The afternoon sun shone on a row of old and shabby shophouses in Magazine Road, Penang, and an old couple was busy tying up the bamboo and sewing the banners with a sewing machine.

There were two male and a female customers at the door, and they claimed they were the devotees of Zhong Fu Temple in Butterworth. They came to the shop to collect a pair of lanterns which they had ordered last year.

"Tai Keat Seong" is a well-known traditional surname-lantern shop in Penang. 70-year-old owner Li Ya Fu is still running this time-honoured business handed down by his father.

The old master almost forgot about this order and hurried to check his log book. He found that there was indeed an order taken by him and the deadline fell on the next couple of weeks. He promised the customers to rush through their order before the deadline.

The customers told Sin Chew Daily when they were ordering the lanterns from the old master, he claimed he still had plenty of time to make the lanterns.

The customers told us their "temple" was very special in that it did not have a fixed premises and an altar would be set up at the house of a devotee who took his turn to be the "master of the stove."

When the "temple" is moved from a devotee's house to another, a pair of new lanterns have to be hung, and it seems that Tai Keat Seong is the only place making such lanterns in the entire country. So they came here to order the lanterns much earlier to prevent last-minute work that would result in the delay of the "temple-moving" event.

Nevertheless, Li's business is so good that he always has plenty of orders waiting for him.

Newspaper write-up helps promote business

When asked of the name of the lanterns they ordered, the devotees said they did not have any idea about this and the lanterns were just the ordinary ones hung in temples.

The old master specialises in traditional surname lanterns normally hung at the main entrance of a house in the olden times. With that, passersby would easily know the surname of this family.

This traditional Chinese custom is slowly losing its popularity in Southeast Asia today. Master Li said he once thought of giving up this lantern-making business to become a printing worker.

About 30 years ago, people began to abandon traditional lanterns as they embraced the modern lifestyle, and this almost shut Tai Keat Seong down.

If Tai Keat Seong were shut down at that time, traditional lanterns would have vanished altogether in Malaysia.

Fortunately, the Chinese media wrought their influences at that critical moment by publishing several reports on the last remaining lantern-making master in this country, and had successfully diverted the public's attention to him.

As a result, customers from across the country have kept streaming in and miraculously, Tai Keat Seong has been able to survive for over 20 years until this day.

Working from a crumbling house

Georgetown is today one of the UNESCO heritage cities and surname lanterns are regarded as a precious legacy of Penang. It is a kind of rare cultural heritage that in on the brink of extinction.

Today, people passing by Tai Keat Seong are worried about the old master's safety, as the shop as well as the other shops on the same row appear to be collapsing any minute.

Despite the potential danger, the old couple still works very hard through their thick orders inside the dilapidated shophouse every day of the year.

The state goverment has made arrangements for the old master to move to a new location in Lebuh Macallum. He said he felt sad having to leave the old shop, as it was a place full of his old memories.

50 "unknown" students

More than 50 art students from The One Academy in Kuala Lumpur travelled all the way to Tai Keat Seong in Penang to learn the skills of making traditional lanterns from Master Li and he was more than willing to answer all the students' queries.

19-year-old Guo Wei Hao was seen enthusiastically jotting down the methods of making traditional lanterns with words as well as pictures.

Master Li told the students the process of making lanterns was actually quite simple, and the secret was to tie up the bamboo sticks and the length of the bamboo sticks must be balanced so as to avoid any unevenness of the lantern surface. The curved bamboos must be thin before paper or fabric is pasted over them.

This is the general picture of making a lantern, and Master Li was selflessly sharing the details with 50 of his "unknown" students within an hour.

Wei Hao told us although it was not difficult to make the lanterns, it required a lot of experience to truly master the craft.

Planning for retirement

Master Li has not planned to pass down his skills to any successor, as he is too busy with his work and the youngsters nowadays are not interested in traditional crafts. Moreover, he is planning to retire as he feels exhausted by his busy work.

He added, patience, a peaceful mind, a strong will against loneliness and genuine great effort were needed in making lanterns. (Translated by LIM LIY EE/Sin Chew Daily)