also
03:56never any expectation for me to take over the business but the shop was always at the back of
04:01my mind, especially after I went overseas to study because when you go overseas, right, you
04:06study because when you go overseas, right, you kind of think about your roots and who you are,
04:11your identity in a sharper way. And I started my career as a journalist and journalism was
04:18really a way for me to create a social impact. But the turning point came really when I did my
04:23master's in design. I chose my grandmother's shop as a business innovation case study.
04:28So the idea is how to reinvent this little shop for the 21st century. I also realised that amidst
04:33all of these innovation efforts, it's not really enough because when you think about heritage
04:37business, you can throw any idea and it will be new. The difficult part is actually the
04:43preservation of the craft. That's the non-sexy part. That's the part that requires a lot of
04:48tenacity, a lot of hard work. The day my grandma or my dad, you know, ends in hospital, the shop
04:53closes. Two days becomes two weeks, becomes two months. Everything crumbles like a house of cards.
04:59I realised that it was really important to focus on the core, on the skills and the knowledge.
05:06Right, so a lot of these skills are not written down. There's no manual, there's no template,
05:14you see. I didn't know what was going to be the first step, what to prioritise.
05:18So what I did was, you know, I spent, you know, eight, nine hours every day sitting over here
05:22next to my dad, apprenticing, you know. So just through osmosis, drawing out all the knowledge
05:28and the skills from his head.
05:30I think for a lot of Singaporeans, these statues were associated with maybe something that was
05:59scary in their childhood, you know, like, oh, that's the part in the kitchen that was always
06:03red and smoky and it was very scary and I never dared to go near it. And so there was never the
06:09chance to really learn about it, to encounter it beyond that idea of it's going to punish me.
06:17I think overcoming that barrier is what we try to do sometimes.
06:23A few years ago, we started cultural programmes. We invite the public to come to the shop to
06:33experience, to see the craft, to see it in action. We also use experiential learning
06:38to bring to life the forgotten ancient legends and literature and philosophies.
06:45And it's a way for them to discover maybe for the first time their roots,
06:49regardless of their faith. A lot of parents want their kids to have their roots.
06:54And I think it's maybe that coming of age of a generation of Singaporeans who grew up in a very
06:58modernised, tech-driven, fast-changing Singapore. So I think for us, maybe we represented that
07:07little bit that is missing. This, at the end of the day, is not about the shop. It's actually
07:12our common heritage. You see that we can try to reconnect with people. And when that happens,
07:20I think people also go back to reconnect with their own identities, their own narratives,
07:25where you are, who you come from, and also your family. And I think that fills up something in
07:30all of us. A heritage business is still a business and it needs to make money to survive. It would
07:40be nice if there was more government support, but we can't think like that. Nobody owes us a living.
07:47So we have to look to ourselves and do what it takes. We need to codify the skills,
07:52we need to have a structure. Today, we have also done a 3D scanning project to digitalise the
08:00designs of some of our older statues. These experimentations that we're doing, some work
08:06better, some don't work so well, but they all are valuable because they have provided us with
08:11this picture of what is the way forward. Small is beautiful. I think small retains that personal
08:20touch that I think connects us with the community. Now we have people coming to us who are artists,
08:28designers, heritage lovers, parents, or just people that you can't really, you know,
08:35put into a pigeonhole. Which is why when my grandma started hosting all these workshops,
08:41she was very tickled. She was like, why are all these people coming here to see what I do? To see
08:45her skills and her life story being validated by the community. You know, that is very precious.
08:52The most rewarding part of my journey is actually the privilege to spend time with my dad and my
08:58grandmother in a professional capacity. Now I look to my dad and my grandma as a shifu and just
09:04being present, you know, little moments that are very precious. And I think that really is the
09:09essence of a family business where you have both a beautiful blend of family and family life.
09:15They are very precious. And I think that really is the essence of a family business where you have
09:19both a beautiful blend of family and work coming together. We hope this shop can continue for
09:25another hundred years. Seriously, you know, I don't have a crystal clear plan for how that's
09:37going to happen. I think it's important for us, for me personally, to enjoy every step of the way.
09:43I don't think too much about the future. I just keep it fun, keep it experimental,
09:49meet great people along the way, learn from them.
09:53And I think if we focus on that, the answer will reveal itself.
10:13you
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