CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE
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was usual for silver or golden entrails, a religious tract, or a live insect to be placed ceremonially in a cavity in the image's back and sealed there providing the image with life. Another and more usually a Taoist ceremony, used particularly by the Fukienese, is for blood from a freshly killed cock to be smeared over the breast of the image.
The carving of an average image takes about twenty working days which necessitates the whole team cooperating and working to a schedule. But as would be expected when order books are full, the actual time from the taking of the order to the handing over of the finished image can be as long as two and a half months. God shops are open most days from 9 am-8 pm, although of late Sunday has tended to be a day off. They may have some half dozen gods on the production line at one time.
God carvers spend a considerable portion of their time repairing damaged or renovating old images. I have often felt considerable dismay seeing an old image having its handsome gold leaf patina stripped, to be re-painted with the most vivid of modern commercial lacquers.
New ideas are incorporated into the process. The use of western commercial paints, or the appearance of a spirit astride a bicycle when formerly he only rode a horse, shows originality but most changes have been slow, and as I see it, have been due in the main to misunderstanding.
The god carvers are teaching their children the craft, but confided that all were at school and should they show promise will be encouraged to enter one of the academic professions. They also feared that at the present rate of change very few Chinese will require the services of god carvers and the craft will disappear; just as surely as the story tellers who, less than ten years ago, gathered their audience about them not more than one hundred yards from the god carvers' shops have been overwhelmed by television.