Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The Crisis of Inheritance

Master A-fa said, “To run the business of statue sprucing industry, you need to prepare two things first, one is funding, and the other is space. “Funding” includes the budget for materials, the fees and salaries for hiring statue sprucing masters, and various studio expenses. “Space” includes the space where raw materials and finished products are stored, as well as the place where people work. These two things alone make it unaffordable for many operators. Besides, operators must balance their income and expenses every month, and must also try to hire statue sprucing masters with sophisticated skills and manage personnel issues. Therefore, many statue sprucing masters now open stores only to introduce imported products from China or Southeast Asia, and sell ready-made products made by others. At present, in the market in Taiwan, there is no master making statues for others to sell, so most of operators can only import imported statues from Vietnam and mainland China. These imported statues are relatively cheap because local wages are low. If the statue sprucing craftsmen in Taiwan cannot maintain unique characteristics, they will lose their competitiveness.

At present, there are not many statue sprucing craftsmen like Master A-fa in who can handle the complete process of order taking, production and sales. If this situation continues, this craft will lose the opportunity to continue to be passed down and may be lost over time.