灯笼高高挂

路过社尾街，在一排破旧的店屋，看到了这间相信为槟城硕果仅存的灯笼制作店。小时候邻家也是制作灯笼的，每逢中秋节一到，就把大大小小鲜艳的彩灯挂在屋檐下，美不胜收，叫小小年纪的我，瞪得目不转睛。每一年，就只有期待这一晚的来临。后来，邻家搬迁了，总觉得中秋节的夜晚已铅华不再。

灯笼与华人生活无不相连，除了照明，也是一种象徵， 婚礼喜庆、丧葬场合、迎神盛会、元宵花灯等都有各式灯笼的陪衬。 但在时代洪流不断前进，人口变迁、需求减少、后续无人、复杂制作的种种因素下，这项荒凉的老行业只有在过着缓慢喘延的日子，直到消失在这一个时代。

有老伴相依的李师傅还是那么全神贯注，认真的用地一笔一划的给灯笼上色。 一生的青春，照亮了无数家户，迷失的孩子，你们可曾见到了回家的路？

较为普遍的有字姓灯，成双的悬挂在华人屋子的五脚基上，一方为此家庭的姓，另一方为家族的籍贯。 这也比较常见于宗伺。

大吉祥（The Great Auspicious）–- 一个退了色的招牌，逐渐成为了退色的记忆。

Beaded Shoes (Kasut Manek)

I was with my nieces on the Anak-anak Kota (Children of the City) art walkabout on the Nyonyas beaded shoes at Armenian Street, Georgetown yesterday. This is another activity of arts in heritage education program. It aims to raise awareness of the meaning and significance of heritage to the children, help them understand who they are and their role in the development of culture and heritage.

Beaded shoes - during the Peranakan days, it was a trend for the Nyonyas to wear beaded shoes. Most of them learnt to sew it themselves. They worked with the tiny colourful size beads aka “manek potong”. It required the nyonya to have a lot of patience and dexterity with her fingers in order to complete a pair of kasut manek. Not many people wear beaded shoes nowadays. The only person that I can remember that is fond of the make-to-order beaded shoes is my “fairy godmother” Mary Chee. I am sure a pair of well made beaded shoes matches her elegance.

Some of the semi-finished and finished product on display. It's all custome made! The colors of the beads must give a good match to the theme selected. That includes: flowers, birds, fish, butterfly and "YuanYang".

According to the shoes maker Mr. Tan, the sewing process is tedious, can be strenuous on the eyes and therefore time consuming. The price is typically range from RM 350- RM 1,000 per pair. Therefore the product is commonly sold to a niche market.

Children of different races showing interest on the processes involved in beaded shoes making, from choosing a design, colour of the beads, specified needles, threads and frames. Explanation was given by this multilingual guy - English, Malay and Mandarin, to make sure no one is made disadvantaged by their language comprehension.

The Anak-anak Kota surprised the shoe maker Mr. Tan by making him a gaint signboard for his business. Everyone passing by the road is easily attracted by this eyes catching signboard. Hopefully this will bring more businesses to him and make this industry shine again as in its yesteryears.