Heritage businesses adapt to thrive in modern world
Even pre-pandemic, these operations, which are often family run, had found the going tough, with their labour-intensive products underappreciated by the mass market. But the pandemic made things worse. The National Heritage Board this year set up an inaugural Organisation Transformation Grant to help struggling heritage businesses innovate. Clement Yong looks at three of the 12 grant recipients.
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Shop embraces 3D printing alongside tradition of handcrafted Taoist effigies
Say Tian Hng Buddha Shop in Chinatown, which sells handcrafted Taoist effigies, is one of Singapore's oldest heritage businesses, tracing its history to 1896.
Mr Ng Tze Yong, a fourth-generation practitioner at the shop, is 41 this year. His father is nearing 70, and his grandmother is almost 90.
The problem: He is still in apprenticeship, taking one day a week out of his full-time job to learn how to draw the eyes on the sometimes palm-size effigies.
With his father and grandmother getting on in years, Mr Ng is worried that he is running out of time.
"If I don't do anything, the shop will close in a few years," he said. "I need to find a way to codify the knowledge before it disappears."
He is compiling an online instruction manual - including videos - for himself as he learns, to aid his memory. But with the National Heritage Board's Organisation Transformation Grant, he is thinking bigger, hoping to create a 3D scan database of at least 30 masterpieces in the shop.
This would allow him to not only refer to the scans after the works are sold, but also to recreate the works via 3D printing later.
Digital copies of the designs could even be fed into a computer numerical control machine that carves statues.
"Some customers don't mind paying more for the statues to be hand-carved, while others would rather not. The 3D scans thus allow us to serve both groups, strengthening our business model," Mr Ng said.
The 3D-printed or machine-carved statues will still need to be painted and gilded by hand, which the shop will continue to do.
The making of Taoist effigies from scratch by hand takes months. Mr Ng's grandmother took a year to learn the craft after she married into the business when she was 18, but she slogged at it every day, instead of just once a week.
The eyes of the effigies are the most important element, conveying fierceness, compassion or other qualities that the deities represent, Mr Ng said. They are typically what people connect with and look for when buying effigies, even though the eyes are often barely the size of a rice grain.
"They need to be symmetrical, which is hard to do on a 3D surface. Small deviations are obvious," Mr Ng said. "You look into the eyes when you connect with humans; it is the same with effigies."
He recognises that young people in Singapore are becoming increasingly secular, so he is designing a curriculum for children aged seven to nine that teaches them more about historical or mythical characters in Chinese culture and their associated moral values.
"It will be quite experiential. In Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, the three brothers' oath of fraternity in the peach tree garden held them together through decades of war," Mr Ng said, referring to the classic Chinese historical novel.
"We can put children in situations where they have to decide, for example, whether to steal chocolate, or to keep to their promises.
"Today, friendship is defined by a 'like' on Facebook, but this will help them realise that a true promise comes at a cost."
The curriculum should be ready by next year, and a decision will be made on how it could be incorporated into schools.
Mr Ng added: "You don't need to pray to a deity to appreciate his timeless qualities and ancient legends. It is about philosophy, culture, history and design.
"I don't see them as statues. I see them as stories."
Clement Yong
About the grant
The National Heritage Board (NHB) this year set up a time-limited Organisation Transformation Grant to help struggling heritage businesses innovate and find their place in today's world.
Proposals were submitted from June 15 to Sept 1, with each project eligible for up to $30,000.
A total of 12 projects have since been given the go-ahead.
The NHB said this could set these heritage businesses up for long-term sustainable growth beyond the grant funding period.
