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-- ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM
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OLD Chang Kee chairman Han Keen Juan is pointing to something with his right hand and beckoning with his left. 'Come and see this,' he says.
Looking up at a wall in the Woodlands headquarters of the home-grown curry puff chain, he adds: 'Many companies hang photographs of the bosses. But this is what I chose to put up instead.'
Adorning about half the wall is an almost life-sized photograph of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew hard at work at his desk.
On the right side of the picture is a quote from a speech MM Lee gave in 2003: 'The day you can't adjust and change, that day, you begin to shrivel and die... that's all. The day I'm unable to learn new things, I'm out of touch with the world, then I'm useless.'
Mr Han, 56, says: 'I picked this quote because I want to inspire my staff.'
Although he left it unsaid, it is plain to see MM Lee's words are a reflection of his own philosophy.
Old Chang Kee was set up in 1956 by original owner Chang Chuan Boon. Mr Han bought over the stall in a Mackenzie Road coffee shop opposite Rex Theatre in 1986 and built a curry puff empire by constantly changing and learning new things.
Today, the chain has 64 outlets here and 11 more in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and China.
In the old days, Mr Chang used to sell about 700 curry puffs a day. Now, an average of 35,000 pieces are sold each day, which means that about 24 Old Chang Kee curry puffs are consumed every minute. That adds up to 13 million puffs a year.
Mr Han, who switches effortlessly between Mandarin and English, says: 'Singaporeans love trendy food fads. You have egg tarts, then the roti papas, mamas, uncles and aunties. Now it's doughnuts.
'Old Chang Kee goes slowly, but steadily. Curry puffs are already a part of our culture, but we don't stop there or people will think we're boring.'
To make sure the fickle tastebuds of food-crazy Singaporeans are satisfied, the company rolls out a new product every four months. If it is popular, it becomes part of the regular menu.
Back then, there was just the famous 'Rex curry puffs', but now, the chain boasts 27 products, including sotong balls, breaded prawns and gyoza.
He says in his raspy voice: 'When I entered the business in 1986, people told me I was crazy because Singaporeans are health-conscious and deep-fried stuff is unhealthy.
'But our sales figures have been going up over the years. So what's the moral of the story here? Everybody likes deep-fried products, and when they want deep-fried stuff, they think of Old Chang Kee.'
For the year ended Dec 31 last year, the company reported a net profit of $2.96 million on revenue of $40.5 million. It has been publicly listed since January this year.
Giving second chances
ON THE surface, Mr Han may appear to be an old-school type of businessman. You know, the kind who lives and breathes his trade, guarding his territory fiercely with the determination of a bulldog.
While he is nothing less than determined, he is also ready to change and open to new ideas, says his longtime friend and mentor Ricky Cheong.
Describing him as 'self-driven, hardworking and practical', Mr Cheong says his willingness to embrace technology has enabled him to grow his business from just five workers to one that employs almost 600 today.
Mr Cheong, 61, who is a global alliance manager with a multinational, says: 'He is not afraid to make mistakes and gives his staff second chances when they do because he believes that is the only way you can learn and grow.'
Indeed, a small incident during the photoshoot reveals this side of him.
While getting off a delivery van after posing for photographs, he loses his footing and falls on his back.
Instead of crashing onto the ground awkwardly, he rocks gently back and forth in a turtle-like way, with his limbs in the air.
'I'm fine,' he says as he gets to his feet without a fuss. 'When you fall, don't fight it. Just go with the flow and you won't hurt yourself.'
As if to prove his point, he leads you back to his office on the second level by taking two, three steps at a time on the staircase, oblivious to the dirt on the back of his pink long-sleeved shirt.
His tenacity and ability to bounce back after a fall came in handy when Old Chang Kee's attempt at expanding overseas in the 1990s failed miserably.
At one time, his fried snacks could be found in countries such as Japan, Myanmar, China, New Zealand and South Africa, and the chain was held up as a shining example of local businesses flying the Singapore flag overseas.
But the franchises floundered and there were complaints about consistency and quality. In 2002, he closed all 24 franchised outlets.
The financial loss was manageable, at just about $50,000, but the lessons he learnt proved valuable.
'I won't make any excuses for the failure,' he says evenly. 'We weren't well prepared for the overseas ventures and the global market was not mature enough then.'
In 2004, the company took another stab at spreading its wings. Using the analogy of love, he says the first overseas attempt was like puppy love between two high school sweethearts.
'The love was immature, so the marriage ended up with problems. Now, we are much more mature. We have a thorough understanding of each other's backgrounds before committing ourselves,' he says.
Number 10 and spoilt rotten
THE youngest son of a clinic assistant and a housewife, he has nine siblings and the whole family came to Singapore from Hainan island in China when he was three or four years old.
Nicknamed Ah Zup (Hokkien for number 10) as a boy - his longest-serving workers still call him by this name - he says with a hearty laugh that he was 'definitely very naughty' when he was young.
'I was spoilt rotten,' he recalls.
He did badly in school, hating mathematics and especially English. At Upper Serangoon Technical School, he opted for ECAs such as photography and gardening as 'they didn't require me to speak much English during the activities'.
Despite his aversion to the language, he gave himself a Christian name, Peter, as it was the 'fashionable thing to do' among his peers then.
His childhood ambition was to be an interior designer as he was very good with his hands, being the only one in the family who could sew. In fact, he made the curtains and some furniture in his first marital home.
But at age 16, he decided he wanted to run his own business one day. 'I felt it was the only way I could make it big and lead a better life,' he says.
So he left school after his O levels and started selling haircare products, reckoning that being a salesman would open doors to the entrepreneur world.
The first major turning point in his life happened during his two years in national service, where he served as an instructor at the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute.
'I decided to do something about my inability to speak English. I mixed only with the English-speaking guys and all my old classmates said I was hao lian,' he says, using the Hokkien phrase for arrogant.
'But I didn't bother with what people said. I would stay up late into the night reading all the training manuals, learning by heart English terms such as camouflage and rifle.'
Armed with a better command of English and newfound leadership qualities, he plunged into the corporate world, pursuing his dream of becoming a businessman with renewed fervour.
He was a cigarette salesman for a short while, then became a sales representative for Casio calculators. After being promoted to supervisor, he left for security systems firm Chubb Singapore and worked his way up to the post of marketing manager.
Then in 1986, he made the life-changing decision to sell curry puffs, trading in his crisp suits and ties for oil-stained shirts and pants that needed to be discarded once every two weeks.
It was a bold step, considering the fact that he hated cooking and could not even fry an egg. But he got his hands dirty, learning every single procedure from the kneading of the dough to frying the potatoes and chicken for the filling.
He even went to India and Sri Lanka to source for the unique mix of spices - there are 13 in all - that go into the puffs.
'My gut feeling told me there was a lot of potential in the business. Every Singaporean loves curry puffs, regardless of race, language or religion, just like what our pledge says,' he says.
There were four to five shareholders who invested about $70,000 initially. But most of them opted out after he paid an advertising agency $12,000 to design a new logo, something he felt the business needed if it was to take off in a big way.
'It was already a discounted price because the designer was my friend, but that amount was a big deal back in 1986, they left, leaving a cousin and me,' he says.
From a $4,000 monthly income, he suddenly found himself drawing an allowance of just $700 a month.
But his wife Connie, a former secretary, gave him her support. The couple have no children and live with a dog in a terrace house in the Novena area.
'He is very thoughtful and cares for other people's feelings much more than his own,' says Mrs Han, 52.
She recalls how they were so busy with the curry puff business during the first year that she completely forgot about shopping for new clothes for Chinese New Year.
'One night, he came home with a beautiful embroidered Chinese top he had bought for me in Chinatown. I was very, very touched,' she says.
Grease was the word
IT WAS not an easy ride, and the memory of those early greasy days - 'from far away, you can smell me already' - are etched in his mind.
With a smile, he talks about how he was bullied by the landlord, who raised his monthly rental from $600 to $3,000 six months after he took over the stall.
But there was no turning back. He gritted his teeth and opened more outlets to increase his daily takings.
The gamble took off and he says, in all seriousness, that he still feels grateful to that landlord to this day. 'If he hadn't given me so much pressure, I wouldn't have expanded so quickly,' he says.
'I'm an optimist. I never chicken out halfway and even if I'm trapped in a sinking ship, I will make sure I'm the last one to jump. I always tell people that like Singapore, I'm small but I'm serious.'
Soon, Old Chang Kee outlets were everywhere, in town and in shopping malls. Even then, the company was just making ends meet and he could not pay bonuses to his staff for the first few years.
'But I told them I would pay them back, and I did. I never shortchange my employees,' he says.
Indeed, Old Chang Kee has earned itself a reputation for being a compassionate employer, as Mr Han insists on giving priority to jobless older workers when it comes to hiring.
Eighty per cent of the chain's staff are 45 years or older. 'It is my way of giving back to society,' he says.
Since 2003, he has taken a backseat and let his nephew, chief executive officer William Lim, 48, manage the day-to-day operations.
Although he has adopted a hands-off approach - the last time he ate an Old Chang Kee curry puff was two months ago while Mr Lim has to eat at least one every day for quality control - his spirit and what he stands for are still very much part of the business.
'His never-say-die attitude is very inspiring,' Mr Lim says. 'He understands the business environment changes constantly and he gives us the freedom to try new things.'
And one of these is a drive-through outlet at an SPC petrol station in East Coast Road, one of 13 new outlets set to open here this year. Another nine overseas outlets are planned for the next three years.
These days, Mr Han, who drives a Mercedes 350, has more time to read and meet friends at his favourite Hainanese kopitiam in Seah Street.
Some things also never change. Although he is fluent in English now, he still prefers to send text messages in Chinese.
But the photography enthusiast says it might be too late to pick up his beloved hobby again, something he had to give up while building his company.
Looking at the old photographs of curry puffs he took, which now hang proudly in his office, he says: 'My hands are not as steady and my eyesight is not as good. My sense of composition has also gone rusty.'
However, he perks up when his gaze shifts to the new iMac computer on his desk.
'I still enjoy looking at photographs though,' he says, his eyes dancing behind his spectacles.
munsan@sph.com.sg
'I never regret what I do, I never gostan (Malay for reverse) and I die die must go ahead'
Han Keen Juan on his never-say-die spirit
'When an ang moh speaks Mandarin, we think he's brave. So why should a Chinese person be afraid of people laughing at him when he speaks English, even if he does it badly?'
On overcoming his fear of speaking English as a young man
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