They are part neighbourhood association centre, part temple, part community foundation, and almost always decorated in coiling dragons, paintings of Immortals, Confucian sages, Taoist demigods and Buddhist scripture, photos of ancestors and inlaid classical Chinesescript.
Sho, like its Chinese predecessor caoshu (literally, grass script), is far more fluid and interpretive than formal script in either language, offering the writer greater freedom and creativity.