Life of Apprenticeship

At that time, apprentices received a monthly salary of NTD 600. However, because the boss provided food and accommodation, if he worked late at night, the boss would also pay for snacks and even provide clothes. Master A-fa said that he can even save NTD 500 every month. However, even though the apprentices’ food and accommodation were provided by the boss, and they were paid to learn skills, during the time when Master A-fa was an apprentice, there were only two apprentices in the shop at most. However, there were nearly 10 statue sprucing masters hired, suggesting that learning statue sprucing was quite difficult!

The apprentice's job is actually never easy. For example, when the master was “pulling the lacquer thread,” the apprentice had to help “draw the thread.” Master A-fa said that there are usually four statue sprucing masters on site pulling the lacquer thread at the same time, and an apprentice must be standing by to continue supplying materials to the thread. Master A-fa has been practicing this most famous lacquer thread drawing skill of the Quanzhou Sect statue sprucing for seven years, and in the first two years of his apprenticeship, he was almost all doing the lacquer drawing. As for the “gold leaf laying” skill, it could only be learned in the last few years of apprenticeship, certainly because of the high price of gold leaf.

Master A-fa never forgets the life of being an apprentice and wishes to go back to be an apprentice again. He said that he was very happy when he was an apprentice. He had no worries and no pressure. He could do whatever the master told him. This was the time that he missed the most.

Figure 2-5c: The “gold leaf laying” skill could only be learned in the last few years of apprenticeship.