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By KOW KWAN YEE
Photos by LIM BENG TATT

No child's play: Rojak seller Khor Ewe Hock has a hidden talent - he is a master at making dough figurines of cartoon characters and legendary warriors.

DESPITE his age, Khor Ewe Hock seems to be living in a world of cartoon characters and legendary warriors.

The 65-year-old rojak seller’s face beamed with delight at the mention of Ninja Turtles, Doraemon, the Eight Immortals and the Monkey King (Sun Wu-Kung).

Then again, it is no child’s play dabbling with these characters as far as Khor is concerned.

For he is a master when it comes to crafting colourful dough art figurines of these characters, popular with children and adults alike.

And Khor is as serious about whipping up a delightful treat of rojak as he is with the figurines.

“It takes deep concentration and speed to produce these figurines, as they are small and the dough dries up fast,” said the self-taught artist at his stall on Lebuh Macallum in Penang.

Khor said his interest in the art was fired up after he was impressed with a group of Shanghainese artists who came to the state to demonstrate their skills many years ago.

“I saw them transform dough into lively figurines simply using their magical hands,” he said, adding he was only 15 at that time.

Having practised the art for some 50 years, Khor is quite renowned for his hobby in Penang.

His dexterous fingers are a delight to watch, as he goes about mixing flour with water before twisting, turning and pressing the dough into lovely figurines — literally breathing life into them.

“It usually takes about 20 minutes to complete each figurine,” said the father of two.

Dexterous hands: Khor crafting art figurines from dough.

Khor pointed out that he had to mix colour powder into the dough to make it attractive while steel sticks were used to create difficult shapes such as the fingers and nose.

His customers come from all walks of life. While children clamour for cartoon characters such as Ninja Turtles, Doraemon, Ultraman and Monkey King, adults prefer the God of Prosperity, God of War (Kuan Kong) and the Eight Immortals.

Each figurine costs RM10 (small) and RM20 for the big ones.

Despite practising the art for five decades, Khor admitted that many of his rojak customers did not know about his talent as he made the figurines based on bookings.

“People who know will come to my rojak stall and book their customised figurines. They are popular during Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn festival,” he enthused.

During the recent 15-day lunar new year, Khor was invited to give demonstrations at 18 events, including those at E&O Hotel, 1st Avenue Mall, Tanjung Tokong and Balik Pulau, where he sold more than 500 figurines.

He, however, said he is not about to give up his rojak business and go full-time into dough art, saying he still needed to sell rojak to earn a living.

“Dough art figurine is my hobby. But I am prepared to teach young people although many are not keen on it,” he added.

Khor said he took on several apprentices before but all of them dropped out half way.

Having said that, he expressed confidence that dough art would never be forgotten as there were still some people around doing it.

One of Khor’s customers, Koay Teng Yan, 52, expressed surprise that his regular rojak seller was a master in making dough art figurines.

“I didn’t know that he has skilful hands. I’ve never seen him doing this before until today,” said Koay, who has been patronising the rojak stall for over 20 years.

Khor runs his stall in front of the Kedai Kopi Sin Hong Leong at 316, Lebuh Macallum everyday between noon and 6pm except Sundays. He can be contacted at 016-4772472/016-4030724.

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Posted by admin on March 11, 2011 under Penang Story.