When visiting the making of clog souvenir, it is our bonus to find out an experienced wooden plague craft man, uncle Leong 梁富唐 (hope I remembered his chinese name correctly :) ) If you did follow Guang Ming newspaper (or maybe Kwong Wah newspaper) , these newspaper did interview uncle Leong. Probably you watched uncle Leong on Astro too.
His company name plague at Hok San Association entrance.
He alone run the business, and also he is the chairman of Lu Ban Hang 鲁班行 at Love Lane. I must find one day to visit that building :) He contributed a lot in recovering the building. He did teach the skills to others. Some of his student quit half way. I hope someone will be able to inherit his skills. Once it is lost, it is lost :)
Uncle Leong at work and his workplace. He was busy with a project to recover door/window for a row of old building in Georgetown.
An interesting wood Tang Lung :)
Uncle Leong is famous in wood carving in Penang, because of his product quality and reasonable pricing. He told us the wood he use is thicker, compared to others. This is one of the reason it last longer. He also shared it is not easy to find supplier to provide such thickness of wood.
After chat for a while, uncle Leong shown us his tool. There is one Chinese idiom 工欲善其事, 必先利其器 means if we wish to do some work well, we must have the right tool.
He has to put on the handle by himself. It doesn't come with purchase.
He made a box for exhibition purposes. Oh yes, sometimes he will be invited by Penang government or other body to display wood carving craft in exhibition, for example 庙会.
We asked him where go bought those. He told us he usually need to go to Singapore to find, although it is imported from western country. He tried other country e.g. China but he still found the one he bought from Singapore is quite good quality. Oh he need to get a new set of tools after every few years. Guess what, a set of tools, cost around RM 1K.
How come you always visit to this special place?
ReplyDeleteSN
I visited only once :)
ReplyDeleteWhere is his shop, i am interested in getting some wood carved panels made?
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, sorry for late reply, I was kinda busy lately.
ReplyDeletePlease scroll to the bottom of this page http://changmeikuan.blogspot.my/2010/07/making-of-clog-souvenir.html for address and photo of the association. I extracted the address here
Persatuan Hok San Utara Malaya.
Address: 30-C, Jalan Siam, 10400 Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia.
Aunty Ai Tee contact number: 012-4838853.
Visit them online: http://miniwoodenshoes.blogspot.com/, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=352145476306&ref=ts.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteDo you know if Uncle Leong offers lessons? Do you have an email address for me to contact him?
Thanks.
Hi Draygon, I am really sorry that I overlooked your comments (flood by other spam).
ReplyDeleteUncle Leong did mention he seldom recruit student and not many people can actually take up the training and stay long. Anyway I would recommend you to stop by that location to inquire for more information as Uncle Leong decision might change depending on conditions. I am sorry that I have no other method to reach Uncle Leong except visiting his shop.