JOHOR BARU: Not wanting to see Malay traditional houses disappear from the modern landscape, a retiree spent a year during the Covid-19 lockdowns building miniature houses using ice cream sticks and glue.
Mohd Amin Afuan, 58, used to work as a car salesman before deciding to retire right after the movement control order (MCO) ended in 2021.
“I have been interested in woodcraft since I was a child growing up at Felda Pasir Raja in Kulai because my father did some carpentry work back in the day.
“However, I never got around to it because of my work until the MCO was imposed. I just stayed at home watching videos on social media,” he said when met at his house in Taman Desa Tebrau here yesterday.
Mohd Amin added that one of the videos he came across on social media was about building miniature houses and he immediately became interested.
The father of four said that everything he learned from doing the miniature houses was self-taught, including the design, construction and details.
“I never even stepped foot inside these wonderful traditional houses. I built these miniature houses based on pictures I found on the Internet and my imagination.
“Each of these miniature houses has bedrooms, hallway, stairs, windows and even furniture to capture what our traditional houses look like,” he added.
Mohd Amin also said that since starting his craft venture, he has built about nine traditional houses such as Rumah Limas Johor, Rumah Terengganu, and Rumah Minangkabau.
He added that it would take him between two and four months to complete each miniature house, including the landscape.
“The main items that I use in building these miniature houses are ice cream sticks and glue, with knives and saws as tools.
“As an example, I glued more than 3,000 pieces of ice cream sticks together that I cut into shape just to build a roof for one of them,” he added.
Mohd Amin, who has three grandchildren, said he recently took part in the Johor Craft Festival and the Kota Selatan Festival held last year at a shopping mall in Tampoi where he displayed his craft for the first time to the public.
He said that he received much positive feedback from visitors, including the younger generation who said they had never seen such houses before.
“A visitor started to tell me that one of the houses I built reminded him of his grandparents’ house in Kluang and thank me for reminding him of his childhood.
“I also have a shop at Johor Craft Complex here where recently two tourists from South Korea were amazed that here in Malaysia we have such traditional houses,” he added.
Mohd Amin said that he was currently building Rumah Perak and soon after its completion, he would build houses that represent each state in Malaysia.
