"Three or four years ago, I could sell 800 money turtles per year, which required NT$200,000 worth of one- and five-dollar coins." Laughing, Wei Ching-yang says that back then he even had to ask his eldest brother-in-law, who drives a taxi in Kaohsiung, to help find banks to change money, which was the only way he could get his hands on the 400 kilos of newly minted coins he would need in a year. "I always use new coins when making money turtles. For one thing they are more shiny and beautiful, and for another they aren't carrying around any accumulated bad luck," explains Wei.

An investment in your future

When talk comes around to how he "discovered" his money turtles, Wei, who has lived all his life in Wai-an Village in Penghu's Hsiyu Rural Township, reaches far back into his memory. When he was a kid, you could get fangpian turtles, made from glutinous rice and sugar, from the temples at Lantern Festival. These were to be taken home, where they would have incense stuck in them and be placed on the ancestral altar for three days. Gluttonous children would always break off the heads and feet of the turtles and eat them on the sly. However, as people have become wealthier, and the fangpian turtles have become bigger and bigger, these days you can't even give them all away, especially seeing as how people are watching their waistlines.

Once, Wei came to the main island of Taiwan, and saw that people had nailed coins into the heads of chickens and pigs carved out of wood. He had a sudden inspiration to use NT$1 coins to produce a genuine "money turtle." At that time Wei, already an accomplished model boat maker, created with his own hands a vivid and dazzling money turtle out of stacked coins. As you may have guessed, it was an immediate hit, and temples competed to purchase it. After the money turtle, Wei, a fount of creativity, went on to make money dragons, money carp, and all kinds of auspicious animals, all of which have proved very popular.

Although now others are using lower-cost money turtles to bite into part of the market, nonetheless the turtles or horses made by Wei's competitors often have wooden frames, with coins only nailed on to the surface. The quality of the craftsmanship, the materials, and the sculpting are simple and crude. Wei is immensely proud of the fact that: "My money turtles are all built up one coin at a time, with head, shell, body, and limbs made separately, creating a complete three-dimensional image."

There is more quality in the detail work: Wei's money turtles wear an official's cap with peacock feathers, while carp have a matching embroidered base of "waves," making them objects of lasting beauty. He is engaged not only in the making of auspicious cultural symbols, but in creating works of aesthetic value.

A model citizen

Another thing for which Wei Ching-yang is famous far and wide is his carving of model boats, a craft in which he is entirely self-taught.

Wei, born in 1958, went to sea right out of primary school. It was only in 1994, seeing the decline of Taiwan's fishing industry, that he came ashore and changed careers. However, after 30 years on the water, he remained just as attached as ever to fishing boats. So, in his spare time, he assembled some fishing boats from carved wood and gave them to his friends. He received so much praise that it inspired him to continue his creative work, and from there he made the leap to model fishing boats.

Wei's boats are made in the finest detail, entirely out of juniper wood. They are exact replicas of the real thing in every detail and structure. They are equipped not only with radar, wireless communication equipment, and net winches, but everything actually is operable, and even the doors and windows can be opened and closed. His handiwork captures the real thing so well that it's downright spooky. Even old seadogs gush in praise when they see his boats.

As Wei's reputation for boat-making spread, in 1997, when the Penghu Cultural Center opened a museum of oceanic resources, as part of the display on Penghu's declining fishing boat culture, they commissioned Wei to make 12 boats of various types, including a military craft, a sampan, a bamboo raft, a fishing boat with cabin, and a modern motorized fishing vessel.

In fact, this commission fit right in with one of Wei's personal ambitions. For many years now, he has visited elderly people all over Penghu, and even gone six times to fishing villages in southern Fujian in mainland China, recording more than 100 audio tapes on the construction details, customs, and taboos of old fishing boats.

To keep his vision sharp, Wei asks his wife to prepare the appropriate eye-friendly tonic foods for him every day, and when he has time he stares off at distant objects as exercise; in addition, he indulges in neither tobacco nor alcohol. You can see that he is truly committed to the making of his model boats.

In Wei's workshop on a small slope next to the harbor, there are many models of boats as well as money turtles of various sizes. Take a model of a fishing boat: The hull is white, with reflective beads attached as fishing lamps. Underneath the boat, transparent light blue acrylic has been cut to simulate ocean waves, and white cotton serves as the foam at the crests of the waves. Wei's physical presence-dark, weathered, and unpolished-makes a fascinating contrast with his refined attention to detail and the spirit with which he works.

Whether at sea or ashore, Wei has always had his heart and soul in the fishing boats, blue skies, and vast seas of Penghu.

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Equipped with just tweezers and some ordinary adhesive, Wei Ching-yang assembles various denominations of coins to produce amazing reproductions of auspicious animals like turtles, dragons, and carp.

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Wei's whole life has been connected to the sea, and the sea turtles he makes are especially vivid.