"You need people to help with the preservation -- without the help of people, these skills will be lost," says Tam.
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Tam reminisces on the days when the industry was still booming. "At the peak, people were rushing to work and it was lively. A lot of industries were intertwined and were impacted by this decline -- catering, retail, food and beverage like fish stalls. Those were happy times."
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Tam says that every part of the ship is important.
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Macao has a 150-year-old shipbuilding history.
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The industry peaked in the 1950s. By the 1980s, the industry was in steep decline.
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Tam's makeshift studio is an abandoned shipyard in the coastal Lai Chi Vun village.
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The shipyard is considered a protected heritage site by the Macao government.
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"The shipbuilding process is the same," he says. "The only difference is the tools used."
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Tam says that building miniatures requires extreme precision and attention to detail.
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Each miniature is an exact replica of its large-scale counterpart.
