Classic Fragrance Never Fades

Julia Yuan

Two generations from one family have completely different attitudes towards their classic furniture shop…

Wandering on Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, a street near the Ruins of St. Paul's, I happened to see an old furniture shop. It only has a small space where several carpenters standing by the door and talking happily. The inside was piled up with old, broken chairs, tables, and even windows decorated in carvings. Some finished furniture has been put neatly on one side of the door. Fragrance just came from this Chinese classic furniture shop named Xin Yu Bao, which means “new royal boutiques.”

The boss of Xin Yu Bao, Wai Kit Chong, is a 68-year-old man. With him was his 25-year-old son who now is trained to be his successor, Seng Hou Chong. Sitting at the gate are his apprentices, two young men, who were polishing two chairs made of pear flower wood. Wai Kit Chong devoted himself in doing furniture-polishing business for around 36 years, while his son just started this polishing career shortly. Nowadays in Macao, only two to three classic furniture shops still alive that mainly working on polishing and painting procedures.

Unlike normal furniture shops that sell finished products, in Chong’s shop, consumers can see the raw material. “The table was made in Qing dynasty. Though it is so old and even broken now. If someone wants, we will do the refurbishment and sell them.” Wai Kit Chong introduced.

Dying with the trend?

“I am concerned that this shop couldn’t survive in the future. Not like in the past, now people tend to buy new furniture instead of polishing them newer. For the old furniture they don’t want, they’d rather sell it to the rag man or just throw it away.” Wai Kit Chong said. Despite that the demand for polishing furniture is decreasing nowadays, there are other factors affecting their business to survive. Chong said that the income of running this furniture shop is never stable. In fact, the competition within furniture business is quite stiff. He expressed that with more and more furniture plants rising in mainland, their furniture shop, which still highly relies on manual labor, gradually lost its competiveness in producing furniture at a larger scale and higher speed.

“Doing a furniture business is not easy.” Wai Kit Chong said. As the wood is increasingly valuable, it is gradually difficult to get them. For example, it takes 1000 years for the Indian scented rosewood to grow to six inches.

“Flower Pear wood (Huali) from Hainan has become a National level of protection plant, of which cutting is prohibited. Offenders can be imprisoned for 15 years.” Wai Kit Chong said that even though the flower pear wood was devalued in recent 10 years, a chair made of it today could be sold for millions of dollars. “When the river rises, the boat floats high.” He described the whole industry like this.

Wai Kit Chong still loves his career. He said, “The reason why I insist on my career is that keeping classic is very meaningful. I have a real skill and earn every penny by my hands, which also give me a peaceful and happy life.”

Act as a real “Owner”

The son Seng Hou had quitted his job from casino and came to help father at the beginning of the early 2011. Seng Hou told me that when he worked in casino job, he was just a member of bubble economy, while working in the shop of his father makes him achieve a sense of fulfillment and can “act as an owner”.

“I have learnt one of the disappearing skills in Macao from my father, that is polishing furniture.” Seng Hou smiled. In contrast to his father, Seng Hou does not worry much about furniture shop’s future. What he saw is business opportunity. “If I have enough money in the future, I want to establish a big classic furniture group, with the power of my skills and business sense.” Seng Hou said while doing his last piece of work today, “Now it’s just a start.”

Difficulty vs. opportunity

During the whole interview, father Wai Kit Chong coughed very badly and said he caught stroke because of doing the polishing work day after day, so he could not drink beer he loved anymore. Also, due to his poor physical situation, he could not often do the job himself but rather to give guidance to his son and apprentices.

The father and son finished doing their work for this day and were about to have dinner, while two apprentices also left the shop and went back where they live. Only the laughter of happiness was still lingering around the small furniture shop.

The tiny old classic furniture shop symbolizes not only a piece of memory of the last generation, but also a dream of this generation. The father, a common worker, has been circulating an important workmanship in Macao via his humble but great life unknown to the public. Though, it is not time to judge whether the son’s dream will come true or not. It is believed that once their classic furniture-polishing shop is unfortunately eliminated by the trend, a brand new business full of life will be replaced under the efforts and persistence of these father and son. The most important thing is-- the fragrance of wood will never fade.