Inspiring lessons from great rags-to-riches sagas
December 25, 2006 | 12:00am
Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. –British writer and statesman Benjamin Disraeli
The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. –Confucius
FENGYANG, China – Isn’t it amazing that almost all the greatest business leaders in history are mostly rags-to-riches entrepreneurs, such as the world’s wealthiest billionaire Bill Gates (who was a college dropout); the world’s richest tycoon, the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart; legendary US tycoon and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller; Hong Kong’s Li Ka Shing (whose father died when he was age 12); Singapore’s early 20th-century Rubber King and Xiamen University founder Tan Kah Kee; Japan’s late Konosuke Matsushita; South Korea’s late Lee Byung Chull of Samsung; and the late Chung Ju Yung of Hyundai?
Congratulations to our very own inspiring "rags-to-richest" taipan, SM Group founder Henry Sy Sr., for topping Forbes magazine’s recent roster of the 40 wealthiest tycoons of the Philippines.
A few months ago, when the editors of this magazine asked for my assessment on the country’s wealthiest, I told them that I believed former Echague sari-sari storekeeper and postwar Avenida Rizal shoe retailer Henry Sy was No. 1 in the Philippines, because he worked his way to become No. 1 in shopping malls, movie cinemas, and now he is approaching No. 1 in banking if he decides to merge Banco de Oro, Equitable PCIBank and China Bank. Most of his major enterprises are publicly listed, and therefore one can more easily assess his true worth, less his loan obligations. When I asked the opinion of Sy’s well-known competitor about my assessment, despite being a legendary business leader himself, he humbly acknowledged that Henry Sy is indeed the wealthiest person in the Philippines today.
When Forbes’ editor visited Henry Sy and his eldest daughter Tessie Sy-Coson (whose late husband was the ethnic Chinese lumber and realty tycoon Louie Coson), he told me that Tessie humbly said that she believes Lucio Tan is wealthier due to his diverse overseas investments and that perhaps John Gokongwei Jr. is richer. (By the way, at the recent launching of the Christmas bazaar at Hotel InterContinental in Makati City with this writer, SGV Group founder Dr. Washington SyCip and Congresswoman Cynthia Aguilar Villar doing the ribbon-cutting, SyCip told me that the business leader he admires most is none other than the hardworking and unassuming Tessie Sy Coson.)
Another daughter of Henry Sy’s, Elizabeth, recounted to me her experience on a plane ride, where a lady approached her, commenting that she had high cheekbones, and saying that perhaps she and her dad were descended from illustrious Chinese nobility. She quickly and humbly responded that no, their family came from "poor peasant stock in south Fujian province."
Contrary to the popular misconception that Chinese civilization has enduring hereditary nobility due to numerous imperial palaces and the grandeur of its ancient dynasties, almost all of the greatest conquerors and founders of dynasties were actually rags-to-riches achievers who boldly challenged and overthrew the weak or effete descendants of the reigning elite. Unlike the royal families of Europe and Japan with their age-old bloodlines, it is Confucian tradition that whenever a dynasty in China became corrupt or morally weak, the "Mandate of Heaven" from God was considered withdrawn, as evidenced by the masses’ suffering or natural disasters. Then it was the right and even the duty of the masses to rise up in bloody revolution to "ke ming," or "change the mandate."
On my way from Nanjing to Luoyang City in Henan province and Xian City in Shaanxi province, I passed by this small city, called Fengyang, where very few foreign tourists usually visit. According to the city government, only 8,000 foreign tourists visited this place from 1992 to 2003, because there are no opulent palaces or grand temples here. Perhaps so few foreign tourists come here that city officials stopped counting after 2003.
Why did I pass by this small city? I remember once reading that about 4.7 kilometers southeast of the city center is Ming Huang Lin, or the mausoleum of the parents of the Ming Dynasty’s founding Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang – one of Asia’s truly great rags-to-riches success stories.
The son of a poor tenant farmer and beancurd seller, Zhu Yuanzhang was a Buddhist monk who once eked out a living for three to four years as a beggar. He eventually led a peasant revolt that overthrew the Mongol-ruled Yuan Dynasty. He founded the glorious Ming (meaning "Brilliance") Dynasty as emperor at age 40 and transformed China into the world’s richest empire of that era. It was during the zenith of the Ming Dynasty that Admiral Zheng He launched the world’s mightiest naval expeditions, not to colonize other nations or wage war, but to explore new realms and hold cultural exchanges with Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
I wanted to visit Fengyang to see for myself a big stone tablet inscribed with the words of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, which described his humble beginnings without embellishments. On his parents’ mausoleum grounds are two huge stone tablets, or steeles, called "Husng Ling" steeles. The steele on the east had no words, while the 6.87-meter-high steele on the west side has dragon carvings and carvings of 1,105 Chinese words written by the emperor himself as an epitaph. The emperor also prepared the words because he was afraid that fawning officials and politicians would distort the truth and claim noble ancestry in his family background.
Almost unprecedented for great political leaders of the world, past or present, the emotional, brutally honest and disarmingly humble words of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang describe his parents as poor peasants who toiled day and night for their family’s survival, and that their life was miserable. He described how his father, mother and brother died when he was young, and added: "The cruel landlord did not care whether we would live or die. He came to our house and yelled at us…" He also described how his poor hometown suffered severe drought and a plague of locusts, causing him and the people of the village to eat grass roots and bark.
"I myself was also penniless," wrote Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. "Every day I trembled with fear and felt as if I had gone mad. Here, I write of my hard days with tears in my eyes. I hope later generations will carry on the great cause of the older generations."
If a former poor immigrant boy like Henry Sy can achieve his lifelong dream to be No. 1 after over a half century of painstaking hard work and struggles, if a college dropout like Bill Gates can become the world’s wealthiest billionaire by the power of his technological genius, if a penniless youth and former beggar/monk like Zhu Yuanzhang can become the visionary founder of the brilliant Ming Dynasty by his guts and grit, can’t all of us likewise overcome our fears and troubles, transform rags into riches, tears into victories?
May the magic of Christmas remind all of us that there is always hope for a better tomorrow for those of us who never cease to work, to pray, to dream and to believe.
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