Nearly 130 years ago, Say Tian Hng began as a small family business. Today, fourth-generation Tze Yong is dedicated to modernizing this old craft, despite its decline locally and regionally. Tze Yong acknowledges the uncertainty but firmly believes in the craft's value. While the future of Say Tian Hng is uncertain, his determination to sustain it for another 100 years remains unwavering.
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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