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Raquel Carvalho

The sound of hammer on tin echoes through the alleys of Sai Kung's Old Town.
Nestled amid the shops and cha chaan teng on Sai Kung Main Street is a 99-year-old neighbourhood institution: the "tin man".
Mak Sing-yin sits on the polished concrete floor of his small shop, punching holes in tin sheet which he will craft into an ash pan used for burning joss paper - a habit deeply rooted in local culture to pay respect to ancestors.
Watch: The trade of a lifetime: Hong Kong's 99-year-old tinsmith

He has been turning tin into pans, cans, boxes and buckets for 81 years - a craft that is appreciated by locals and tourists alike.
But it is a trade he has not passed down to anyone else.
Pausing for a moment, the wiry tinsmith looks up from his hammering and in quick-fire Cantonese says: "Even my children never learned this. They couldn't make a living from it."
He returns to the task at hand, bashing another hole in the tin.
"Why would I teach it to someone? It would be a burden."
One of his grandsons, who also lives in Sai Kung, says he regrets not having had the chance to learn his grandfather's craft. "I asked him many times to teach me, but he always said that with this kind of job we couldn't make money," says Mak Mau-hei, 26, an air-conditioner technician.

Born in the Shunde district of Foshan, Guangdong province, Mak was 18 when he followed his family south to escape the Japanese occupation.
"We fled to Hong Kong. All we wanted was to make a living … Hong Kong was a prosperous place and it was easier to find a job," he says.
In Kowloon, Mak spent three years learning his trade as a tinsmith, before moving to Sai Kung in the early 1950s with his wife and firstborn son. "If you asked me what I made … I'd say I made everything. The world was different then. I made spittoons, basins, and I helped to build barns," Mak says.
And he is still at No. 14 Sai Kung Main Street, in the same three-storey building where he lives and works, and where his five children grew up, and his 13 grandchildren ran around.
"When I was a child, my grandparents used to sell toys and the things made by my grandpa," recalls the younger Mak. "He would get quite angry if we played with his tools."
Those tools haven't changed much. Pliers, scissors, hammers are scattered around the shop, Wo Cheong Hou. Customers can rummage through neat stacks of buckets, cake pans, watering cans and letter boxes for sale.
The time it takes to make them depends on how fast Mak's worn hands work. "A big box might take two days," he says.
Since his wife died two years, Mak lives alone. He relies on help from a maid, and visits from neighbours and family. He says the area has changed a lot since the '50s. "All the people I met when I arrived are dead. Only the young ones are left … But there are more shops, more people, and new developments," he says.
Some of Mak's memories are hung on the wall. The "tin man" is particularly proud of a photo of him shaking hands with the late "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher in 1994, when the former British prime minister visited Sai Kung with then governor Chris Patten.
Twenty years on, Mak's hair has turned white. But other details remain the same: he still gets his tin from Kowloon, and the doors of his shop are open every day from 9.30am to 4.30pm.
However, the orders are less important these days. "I'd like to buy 10 of these boxes," says one customer. "Well, I don't think I'll have time to make them," Mak replies, without looking up.
Mak, who turns 100 next September, says his shop will stay open as long as he has the strength. "When I can't do this any more, I will retire. If I can't hold a hammer, even if I want to do it, I won't be able to."


Last of his kind? At 99, Sai Kung's 'tin man' shows no sign of stopping

Tin man Mak Sing-yin in his shop. Photo: Edward Wong

Tin man Mak Sing-yin meets Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher in 1994. Photo: SMP

News

Hong Kong

The sound of hammer on tin echoes through the alleys of Sai Kung's Old Town. Nestled amid the shops and cha chaan teng on Sai Kung Main Street is a 99-year-old neighbourhood institution: the "tin man".
