Moving Singapore: from Rickshaws to Motorbikes: Raising Singapore Family Business

By Eileen Tan

This book is a story about a tiny business, set up by an enterprising 19-year-old, that grew to become one of the largest and most well-respected companies in Singapore’s two-wheeler industry. It tracks the opportunities and challenges that Ban Hock Hin faced in Singapore and in the region over eighty years.

The story focuses on how the founder’s son built up Ban Hock Hin during Singapore’s post-independence years. It recounts the times he turned each crisis that the business faced into a catalyst for its growth and, in doing so, forged the company into the industry leader it is today.

In the telling of this story, we also trace the roots of his family, catch glimpses of Singapore society before and after the war, and look at the history of two-wheelers in Singapore.

Part biography and part family business history, it is a tale about an ordinary Singaporean running a Singaporean business – and some of the extraordinary things he achieved while doing it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Nov 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543755176

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 Eileen Tan @ Eileen Aung-Thwin. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN

ISBN: 978-1-5437-5516-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5437-5518-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5437-5517-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019917249

10/30/2019

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Work is love made visible.

- Kahlil Gibran

To

Dad

Contents

From the author

1890s to 1940s: Kow Sai and San Chwee

Rickshaw Roots

From Two Wheels to Three

1940s to 1960s: Robert

Growing Up

Training wheels

1970s: New Order

Taking Charge

Rallying the Trade

1980s: Shifting into High Gear

Out of the Ashes

Ahead of His Time

Venturing Abroad

Filial Duties

1990s: The Big Switch

Taking Time Out

Fighting Scooter Wars

Scaling Up

Changing the Game

2000-2019: Riding to New Heights

Taking Pole Position

Passing the Torch

Management and HR Philosophy

Personal Reflections, Henghua Connections

In His Words

Now, when I see a SingPost delivery bike or Traffic Police bike, I see an entire fleet and the support system behind it. Moving Singapore: From Rickshaws to Motorbikes is a short but fascinating read about the man who, out of the ashes of his motorbike retail shop in Beach Road, built a company that has become a leading player in the industry – supplying, maintaining and repairing thousands of two-wheelers in the delivery, transport and security sectors.

Robert Tan, chairman of Ban Hock Hin, is in a league of his own. He did not have much of an academic background to boast about. But what he had was a quick and sharp mind that helped him not only grasp the details but also see the big picture as well as the way ahead. He was able to know a good thing when he saw one even though he may not have fully understood the how’s behind it. He had the courage to go out of his comfort zone and to take risks that others baulked at. And he possessed an understanding of what customers needed and how people behaved. You could say he is an entrepreneur, visionary and behavioral psychologist all rolled into one. Coupled with his sense of integrity, filial responsibility and humility, he is a businessman with a big heart.

Singapore could do with many more Robert Tans.

- By Judith d’Silva, retired civil servant and former member of the Speak Good English Movement

Moving Singapore is at its core a remarkable story of a man who, within a single generation, beat the odds and built a thriving, innovative business in two-wheelers, based on the simple, yet powerful principle that working people in Singapore needed an affordable form of private transport. While in part a family history of the motorcycle industry, Moving Singapore is also a tale of the Henghua community, a sub-group within the broader Hokkien diaspora who played a crucial role in the development of Singapore’s transport infrastructure. In doing so, the book draws reader’s attention to the city-state’s longer settler history and the contributions that the Pioneer and Merdeka generations made towards the country’s development. Moving Singapore relates a story of nation-building from below, a glimpse into how an extraordinary man’s quest to connect common people via affordable, individualized transport contributed to the broader integration of Singapore.

- Maitrii Aung-Thwin, National University of Singapore

From the author

The idea for this book was planted more than a decade ago when a historian became fascinated by the story of Ban Hock Hin and of my father and encouraged me to write that story down. I finally had the chance to act on the suggestion in the year that both my father and Ban Hock Hin turned 80.

My father, Robert, was the source of much of the information captured in the following pages. His siblings – Bee Bee, Chin Bee and Richard – also contributed a great deal of information, especially those about the family’s history. Other family members like my cousin Su En (Denyse) and my mother, Alice, also shared their recollections and photos. I can’t thank them enough for helping me make this book happen.

Where possible, I’ve used scholarship and newspapers to provide some context, to double-check facts, or to corroborate accounts. Some of the information I was not able to verify. This book, therefore, is a collection of memories and perspectives as we know or remember them – not necessarily facts.

I’d like to thank my family and friends who read the drafts, shared their suggestions, and kept me going with their encouragement and support (Su En, I’m looking at you!). Much thanks to my friend Judith who proofread the manuscript in record time and helped me clean and polish the copy. I am also grateful to her for pushing me to write better and more clearly.

Special mention goes to Maitrii, my husband, without whom this project would likely not have been conceived and certainly not completed. His unstinting generosity, support, and optimism were vital to this book. Thank you, my love.

1890s to 1940s: Kow Sai

and San Chwee

Tan%20Shen%20Heung.jpg

Rickshaw Roots

Robert stood in front of the burnt husk of a building that once housed his family’s business and childhood home. In just a few pre-dawn hours, the flames had consumed 40 years’ worth of toil. A sodden, soot-blackened facade stood where the front of the shophouse should’ve been. Instead of shiny Japanese-made motorcycles, melted rubber and twisted metal now littered the shop floor. Robert had received a phone call in the early hours of the morning telling him that the business he’d taken over from his father only a decade ago was burning down. By the time he’d rushed to 131 Beach Road from his home in Toh Tuck Place, all he could do was pick through its remains.

Robert Tan, born Tan Bee Chuan, is the eldest son of Tan San Chwee (陈山水 or Chen Shan Shui in Mandarin, meaning ‘water from a mountain’). San Chwee was the middle son of a rickshaw puller turned shipbreaking businessman, Tan Kow Sai. Although born Tan Shen Heung (陈善馨 or Chen Shan Xin in Mandarin, meaning ‘pervading virtuousness’), he was known as Kow Sai – or Dog Shit – his whole life. To many Chinese, a good name was vitally important to the life and fate of a person. Some believed that a name that complemented the person could elevate his lot in life, whereas a name that was unsuitable – sometimes, even one too grand for his constitution – could pin him down. And some believed that a crude – even vulgar – nickname could shield a beloved child from the attention of malevolent spirits out to create even more misery in a time of hardship and high infant mortality. The cruder and more vulgar the nickname, the greater the protection, and the deeper the parents’ affection. Kow Sai’s parents must have loved him very much.

Kow Sai was born in a village called Dong Ao (东澳 or Dang Oh in Henghua) in Pingtan, a municipal county of Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province. The tiny fishing village is located at the eastern tip of China closest to Taiwan. Although the villagers identify as Henghua, the village is administered under Fuzhou, also known as Hockchew. The Henghua were originally from central China but migrated to present-day Putian in Fujian province¹. The Henghua language is quite distinct and unintelligible to those in southern Fujian, who speak Hokkien.

Kow Sai fled the crushing poverty and social chaos that was an ailing China in the late 1800s, one of the millions that left Fujian and Kwangtung province between 1880 and 1940². After surviving the arduous journey by ship to arrive in Singapore, like many other Henghua, he entered the transport trade and became a rickshaw puller. The rickshaw was a Japanese invention³ called jinrickshaw or rikishas. It was introduced in Singapore in 1880⁴, roughly around the same time the first Henghua arrived in Singapore⁵. By the time the Henghua arrived, other dialect groups such as the Hokkien were already well established in various trades and occupations⁶.

The Singapore Chinese were organised in various dialect groups, and each group formed a bang, or a social grouping which took the form of associations, clans or guilds. Bang members enjoyed protection and support with the basic necessities of life, such as food, shelter and jobs. Earlier migrants to Singapore chose occupations according to their dialect groups because it was easier to work with people who spoke the same language and came from the same clan. In some cases, businessmen who needed more labour would write home to their clansmen in China for more men. Often, apprentices and workers would eventually leave their masters or employers and set up their own businesses in the trade they had learned, thereby expanding the industry. And in so doing, some trades came to be dominated, if not monopolised, by certain dialect groups. For example, the Hakka came to dominate the Chinese Medicine and pawn broking businesses⁷. The Hokkien were masters of trade, banking, finance, insurance and shipping⁸. The Hainanese cornered the coffee shop industry, and the Cantonese, the entertainment industry⁹.

It was difficult for Chinese of different dialects to enter a trade already held by another. Thus, the newly introduced rickshaw industry gave the Henghua sinkeh (or ‘new guest’) an opportunity for trade and livelihood. They were also willing to work for less than their Hokkien and Cantonese peers who had entered the rickshaw pulling trade before them¹⁰. Dominance in the rickshaw trade also paved the way for the Henghuas to eventually dominate the transport trade as they later expanded into the trishaw, bicycle, motorcycle, taxi and automobile spare parts industries¹¹.

According to historian James Francis Warren, the rickshaw ‘revolutionized the life of Singapore’¹². It changed the way Singapore residents moved about the city – Singapore traffic was largely pedestrian before rickshaws provided a form of cheap mass transport¹³. Within a year of its introduction, some 1,000 rickshaws plied the streets for hire and quickly replaced the horse-drawn gharry as the mass transportation of choice¹⁴.

But rickshaw pulling was no easy trade. The other dialect groups thought it demeaning¹⁵. The work was extremely strenuous and the conditions, harsh and dangerous. Men have been known to fall over dead from over-exertion¹⁶. Motorised vehicles posed a deadly threat, especially from 1914 and on, after motor cars were introduced¹⁷. Disease and death were also rampant because of coolies’ squalid living conditions. An article in The Straits Times quoted the Attorney General calling rickshaw pulling the deadliest occupation in the East (and) the most degrading for human beings to pursue.¹⁸ The work was considered so hazardous the colonial government abolished double-seated jinrikishas in 1912 on ‘humanitarian grounds’.¹⁹

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A bronze sculpture of a rickshaw puller and his wealthy Peranakan passenger by award-winning Singaporean sculptor Lim Leong Seng. The sculpture sits in China