Had these when my grandparents were around (those chinese gods / idols) and usually see them glow red in the dark. Oil lamp. About those mini statues - not sure which ones were those, but they looked pretty angry!
I think when I was 7, I tried overcoming my fear of these little statues. For a whole month, after midnight, I'll just walk up to these statues on the altar and look them in the eyes. One by one. Each for 5 minutes. Then, it became a thing of the past and I've outgrown that fear.
So recently I asked my mum about those altar statues that her parents had. She was like, what statues?