Road to prosperity

Many moons ago when I first visited Shanghai, I could go up to a viewing deck on a bridge and see a vast expanse of flatland, mostly farms, across the Hua-ngpu River.

Over the years during my periodic visits to the city – as a tourist, or as a journalist – I was always astonished by the dizzying development of that flatland called Pudong New Area, which officially kicked off on April 18, 1990 through an announcement by China’s central government.

In 1997, work began on Pudong International Airport. It was opened just two years later. The speed and quality of the work never ceased to amaze me in the many times that I used that airport.

Just 20 years since the special development zone was formally established, Pudong was ready for its debut on the world stage. Shanghai successfully hosted the World Expo 2010, with awesome venues set up on both sides of the Huangpu.

The rapid development reflected that of China since Deng Xiaoping opened the communist country to the global free market, telling his compatriots that to get rich is glorious.

And get rich the country did. The bicycles that crowded the streets of Beijing during my first visits to that capital were replaced by new cars, many of them pri-cey German brands. My Chinese media colleague in the Jefferson Fellowship in Hawaii’s East-West Center later joined a tech startup, which became one of China’s biggest companies, and she became immensely prosperous.

Being a new development allowed sustainable smart city planning for Pudong. Its coming-out party, the 2010 World Expo, also put Shanghai on a genuine path to attaining the expo’s theme of a “better city, better life.”

Last week, 15 years since I last toured Shanghai, I was impressed with how clean and green much of the city has become. The waterways are enviably clean and the flowers of spring are in full bloom, providing patches of picturesque vibrant colors in many streets.

Chinese officials themselves will tell you that there’s still a lot of poverty in their country. Economic growth has also slowed down significantly from the meteoric rise since the 1980s under Deng’s policy of opening up.

Today China’s economy faces headwinds, and it has not been immune from the ongoing fuel crisis despite its friendship with Iran. China has massive investments in the Gulf states, and thousands of its citizens work in the conflict zone.

Still, progress in what has become the world’s second largest economy is visible everywhere in Shanghai.

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It was interesting to see that progress reflected in the fortunes of a Philippine company that has become a huge success in both countries.

The story of Oishi, maker of my favorite prawn crackers, is well known, along with the business acumen of its indefatigable Tsinoy founder, Carlos Chan, whose immigrant parents from Fujian started Liwayway Marketing in Manila in 1946.

Oishi (or oishii) is Japanese for “delicious,” and yes, Japanese technology was used when Liwayway branched out to snack foods in 1974. Carlos Chan saw the enormous potential of his parents’ home country early on. Liwayway introduced the Chinese to modern processed snacks, and the business boomed alongside China’s whirlwind ascent to its current status as the world’s second largest economy.

Chan is enjoying life in advanced age and has passed on the corporate reins to the next generation. It was his son Larry who welcomed our group of execu-tives and editors from The STAR last week to the China headquarters of Liwayway (Global) Company Ltd., in Shanghai’s Qingpu District.

Older Pinoy generations remember Liwayway as a brand of gawgaw or cornstarch. The company has since branched out to other aspects of food processing, with an integrated network of production hubs all over the Philippines and China, plus factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, South Africa, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

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Shanghai-based Larry Chan, now Liwayway Global’s chairman, gave us a tour of the sprawling corporate headquarters, including their first office building when they set up shop in 1993 in China. Although made of concrete, the building looks like a retro prefab of repurposed shipping containers, which provides contrast to the rest of the compound, parts of which look like a theme park of Oishi snacks.

Larry is as unassuming as his father, whom I first met over lunch at the home of the late National Artist F. Sionil Jose at La Solidaridad bookstore in Manila.

Like China, Oishi invests heavily in R&D. Larry briefed us on how the company has evolved with the times not only in terms of flavors but also in the processing, packaging and marketing of Oishi products in the age of social media and health consciousness.

They monitor evolving tastes and have produced healthier snacks, with zero trans-fat, lower salt and sugar, although MSG is still there for umami. Products are tailored to their country of operation, so some of the snacks produced in China are not available in the Philippines.

Their next likely blockbuster is the salted egg yolk potato chip. An egg yolk-themed display greets visitors to their headquarters, and egg yolk-themed mer-chandise are highlighted in their merch display area along with the original products, prawn crackers and Kirei Yummy Flakes.

The salted egg yolk potato chips will soon be available in the Philippines, and possibly across the Liwayway global chain.

Carlos Chan and his family bet big on both the Philippines and China, and the winnings have been enormous.