A Lifetime of Commitment

——An exclusive with Yeo Hung Teo

 

 

At 76 years of age, Mr. Yeo Hung Teo is at the helm of Yeo Swee Huat Paper Agency, a shop that has a history of more than 60 years. Mr. Yeo dropped out of school when he was 16 to join his father in the paper agency business. With a deep passion for traditional arts, he picked up the basics of paper crafting in a short period of time. Recalling his past, Mr. Yeo expressed that it was one that was filled with hardships.

 

Before officially taking over the paper agency, Mr. Yeo worked as a clerk in the shop. The elder Mr. Yeo had scrimped and saved just to open the shop. The younger Mr. Yeo decided to stay home and help out with the business. According to him, most paper crafters hailed from China, and were wary of sharing the knowledge of paper crafting. The younger Mr. Yeo had to discreetly learn every part of the lantern making process, from painting to writing and even memorization of the measurements.

 

With a palpable sense of pride, Mr. Yeo recalls, “I slept in the shop and studied the lanterns at night, recording every minute detail that I observe. Before long, I managed to master all the techniques. Our business flourished and some of the paper crafters in our shop decided to strike it out on their own. My father initially wanted to look for other paper crafters but I told him it is not necessary; I am good enough to teach any paper crafters you can find.”

 

A passion for traditional lanterns

 

Although the paper agency mainly sells religious and funeral paraphernalia, Mr. Yeo Hung Teo has a soft spot for lanterns. In his attempt to further develop the artistry on the lanterns, Mr. Yeo added luminous paint into the coloring pigments. 

 

Mr. Yeo reckons that in order to successfully pick up the art of lantern making, one has to first learn how to construct the frames of the lanterns. There are various methods of construction; such as crisscrossing and the T-shaped cross. The most important part, he says, is the connection between the bamboo splints. The better they are tied together, the stronger the connection and the stronger the eventual lantern will be. The making of traditional lanterns require the acquisition of bamboo splints that are resilient and a special type of paper made that is less likely to break. Glue with a high level of stickiness is also a must in order to secure the paper to the lantern frames.

 

Having started at the age of 16, Mr. Yeo toiled in his father’s shop all these years, and is now a specialist in painting peonies, dragons and phoenixes. This self-taught artist is also renowned paper-crafting master in Southeast Asia.

 

The challenges of passing down the trade

 

“This is not an easy job, often we have to meet tight deadlines and stay up till the wee hours in the morning. This business is also not one of high profit margin; the young today often deem the pay unacceptable, so few are willing to learn. There are also many shops that are replacing traditional raw materials with cheaper materials for a more cost effective option. However the lanterns made from alternative raw materials will never be as durable as the traditional lanterns. Though much more demanding in terms of effort, traditional lanterns are so much more durable.” Mr. Yeo muses.

 

Traditional lanterns are also disappearing due to the reduced emphasis placed on observing the formalities during Chinese festive occasions. As a result, demand for traditional lanterns have reached a nadir and many paper-crafting masters switched profession after realizing the unsustainability of the trade. Today, we can only occasionally see these paper-crafting at cultural events.