| When Siu Tong Tang immigrated to the United States
from Hong Kong in 1973, he left behind a distinguished career in sales
and senior management with several large American firms in Hong Kong. His
son, Dominic, and daughter, Edwina, had also enjoyed business success with
American companies in their homeland. Though all three regularly wrote
and read English during their careers in Hong Kong, soon after immigrating
to the United States their English verbal language skills were found to
be inferior to work for an American firm.
Sui Tong Tang concluded that if he was to be successful in his new country,
he was going to have to start his own business. He observed that while
expensive Imperial dark green jadeite jewelry was popular in the United
State, none was importing less expensive pieces with apple green jade.
In fact, he became the first to import this type of jade and found the
American market to be very receptive. In 1974, Tang rented his first commercial
property for the purpose of providing apple green jade, hand-painted eggshells
and other inexpensive Chinese imports to the Western wholesale market.
Although Tang and his children named their business Man-U, which means
tens of thousands of things in Cantonese, they were, in fact selling just
a few items in the beginning.
In 1978, Edwina's husband, Frank Jang, joined the family business; followed
a career in restaurant management. Jang faced just the opposite language
problem as the Tangs. Although his parents were from China and spoke Chinese
in their home, American-born Frank had little interest in his native tongue.
Now he found himself in a business where it was essential to speak Cantonese
in order to negotiate with vendors.
Man-U Imports occupied five locations in San Francisco ultimately settling
in a 53,000 sq. ft. warehouse, before moving to San Mateo in 1994. It wasn't
until 1989, however, that Man-U Imports began selling to the general public.
With the move to San Mateo, Man-U Imports shifted from a warehouse-style
space to the 38,000 sq. ft. showroom that you see today. Lower end merchandise
was eliminated, so that the Man-U Imports of the 1990s and the next millennium
is a unique, single source for the tens of thousands of things that the
Tangs dreamed of in 1974. |
