This painting of Jesus praying in the garden of Gathesamy was done by Lau Mang, a Sibu artist. He was a very thin man and I remember him as a man who liked to wear white shirts and white trousers. We seldom saw him in town but before Chinese new year he would visit the rich towkays and sell them his Chinese New Year Spring couplets. That was how I came to know about him in the first place.
The Chinese towkays loved to hate him. That was what they said about him and I remember that. But they did offer him some angpows when he came around. It was really true then, artists never made enough to fill their stomachs and they could not starve to death.
This painting graced the Masland Church at Island Road and I would look at it from Primary One to Primary Six.
Many years later I returned to Sibu for a visit. The old Masland Church was not longer standing but this painting was found in Kwang Hua Church, at the back of a new church building, no longer in the front, as it was in the Masland Church.
Instead, the three tablets, carved on belian wood, are placed at the front of the church.
I was told that these three wooden tablets were carved by a remarkable artist from Sg. Merah, Sibu. Awesome.
Hallelujah.
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