Who's Who in China (3rd edition)/Yeh Ping-kuei

Mr. P. K. Yesinghay

葉炳奎字星海

(Yeh Ping-kuei)

Mr. P. K. Yesinghay was born at Ningpo, Chekiang province, in 1870 from a humble family. His parents did not have means of providing him with even an elementary education. He was sent in his youth to a local lumber company where he served apprenticeship for several years. Mr. Yesinghay himself was, however, very ambitious. Knowing that illiteracy would be a great hindrance to one's future success, he went to the neighboring school teachers or friends asking them to teach him reading characters in the evening, remunerating them with whatever money he could save from his incomes. This he made himself literate and able to write letters. In 1888 Mr. Yesinghay left home for Shanghai where he joined the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company as a junior clerk. He remained there until 1892. From 1892 to 1895 Mr. Yesighay was connected with a foreign firm in Tientsin. In 1896 he returned to Shanghai joining Gipperich Company, a German export and import firm. Upon the establishment of the Tientsin branch of that company in 1897, he became its Tientsin Chinese manager. This position he held until 1917 when the company ceased doing business on account of the War. Mr. Yesinghay has taken great deal of interest in industrial as well as in social work. He was director of the Societe Immobiliere Franco Chinoicede Tientsin, from 1912 to 1922; was president of the Peiyang Commercial Guild, an arbitration center, from 1915 to 1916; founded the Chinese Associated Trading Company in 1919 and the Tientsin Press Packing Company in 1923, of which he is the managing director; and was elected auditor of the Liu Ho Kou Mining Company, one of the leading coal mining enterprises in North China, in 1924. Mr. Yesinghay has been a director of the Chekiang Provincial Guild, Tientsin, since 1996; Director of Tientsin Charity and Benevolence Institute since 1916; and Director of the Flood and Famine Urgent Relief Commission in the Tientsin Police Administration since 1917. Mr. Yesinghay is one of the founders of the Chekiang School in Tientsin, being one of its directors since 1908. He was on the Chinese Committee of the German-Chinese Middle School in Tientsin between 1913 and 1915. In 1924 he was elected director of the Commercial Department of the Nankai University. Tientsin. Mr. Yesinghay, though an aged man, has never failed to visit his old home and ancestors' graves at Ningpo, once every year a moral that has been found lacking among the younger generations of the present day China. He is always much concerned with the welfare of his home land. In the district of Chin-hai where Mr. Yesinghay was born, the people used to suffer very badly from want of drinking water. At his own expenses he had several artisan wells dug in the city for the public use. Following thes, which proved to be very useful, many similar wells have been dug at Cheng-hai by other people. Thus the drinking water problem of that city has been solved. In 1912 in the same city Mr. Yesinghay founded a cloth weaving factory for the sole purpose of providing poor women with means of subsistence. It has been working very satisfactorily and is at present giving employment to 100 female workers. Mr. Yesinghay has been closely connected with several foreign firms at Tientsin. A large number of young men have received such training under Mr. Yesinghay that they later became competent to hold responsible positions in Chinese concerns working on modern basis. Mr. Yesinghay's address is Tientsin, Parkes Road, British Concession.