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He is one of the less than 20 remaining craftsman at the apex of his fading trade today. But there used to be a time when there were 2,000 or so apprentices clamouring to learn from the masters, and as one of them, Phillip Tan started out by fetching coffee and mopping the floor for the senior craftsmen.
In between such obligatory odd jobs, he would spend the rest of his gruelling 12-hour workday, six days a week, practising the monotonous and seemingly simple act of polishing a gold ring - the most basic task typically assigned to junior gold apprentices at the time, and one that can take up to five years to perfect.
"Almost every day, you practise polishing only. It's meant to test your patience. So that your hands can be tough, can handle the tough job … (But ) you just imagine polishing every day, you go back your hand will feel numb," recalls Mr Tan, now a gold master artisan with homegrown jeweller Poh Heng.
Four decades later, the 55-year-old did not seem the slightest bit tired of executing the simple motion at a makeshift workbench, at fashion event last week. In his first media appearance at Poh Heng's annual jewellery showcase, the shy and reticent craftsman seemed more comfortable working his hands and tools than answering the emcee's questions about his job in front of a crowd of eager fashion journalists.
Speaking to TODAY after the event, Mr Tan said he got into the gold crafting trade - working as an apprentice for a gold wholesaler in the Serangoon area - at the age of 13 after his primary school education, simply because he "was not good at studying". "At that time, there were not much job choices, so you either become a gold craftsman or a mechanic," he says.