Tangs

Tangs traces back to Tang Choon Keng, a Teochew immigrant who arrived in British Singapore in 1923 after growing up in Shantou, China, the son of a Presbyterian pastor. He started by peddling hand-made Swatow lace, embroidery and linen door to door with a rented rickshaw and a pair of tin trunks, work that earned him the nicknames 'Tin Trunk Man' and 'Curio King.' In 1932, with S$3,000 in capital, he opened a department store on the first floor of a building on River Valley Road, selling craft goods imported from China. In 1958 Tang bought land at the corner of Orchard Road and Scotts Road, building the store that made his name synonymous with the street: a Chinese imperial-style building modeled on the Forbidden City, with green roof tiles for prosperity, yellow facades associated with royalty, red columns for happiness, and octagonal motifs drawn from feng shui. That purchase is credited with helping establish Orchard Road as Singapore's main shopping district. For decades the store stayed closed on Sundays in keeping with the Tang family's Christian faith, a policy that held until after C.K. Tang's death in 2000, when his son Tang Wee Sung took over and began Sunday trading. The flagship underwent a S$45 million renovation starting in 2012, and the company later added a VivoCity location before withdrawing from a Malaysian venture in 2020.