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Bent over a wooden table, Albert Tay, 61, picks up a plastic knife – the kind that comes with a McDonald’s takeaway order – and gets to work.
His hands run down a winding log of reddish-brown clay that is shaped like a dragon without features. Using the knife, he deftly carves out small, protruding scales, one after another, until they eventually form a dense pattern across the dragon’s body, which dresses up a 2-metre-long joss stick.
With more twists and flicks of the wrist, he works on the dragon’s head, sculpting its eyes, nose and beard. The dragon comes to life, almost.
Tay is in the business of making giant joss sticks by hand – one that has been passed down from his grandfather, who moved from Guangdong, China, to Singapore in the 1930s, to his father, and now him and his brothers.
But in a modern city, it is a vanishing trade. Tay believes that his shop, Tay Guan Heng, could well be the last of its kind in Singapore. A competitor shut down in January.
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