Wong Kim Hoh meets...... (Sunday Times Interview Series)

[pianist]

as a boy, he said he stayed in a house in thomson area, not hdb flat...already came from a well to do family background.

[Temperament]

Yes, there is always 2 sides to a coin. We heard of people who were so poor in their childhood that they determine to work very hard to get rich. On the other hand is it easier for a rich man's or professional family's spoilt brat son to turn over a new leaf? i don't really know which is harder to do? But i think it is all based on one's character to succeed. So there again don't suspect his character just because he's from a quite well-off family.

[godjira1]

浪子回头，金不换。

Both situations are worthy of admiration imo.

[Temperament]

浪子回头，金不换。

Both situations are worthy of admiration imo.

Yes! you are certainly right. Both have characters, we should admire.

[a74henry]

Inspirational article.

It shows that perservance and having people (especially a capable wife) who can help you along your career are keys to success.

I like the parts where he works for his competitor (flexible) and asks himself questions (self-reflection to improve his business). These are also critical for him to survive and move his business to a higher level.

[Temperament]

Inspirational article.

It shows that perservance and having people (especially a capable wife) who can help you along your career are keys to success.

I like the parts where he works for his competitor (flexible) and asks himself questions (self-reflection to improve his business). These are also critical for him to survive and move his business to a higher level.

And what about he washed coffee cups in coffee shops on his own initiative & freewill & thick-skin & FOC until the coffee shop owners were moved and relented to start to talk to him about business. How many of us are willing to bring our self to this low to start business like this without any guarantee of rewarding result from coffee shop's owners. i doubt i will.
This is character man! If not what is it? If Miss Fortune & Miss Success don't give in to such a person then to whom? If you think and look deeper, there is actually fairness in this world.

[Musicwhiz]

This is an inspiring story! I am hopeless in Art so I really admire his courage and determination to pursue his passion!

The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on Mar 31, 2013
Wong Kim Hoh meets...Allan Chai
Tapping artistic talent leads to a life of plenty
Fashion designer's rags-to-riches journey is as intricate as his creations

Six months ago, Allan Chai moved into a five-storey house with six bedrooms, two jacuzzis, a bunker and a lift. He filled the 4,600 sq ft home with many beautiful things.

Among the statement pieces in the living room on the third floor - which opens out to an 80m lap pool - are a couple of Le Corbusier LC-1 sling chairs, a gold Salvador Dali Leda coffee table as well as a John John leather sofa and a 200cm-tall Missed Tree Vase, both by famous French designer and architect Jean-Marie Massaud.

A David Kracov sculpture - a kaleidoscopic swirl of fluttering butterflies - hangs on one wall; a calligraphic work by Pan Shou and a Chinese ink painting by Xu Beihong hang on another. Pan was a literary and calligraphic giant, while Xu was a grandmaster whose works now fetch millions in international auctions.

"I came here with nothing but I now have a house and nice things to look at," Mr Chai, 61, says in Cantonese with a bashful laugh. "I can say I have some results to show for my hard work."

If he is proud of himself, he has every right to be.

He left a small village in Johor and arrived in Singapore in 1972 to pursue a dream his disapproving father had heaped scorn on: to study art.

Fuelled by dogged determination, a great capacity for hard work and a coterie of helpful friends won over by his easy-going nature, he became a successful fashion designer whose creations were stocked not only in Singapore but also in London and Paris.

He parlayed his art training into designing lifestyle products, from handbags and cushion covers to mooncake boxes, and at one stage, he even ran a restaurant.

Today, Mr Chai is semi-retired. He keeps himself happy by making pieces for a few select clients, and running a uniform-design consultancy with his partner Ross Chng, which generates an annual turnover of more than $1 million.

Enjoying life has become a priority, with yearly jaunts to Bali and Paris where he can pamper his palate for beauty and good food.

Born in Muar, Johor, to rubber tapper parents, he had a hard start in life.

"From the time I was eight, I had to wake up each day at 5am to tap rubber and cut rubber sheets before going to school at noon," says the second of seven children. "I also had to go to the market, cook the meals and look after my younger siblings."

In school, he was academically mediocre but gifted in art.

"One of my teachers told me I should study art in Singapore after leaving school," he says.

His father heaped derision on the suggestion, and flatly said no. "He said, 'Art? You won't even be able to feed yourself!'."

So for two years after finishing secondary school, Mr Chai helped his parents tap rubber and cultivate pepper while simmering in a cauldron of frustration.

"I was interested in a career in art or music," says the soft-spoken designer, who won several singing competitions as a teenager. "But there was just no possibility that it would ever happen."

Fortunately, his mother took pity on him and gave him the money to enrol in a fine arts diploma course at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Nafa).

He arrived in Singapore almost penniless.

"My uncle was renting a room, partitioned by pieces of cloth, at a shophouse in Syed Alwi Road. He and his wife slept inside the room, I slept outside," he recalls.

The first year was extremely rough.

To feed himself, he gave tuition on weekends and became a part- time singer at the now defunct Gay World Amusement Park in Geylang.

"I'd go three times a week. If the regular singers were not there, I would go up on stage and take their place. I earned about $10 a night," he recalls.

In his second year, he won a Lee Foundation scholarship, which covered his course fee as well as art materials.

Someone he knew also got him a gig teaching children's art, and later, fashion design, at community centres.

"I told him I knew nothing about fashion design but he said he had course materials I could refer to. So I just grabbed the opportunity. It was a big deal for me because I used to be so painfully shy that I would turn red just talking to people."

By his third year at Nafa, he had a humming cottage industry of part-time jobs: teaching, singing, doing window displays for a department store as well as writing short stories for a couple of Chinese newspapers in Singapore and Malaysia. He also became a seasoned winner of art competitions, for everything from calligraphy to watercolours, and fashion design contests.

A snide remark by someone he knew prompted him to pick up dressmaking.

"He said, 'Sure, you can draw but can your designs be actually made into dresses? Do you know how to make them?'" he recalls.

A student of one of his fashion design courses came to his aid. A dressmaker, she taught him how to make patterns and how to translate design concepts into garments.

After graduating from Nafa in 1974, Mr Chai landed a job as a display artist at a department store. But he had to return to Malaysia a year later when his application for a work permit was turned down.

"I felt that I needed to show something to my father so when I was back in Johor, I decided to stage an exhibition of my paintings. I managed to sell quite a few pieces, including a traditional Chinese landscape for $1,500," he says.

When a friend told him about his plans to study fashion design in London, he decided to do the same. He was then 23 and had about $5,000 in savings.

He enrolled at the Paris Academy School of Fashion, and had to fork out the entire course fee of more than $4,000 before he could get a student visa.

It left him almost broke. He bunked with friends and immediately started looking for part-time work.

"I would do any job as long as someone was willing to hire me. I sold shoes and worked in fish and chips restaurants along Oxford Street, I also cleaned rooms and became a hotel receptionist," says Mr Chai, who later rented a bedsit in Kilburn, north-west London.

Deciding he needed to learn as much as he could, the young man also took part-time courses at the famed Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.

After graduating half a year earlier, he flew back to Singapore in 1979 and had a short stint designing dresses for wealthy Indonesian tai-tais.

"One of my godsisters, a dressmaker, then suggested starting a business. One of her friends was willing to invest," he says.

Nuptial Creations opened for business at Peninsula Plaza in 1980, selling bridal and ready-to-wear pieces designed by Mr Chai. Barely nine months into the venture, the investor pulled out.

Fortunately a benefactor - one of many in his life - appeared.

"He ran a pleating business. I'd sent dresses for him to pleat and we became friends. He saw me looking listless and dejected one day and after I told him what happened, he just loaned me more than $10,000 the next day," he says.

The lifeline allowed the fledgling designer to soldier on. To augment his income, he started teaching at his shop in the evenings.

His cheongsam pieces - some of which he handpainted - soon attracted the attention of fashion journalists.

But while the reviews for his creations were good, the designer was not quite making money. A friend then introduced him to former travel agent Ross Chng, who became his business partner.

The duo hit it off. Mr Chai concentrated on design; Mr Chng, now 62, focused on sales and marketing.

Wholesale, they decided, was the way to go and they soon started a ready-to-wear collection which was stocked at several outlets of the now defunct Klasse department stores.

The clothes did well but alas, the department store chain did not and went into liquidation.

Fortunately the partners had the foresight to take part in trade shows organised by the then Trade Development Board.

"We took part in pret-a-porter shows in London and Paris, and by the third year, we had managed to sell to Light, a mixed label boutique on Champs Elysees. They liked my gowns and dresses which featured very fine beadwork and sequins, and stocked them alongside Jean-Paul Gaultier, Genny and Versace," says Mr Chai, who also managed to sell to Yvette of Knightsbridge in London.

In the mid-1980s, he got another lucky break when he was commissioned to design the uniforms for Chang Jiang, an upscale Shanghainese restaurant at the Goodwood Park Hotel.

The flowing, classy cheongsam he came up with attracted a lot of attention, and soon he was flooded with commissions.

"At one stage, we had 80 per cent of the market share for uniform design here," says the designer who, on the advice of international buyers, changed the name of his label about 10 years ago from Allan Chai International to Allan Ross for easier marketing.

The partners' fame spread to Hong Kong, where clients include the likes of the Shangri La and Marco Polo hotels.

"At one stage, we were there four days a week. We've scaled back a lot, we now go there just three times a month," says Mr Chai, who recently added Myanmar Airways, Air Yangon and Air Mandalay to his list of clients.

Serendipity, he says, has played a big role in his success and his life.

In 2000, he and Mr Chng decided to open a restaurant called Red in Club Street.

"We rented three shop units in the area but decided two would be more than enough for our showroom and boutique. So we decided to turn the remaining unit into a restaurant because we both love to eat."

The stunningly decorated 60-seater - which served Sichuan dishes in fine crockery handpicked by the duo - broke even in less than a year.

But unending staff problems forced them to close it two years later.

The launch of their lifestyle collections in 2003 was also a happy accident after he decided to design his own cushion covers.

He liked the result and so did Raffles Hotel and the upmarket Lane Crawford department store in Hong Kong which stocked the Allan Ross home line of cushion covers, table and bed linen - which featured exquisite bead and patchwork - alongside international fashion brands such as Etro and Missoni. Lane Crawford was known to order 120 new designs every season.

"I've never been afraid to try new things. That's what design is all about," says the affable man who also sewed up a lot of commissions to design mooncake boxes for corporations.

About five years ago, the duo decided it was time to slow things down so that they could smell the roses.

Mr Chai, who became a Singaporean in the mid-1980s, is proud of what he has achieved.

"I made my father very proud of me. He told me he was wrong about me, about art," he says, adding that he he took his father on several trips before the old man died two years ago.

Although he could still be making pots of money by hiring a design team to carry on his home line, Mr Chai does not want to.

"I'm too fussy. If the beadwork on my cushion covers does not meet my standards, I won't let them go out," he says.

Ms Sharron Tan, 40, vice-president and head of operations for a German bank, has known Mr Chai for more than 10 years.

"Unlike many businessmen, he is not hungry for more money or fame. He's very strict about quality and I think it's a good thing that he does what makes him happy," says Ms Tan, who describes her friend as a grounded, kind soul.

Unlike many designers, the posterity of his label is not a big issue for Mr Chai.

"You have to learn when to let go or else it will never end," says the designer, who intends to go back to painting and teaching children art when he is fully retired.

"The key to a happy life, he says, is not to compare oneself with others. It is pointless," he says.

kimhoh@sph.com.sg

[Sampling]

Thanks MW for sharing this.

This is a good read indeed.

[greengiraffe]

People who had tough beginnings and the determination to better their life usually share the similar 先苦后甜stories.

http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/0901/040.html

Perseverance certainly helped Wong change his own destiny. Born into a poor family that worked on a rubber plantation in Johor, Malaysia, Wong became a tree tapper at age 7. "Life was tough—all I saw every day was rubber trees and mosquitoes. My early objective was to escape it and live in the city," Wong says.

Singapore's 40 Richest
The Restorer
Lan Anh Nguyen, 08.14.08, 05:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated September 01, 2008
Wong Fong Fui has made a fortune reviving companies like Boustead Singapore.

Wong Fong Fei



Complete List
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Singapore's 40 Richest
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The Restorer
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When Wong Fong Fui bought one of Singapore's oldest companies, Bousteadco Singapore, in 1996, he paid a premium for a piece of Singapore's corporate history. The relic's market capitalization was barely $14 million, but Wong spent triple that amount. "Everyone thought I was a fool," Wong laughs heartily. "Basically we bought the name. We started from scratch."

A dozen years later Wong, 65, whose nickname is F.F., has proved he was no fool. He has transformed the company, now called Boustead Singapore, from a hodgepodge of mostly unprofitable businesses into a well-regarded provider of industrial engineering and infrastructure.

The group has posted record sales and earnings for six consecutive years, up to $311 million and $36 million, respectively, through fiscal year 2008. It has orders for another $560 million in the pipeline. Boustead Singapore's stock has tripled in the past three years. Wong's 32% stake is worth $135 million, enough for him to debut among Singapore's 40 Richest at No. 37.

Wong says there's nothing magical about his success: Using a strong brand name, he offered services to emerging markets where demand for industrial engineering was rising, and won key business. "Generally, I'd say one needs passion and commitment and an ability to identify and deploy capable staff. Of course, it won't work if you don't have perseverance."

Perseverance certainly helped Wong change his own destiny. Born into a poor family that worked on a rubber plantation in Johor, Malaysia, Wong became a tree tapper at age 7. "Life was tough—all I saw every day was rubber trees and mosquitoes. My early objective was to escape it and live in the city," Wong says. He taught himself English by buying a dictionary and studying ten words a day. He woke up at 5 a.m. each morning to listen to the BBC on the radio. He was accepted into a secondary school after he wrote an essay, "My Story." An excerpt: "I tap rubber trees. I see rubber trees in the morning. I see rubber trees in the evening. I see rubber trees every day, day in, day out. Rubber trees, rubber trees. I hate rubber trees."

After graduating from high school Wong went to Australia with his family's life savings to study chemical engineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He says he worked for Esso in Malaysia before moving to England to work for Ralph M. Parsons, an American company that specializes in infrastructure projects.

That's where he met his wife, a Singaporean citizen. They got married and moved back to Singapore in 1973. (He became a citizen in 1986.) Wong started a chemical engineering outfit. He says he showed up at the offices of Indonesian oil and gas companies like a door-to-door salesman to win business. Indonesia was a bigger market for chemical engineering than Singapore, with more industrial companies in need of his services. "I was willing to take risks because I had nothing to lose," he says. After eight years, Wong says he
made enough money, "by my humble standard," to retire at age 40.

But that turned out to be a rare bad decision. Wong quickly got bored and started buying ailing companies and trying to fix them. "I always wanted to try something new and go against all odds," he explains. So he took on the mess at near-bankrupt QAF in 1988 when, he says, its market cap was just over $15 million. The company, which posted an operating loss of $6 million that year, was all over the place, involved in businesses ranging from oil exploration to newspapers to supermarkets. Plus there was drama involving its major shareholder, Brunei's royal family, which was fighting internally over what to do about the business. It refused to give QAF any new contracts or licenses.

Wong, who became an investor and its managing director, homed in on the only profitable piece, a bakery called Gardenia. Within three years QAF had become a food business selling items throughout Asia, including India and China. (In Brunei the business remained diversified.) By the time he sold out to Indonesia's Salim Group in 1996 for an estimated $500 million, QAF had become one of the region's largest food businesses.

He embarked on his next adventure in Myanmar in 1993. He and some investors put up $5 million for a combined 68% stake in the national airline, which didn't even have an airplane; the government owned the rest. Because of the Myanmar junta's involvement, nobody wanted to lend to them. Wong used his Brunei connections to lease a plane from Royal Brunei Airlines and soon had the airline flying. Within five years the generals took back control, but at least Wong and his investors were able to double their money.

These deals earned him a reputation as "one of the most exquisite turnaround specialists," says Tee Fong See, managing director of UBS Singapore and Wong's private banker. Tee, who also heads UBS' wealth management in Southeast Asia, had introduced QAF to Wong.

Boustead Singapore is the latest group to be restored by Wong. Casting about for his next fix-it project, he became intrigued by the aging company, Singapore's second oldest of European origin, in part because of the storied history of the young English entrepreneur, Edward Boustead, who founded the company in 1828. At one time or another it was involved in tin, rubber, palm oil and shipping. It was an agent for insurance giant Lloyd's, as well as one of the first importers of such brands as Tide detergent, Nestlé condensed milk and Moët & Chandon champagne.

But by the 1970s the company was split into three groups, Boustead Plc. in the U.K., Boustead Holdings Bhd. in Malaysia and Boustead Singapore Ltd. The Singapore group got whatever was in Singapore, like shipping and insurance. In the next two decades manufacturing and engineering businesses were added but not much was doing well.

By the time Wong came in, the company was left with "dribs and drabs." The most valuable part, he says, was a group that had the rights in Australia and parts of Asia to distribute ESRI mapping and spatial analysis software. Even that was making less than half a million Singapore dollars a year, one third of the company's profits.

Wong gambled that the storied Boustead name was still worth something. His first thought was to develop Boustead into a food company much as he did QAF. He tried to buy a related food business, Australia's Defiance, 18 months after buying Boustead, but failed. The company got into the bread business under the Bonjour brand, a costly venture that helped push the company into the red.

Wong was forced to concede that his plans had failed, calling it "a difficult learning curve." So he started getting rid of noncore assets, a tough decision as it shrank the size of the group considerably. He closed the marketing and distribution businesses, which had been associated with Boustead for decades. He divested food, insurance and power generation groups.

He shifted Boustead into industrial engineering and infrastructure, establishing new businesses, including one in industrial heater engineering. He also bought existing outfits, such as Salcon, a water treatment company.

Boustead now has projects in 75 countries. One-third of its revenue comes from energy-related engineering, such as solid waste energy recovery, and another third from its division that builds industrial warehouses. Its ESRI distribution business makes up 15%.

Notable deals won in the past 13 months include a $212 million joint venture to construct a 1,164-home township in Libya, a $124 million contract to build a water infrastructure system in Libya and a $42 million bid to build Singapore FreePort, a high-security storage area.

Now that the turnaround is nearly complete, is Wong getting ready to retire or to move on again? He insists no, saying that he plans to finish his career at Boustead, where his two sons also work. Though he is an avid golfer, he says he is enjoying himself too much to give it up. "It isn't the money. I always thought I had a fair share," he says. "It is the fun of being able to do what I do, and to contribute to society."

[CityFarmer]

People who had tough beginnings and the determination to better their life usually share the similar 先苦后甜stories.

There is an ancient Chinese saying

"天將降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，勞其筋骨" - 孟子

Translation: (please highlight if not correctly translated)
A man has to suffer in his mind and body, before becoming a great (successful) man - Mencius