Walking along the narrow road across the grove, you may spot a few irregular-shaped big stones between the grass and trees, some of them with traces of cutting. At the end of the winding path, you may hear loud hammering. Looking over to the source of the noise, there is a small wooden shed hidden within lush green bushes and branches. The shed is made up of rustic wood and a few pieces of zinc, scattered around are some iron chisels and hammers, as well as nearly a hundred of granite pieces. These are long-time friends of Master Kuah Leong Chuan, who has been keeping up the ancestral business for over forty years.
The crude and unremarkable tiny shed is located in Kuala Selangor, beside the main road of Kuala Selangor bridge. In the past few decades, it has witnessed the birth of countless tomb stones, mostly those of muslims called ‘Batu Nisan’. All these are the works of Master Kuah, who himself pick the stone, cut, and then carefully carve into shape. He even writes and carves the Jawi words on the grave stone too.
Mr Kuah, who is 64 years old, and his elder brother have been helping his father running the family business since young. Their family has been stone smiths for four generations. Since Mr Kuah’s great-grandfather migrated overseas from China to Malaysia, the family made a living by carving holy figures and stone lions for temples, whereas Mr Kuah’s father worked on stone tools like mortar and pestle, stone mills etc. When Mr Kuah graduated from high school, he went into business together with his elder brother until now. They are the fifth generation of the trade, now they mainly craft and sell grave stones, instead of stone tools.
Material sourcing, material selection, and carving are all done locally. For the past forty over years, Master Kuah has been using granite from the hills nearby, which used to be a famous stone quarry during the British colonisation era. Due to the granite stones being of high quality, in the heyday of stone craft, there were five or six families of stone smiths who set up workshop in the same hill area. Having been through decades of stone mining, the number of stones in the quarry were not exhausted, on the contrary the stones surprisingly grew into an infinity number. Master Kuah named those as ‘living stones’, as these unique granite did not corrode but expand over time. Such a trait is greatly popular among the Malay community.
The process of transforming a huge solid stone to a piece of tomb stone exhibits Master Kuah’s skills and expertise. From deducing the stone’s age by its pattern, determining the quality by the stone’s surface, the artful skills of cutting open the stone, to self taught Jawi, not many stone smiths can achieve such a feat on their own.
As times progress, some of the traditional trades and skills might be drowned in the swift development. Fellow stone smiths in Kuala Selangor either retire or concluded business, and Master Kuah’s brother with whom he has been working hand in hand over the years became unable to shoulder such tedious work due to illness. As he has no children, and no apprentice, now there is just Master Kuah carving away all alone in the little wooden shed beneath the trees shade.
Text: Daniel Lim & Pua Hui Wen
有你 UNI Production
Producer : Mok Yii Chek
Coordinator : Daniel Lim
Cinematographer : Amelia Lim / Evon Pang
Production Assistant : Michael Lerk
Video Editor : Michael Lerk
Music : Dyathon – Hope from YouTube
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