Call him a legend. The life of late Taiwanese tycoon Wang Yung-ching, who parlayed a small rice store into Taiwan's largest industrial group, was a classic rags-to-riches story.
But what made him stand out from others was his desire to use his wealth to benefit society on the island and also the mainland, which won him respect across the Taiwan Strait.
His death was described by the island's leaders and its ordinary citizens as a huge loss to Taiwan and an end of an era.
The founder of the NT$2.5 trillion (HK$590 billion) Formosa Plastics Group died of cardiac arrest in his sleep at the age of 91 in the US on Wednesday during a visit to inspect its business in New Jersey.
His life was a miniature of Taiwan's economic growth - from farming to industry and from backwardness to progress.
Born into a poor tea-farming family on January 9, 1917, in Hsintien, outside Taipei, Wang was the eldest child in a family with two sons and seven daughters. His great-grandfather, who arrived in Taiwan from Fujian , and his grandfather were poor tea farmers. So was his father, Wang Chang-gung.
When Wang was five, he had to follow his parents to work in the mountains, where he picked charcoal to help contribute a tiny income. At seven, he went to primary school, but before going to school, he had to help with the household chores, including getting enough water from a nearby well for the family. After school, he had to carry home a bag of pig feed weighing 50kg. After he graduated, his family could not afford to send him to high school and he helped his father on the tea farm.
