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Wai Oi Shiah Printing Presses
Located along Jalan Panglima (Panglima Street) is possibly one of the oldest remaining printing presses in Ipoh. Established by Madam Ng See Woh (second photograph in this entry), the grandmother of the current owner, who originated from China. Mr. Thong, the 3rd generation owner of Wai Oi Shiah mentioned that his grandmother lived to 103 years old and was still around at the time he was born, Mr. Thong was born right here at the printing press. He helped out at the printing press at a young age of 11 or 12, then his mother passed, this was about 47 to 48 years ago. Being the eldest among 3 other siblings, the responsibility of taking over the business was passed onto him. In his own words, “I was forced to take over the business when I was young, I’m the eldest no choice, my 3 other brothers are all graduates. My parents (third photograph, Mr. Thong Choong Yin - Father) said you don’t study, you’re the eldest, you take charge, you run the thing”.
When asked about the progression of the shop, Mr. Thong mentioned that the printing presses (machinery) came slowly in time as business grew. The press does all types of books, the common ones being bill books and receipts but they do not do newspapers. When asked about how long it would take to print bill books, Mr. Thong mentioned that it would take a week (1 week) to produce a bulk of 50. In operating the printing press, he would have to apply for 5 to 6 different licenses and permits annually: Ministry of Materials, Ministry of Labour, DBI (Ipoh city council), those were the main 3 and others, the total cost of these renewals would come to about RM1500. Is operating the machines tough work? Was our question to him to which he answered, “You’ll have to learn and it would depend on the individual itself”. It is in fact tough work, as the compositor (the person who does the print) has to put each letter of the alphabet in separately and also in reverse. Despite being advised by his children and nephews to stop and retire, he says it is difficult as there are old accounts that are yet to be settled. He is still using the presses to print books and would continue until he decides to stop and sell the business.
Mr. Thong recalled that back then there were 12 to 13 printing presses along the 2 streets (Panglima Street and Market Street) but all of them closed down including the famed Charles Grenier Printing Press. He believed that this was due to the long hours of work and with the margin of profit being very marginal. “It’s pointless, you make 100,000 and you can’t even purchase a new machine which would cost nearly half a million”. When asked, did you have any apprentices in the past? He mentioned that no printing presses would train apprentices but “You’ll be surprised, there are printing schools in Europe, England, Hong Kong, and Japan to train people to run these presses in Taiwan”.
At Wai Oi Shiah, Mr. Thong has a collection of ‘Movable Types’ which includes the common Roman A-Z types, Chinese types and also the uncommon Bengali types. He isn’t sure where the Bengali types were ordered from as it was already at the press before his time, however some of the Chinese types came from Shanghai and some came from Kuala Lumpur.
Unfortunately one of the few remaining printing presses in Ipoh closed down in 2017, Wai Oi Shiah is no longer in business.
To see photographs of the founders of the Wai Oi Shiah Printing Presses, click here.