Almost 200 years ago, as the Qing Dynasty slid into decay, our ancestor, then a young man, learnt the ancient art of Daoist statue-making from a master.

 

The secret skills became our family’s livelihood and the delicate statues we hand-crafted served as vessels of hope for the common folk amid famine and war.

 

But conditions continued to worsen, with the Second Opium War, Taiping Rebellion and the First Sino-Japanese War taking place one after the other.

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In 1896, with the once-great Qing Dynasty finally on the brink of collapse, two young brothers of our family, barely out of their teens, took a leap of faith, and sailed south to seek a brighter future in the tiny but bustling British colony of Singapore.

 

There, they established an overseas branch of our family business, which thrived as waves of migrant Chinese setting up homes and businesses in this new land sought the gods’ protection and blessings, from home altars and newly constructed temples.

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Meanwhile and in contrast, chaos continued to plague China. The Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, with its rejection of the traditional and religious, led to the closure and persecution of artisanal workshops like ours.

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Although our original shop escaped unscathed - being located in Nationalist-held territory and hence, out of reach of Mao Zedong's Communists - it finally closed in the 2010s due to a lack of successors. 

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In Singapore, our overseas branch barely hung on, as a economic growth led to other job opportunities. But in 2021, two brothers stepped up, taking the business into the 6th generation.

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As technology advances and machine-made Daoist statues from China flood the market, we are going in the opposite direction, strengthening the link to the ancient, but also making it relatable to a wider, international group of customers who have gained a curiosity in Chinese culture as China finally rises again, after 200 years.