The man was doing embroidery of the Eight Sacred Treasures

Walking through the center of Tainan, I found another workshop. This workshop also seemed to be making a type of banner called “Eight Sacred Treasures” to be displayed on an altar. "Eight Sacred Treasures" is a festive motif of eight representative Taoist immortals.

In the workshop, several craftsmen were working silently. Staring at their hands, they were working silently. There was a strange calmness to the scene, a quiet tension in the air. Although the banner is not so familiar in Japan, it is a common practice accepted by people of all classes in the Greater China region. Taiwanese people are deeply religious. Not only do they visit temples around town, but they also have an altar at home, where they display the eight immortal colors.

In one corner of the workshop, a red cloth was stretched over a wooden frame. On the cloth was a rough sketch, and a small pair of scissors and a large pair of scissors were lined up. When I pointed my camera at him, a man continued to work earnestly. He straightened his arm and embroidered, making sure that the thread he pulled was straight and taut. There was no waste in his movements; it was as if he was quietly breathing life into the cloth.

A space where the vivid red of the eight-senkai and the silent concentration of the craftsmen intersect. In the midst of this, time seemed to flow slowly.

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