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Stone Mason At Work (1)
- National Archives of Singapore Fonds
Fonds/Collection
- 26/03/1998
Record Date
- 01:12:00
Recorded Duration
- Hokkien
Recording Language
-
1998001587
Accession No.
- Audiovisual
Type
- Hi-8
Format
-
Access permitted
Conditions Governing Access
-
Use and reproduction require written permission from depositing agency/donor. Processing of reproduction request may require 7 working days.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
-
Synopsis :1) General Description:
Filming is done at a stone mason's workshop at Baghdad Street.
2) Content Description:
Begins at 00:00:36
(00:00:36) Interviewer in room. Street name sign - Baghdad Street. Road, man carrying some metal sheet. In distance high rise office block.
(00:01:01) ground level, lots of round objects in front of one building. Again street name sign - Baghdad Street.
(00:01:26) Interviewer standing at doorway of workshop. Pan to other buildings. Baghdad Street sign again.
(00:02:01) Door of stone mason's workshop. Old red letter box with 43A on it. Name board (in Chinese) above doorway. Relative big tomb stone with Chinese characters.
00:02:39 Stone mason - with cap on - bending down to measure lower part of granite grinder. Interviewer off camera speaking in Hokkien. Man in another workshop working on a steel shape.
(00:03:13) Stone mason looking down on floor at two hammers and few chisels. Interviewer (in Hokkien) asking about these tools, why there are two hammers. Stone mason squatting down in front of square block of granite. Just walk away (to surprise of interviewer), returns, telling interviewer to watch and he would understand.
(00:05:05) Stone mason starts working on square block of granite. This involves knocking off unwanted parts of square block to shape it into a round block. He does this with his tools - two hammers and various chisels - for next hour. His other tool is a circular outline to draw two circles on the square block with some black ink on a brush. He first squats, then he sits on the floor. With his tools he knocks away the sides, top and bottom. Most of time he uses one foot to keep the block from moving. He makes a small hole, dead centre, in the centre of one end (which later is the base) and makes a bigger hold at other end (which is the top end) more to the side. When the block takes shapes it is top half of grinder (used for grinding rice to make rice flour by the Chinese). Lower half of grinder is by the side from the start of filming.
Footnotes: mike is not turned off, side conversation in English, off camera, between interviewer and NAS TSO, is heard throughout recording.
