In Ipoh, an eighty-two-year-old craftsman named Chai Min Chak continues to shape wooden photo frames by hand, as he has done since the age of eighteen — a span of sixty-four years that speaks not merely to longevity, but to a life organized around devotion to a single, meaningful act. In an era when mass production has standardized the vessels in which we preserve our most intimate memories, Chai's workshop stands as a quiet reminder that some human needs — the need for something made precisely, personally, for us — resist the logic of scale. His persistence is less a refusal of the modern wor
At 82, Master Craftsman Keeps Wooden Frame Trade Alive
This is what I have known and loved for most of my life
Mark
Why does someone stay in a trade for sixty-four years? What keeps him showing up?
Mimi
Because it's become part of how he understands himself. He learned it as a teenager from his brother, and it's been the constant in his life ever since. At eighty-two, he's not staying because he has to—he's staying because the alternative, not doing it, doesn't make sense to him.
Luke
But we should be careful here. The article says he "has no plans to retire," but that's his statement. We don't know if he's financially dependent on the income, if there's family pressure, or if he simply loves it. Those are three very different stories.
Mimi
Fair point. What we do know is that customers still come to him. Families want custom frames. Businesses want them. That demand is real.
Mark
So there's still a market for handmade frames even though you can buy them anywhere?
Mimi
Yes. But it's a specific market—people who want something sized exactly right, with choices about how it looks. Mass-produced frames come in standard sizes. His don't.
Luke
How big is that market, though? The article doesn't say how many customers he has, how much he makes, whether the business is growing or shrinking. We know demand exists, but we don't know its scale.
Mark
Does it matter? Isn't the point just that he's kept the skill alive?
Luke
It matters for understanding whether this is a sustainable tradition or a sunset story—whether other people are learning the craft, whether it will outlive him.
Mimi
The article doesn't tell us that. His children run the factory, not the frame shop. We don't know if anyone is learning from him.
Mark
So what we actually have is one man, eighty-two, doing what he loves, and we don't know what happens next.
Mimi
Exactly. And that's the real story—not that he's kept it alive, but that we don't know if it will survive him.
The Pulse
- At eighty-two, Chai Min Chak arrives at his Ipoh workshop every day with no thought of retirement, defying the quiet expectation that a man his age would have long since stepped away.
- The industrialization of everyday goods has swallowed most of what was once made by hand, leaving craftsmen like Chai increasingly rare and their workshops increasingly invisible.
- Customers still seek him out precisely because factories cannot give them what he can — a frame built to the exact dimensions of a child's portrait, a wedding photograph, a moment that refuses to fit a standard shelf size.
- Chai navigates the tension between tradition and practicality by blending hand tools with select machinery, choosing jelutong wood for its lightness, and spending up to six hours on a single demanding piece.
- His children have moved into the family's factory business, leaving Chai alone in his workshop — a deliberate separation that keeps the craft entirely his own, unmechanized and unhurried.
In Ipoh, an eighty-two-year-old craftsman named Chai Min Chak continues to shape wooden photo frames by hand, as he has done since the age of eighteen — a span of sixty-four years that speaks not merely to longevity, but to a life organized around devotion to a single, meaningful act. In an era when mass production has standardized the vessels in which we preserve our most intimate memories, Chai's workshop stands as a quiet reminder that some human needs — the need for something made precisely, personally, for us — resist the logic of scale. His persistence is less a refusal of the modern world than an affirmation that certain forms of care cannot be manufactured.
In a workshop in Ipoh, Chai Min Chak moves through his day the way he has for sixty-four years — measuring timber, shaping wood, assembling frames by hand. He is eighty-two now, and retirement would surprise no one, yet he arrives daily with no intention of stopping. The trade began when he was eighteen, learned from his elder brother, and has since become the architecture of his life.
His method blends old and new. He relies on hand tools for direct control but also uses machines alongside traditional techniques. Jelutong wood is his preference — light and forgiving. A simple frame takes about an hour; larger, more precise pieces can occupy five or six hours. He also produces glazing and ordinary mirrors, extending the range of what his hands can accomplish.
The customers who find their way to him want something factories cannot provide. Families come with photographs that need frames sized exactly right. Business owners commission work for landscapes or images of religious significance. None of them are looking for standard dimensions pulled from a shelf — they want frames built to their measurements, with choices about profile and proportion that reflect what the image needs.
His two children have chosen a different path, running the factory side of the family enterprise alongside his brother, leaving Chai alone in his workshop — the way he prefers it. He has never been tempted to scale up or mechanize fully. What keeps him there, day after day, is simple: this is what he has known and loved for most of his life. A customer walks in with a photograph and a vision, and Chai knows what to do — a quiet argument, in a world of mass production, for the persistence of things made one at a time, made right, made to fit.
In a workshop in Ipoh, Chai Min Chak moves through his day the way he has for sixty-four years—measuring timber, shaping wood, assembling frames by hand. He is eighty-two now, old enough that retirement would surprise no one, yet he arrives at his shop daily with no intention of stopping. The trade that began when he was eighteen, learned from his elder brother, has become the architecture of his life.
Chai picked up frame-making as a teenager and never set it down. His brother, now ninety, moved into the factory business, but Chai stayed with the craft itself—the direct work of turning raw wood into something a family would trust with their most valued photographs. For more than six decades, he has watched the world change around him while his hands have remained steady at the same essential task.
His method blends old and new. He relies heavily on hand tools, the implements that give a craftsman direct control, but he also uses machines alongside traditional techniques to cut, shape, and assemble the timber. Jelutong wood is his preference—light enough to handle, forgiving enough to work with after all these years. A simple frame takes about an hour; the larger pieces, the ones that demand more precision and care, can occupy five or six hours of his time.
The customers who find their way to his workshop want something the factories cannot provide. Families come looking for frames sized exactly right for a child's portrait, a wedding photograph, a moment they want to preserve in a specific way. Business owners commission frames for landscape photographs or images of religious significance. None of these people are looking for standard dimensions pulled from a shelf. They want frames made to their measurements, with choices about profile—flat or raised—that reflect what the photograph needs. Chai can make them big or small, whatever the customer requires. He also produces glazing for frames and ordinary mirrors, extending the range of what his hands can accomplish.
His two children have chosen a different path. They run the factory business alongside his brother, leaving Chai alone in his workshop, the way he prefers it. The separation is clean: the industrial side of the family enterprise belongs to them; the craft belongs to him. He has never been tempted to scale up, to mechanize fully, to chase the volume that would come with abandoning the personal touch.
What keeps him there, day after day at eighty-two, is simple and complete. This is what he has known and loved for most of his life. The work comes naturally now, muscle memory and judgment so deeply embedded that he barely has to think. A customer walks in with a photograph and a vision, and Chai knows what to do. In a world where mass production has swallowed most of what used to be made by hand, he remains—a quiet argument for the persistence of things made one at a time, made right, made to fit the life of the person who will live with them.
Notable Quotes
I still rely heavily on hand tools, and machines are also used alongside traditional techniques to cut, shape and assemble the timber.— Chai Min Chak
Customers can order frames in different sizes and designs according to their requirements. We can make them big or small, depending on what they need.— Chai Min Chak
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