Master Tailor Chung was the pioneer batch of National Service men who joined the Singapore Armed Force. Those days, army training was much strenuous as he retold his qiong sua (i.e. bash up the mountain in Hokkien) stories to my brother and I when we were growing up. "Lots of perseverance, resilience, and grit," he said. Likewise, for the tailoring craft, it is long hours of painstaking handiwork, cut after cut, stitches over stiches, fit after fit in perfecting the piece of