Who's Who in China (3rd edition)/Wang Chien

Mr. John Wong

王健字晋生

(Wang Chien)

Mr. John Wong was born at Taiku hsien, Shensi, in 1885. His father was then a magistrate of that district. At the age of 10, he went with his parents to their permanant home in Peking. For the next two years he studied at home and was then tutored in English by a graduate of Peking University. In 1898 Mr. Wang entered St. John's College, Shanghai. Shortly after, the Boxer Uprising broke out, and being severed from his family in Peking for over six months, he was much embarrassed financially. However, his class-mates at St. John's came to his assistance, and he eventually was graduated from St. John's with honor. After two years in the collegiate department of St. John's, he received a government scholarship to the Tientsin Polytechnic College, where he studied chemistry, completing five years' work in two. In 1909, Mr. Wong took the competitive examination for a Boxer Indemnity scholarship, and was one of the first group of 47 to go to the United States. In the winter of 1910, he studied at Cushing Academy, Ashburham, Massachusetts, and then took four years in chemistry at the State University of Wisconsin, from which he received the degree of B. A. in 1914. The following year he specialized in leather chemistry at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, working during the summer in several American tanneries The following year he obtained an M. A. from Columbia University. In the fall of 1916, Mr. Wong returned to Tientsin, where he started a small tannery of his own, with a capital of $500. His venture proved successful, and today his tannery has a paid-up capital of $100,000 and there are plans for increasing it to $250,000. Mr. Wong is a Christian, having been baptized in the Congregational Church at Ashburnham. On his return to China, he was elected to the board of the Y. M. C. A., and has served in that capacity ever since.