Background
Mr. P. K. Yesinghay was born at Ningbo, Zhejiang province in 1870 in a humble family. His parents did not have means of providing him with even an elementary education.
Mr. P. K. Yesinghay was born at Ningbo, Zhejiang province in 1870 in a humble family. His parents did not have means of providing him with even an elementary education.
Mr. Yesinghay 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 Tianjin. In 1896 he returned to Shanghai joining Gipperich Company, a German export and import firm. Upon the establishment of the Tianjin branch of that company in 1897 he became its Chinese manager. This position he held until 1917 when the company ceased doing business on account of the War.
Mr. Yesinghay took great deal of interest in industrial as well as in social work. He was director of the Société Immobilière Franco Chinoicede Tianjin from 1912 to 1922; was president of the Peiyang Cominercial Guild, an arbitration center, from 1915 to 1916; founded the Chinese-Associated Trading Company in 1919 and the Tianjin Press Packing Company in 1923 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 was a director of the Chekiang Provincial Guild, Tianjin since 1906; Director of Tianjin Charity and Benevolence Institute since 1916 and Director of the Flood and Famine Urgent Relief Commission in the Tianjin Police Administration since 1917.
Mr. Yesinghay was one of the founders of the Chekiang School in Tianjin and became one of its directors since 1903. He was on the Chinese Committee of the German-Chinese Middle School in Tianjin between 1913 and 1915. In 1924 he was elected director of the Commercial Department of the Nankai University, Tianjin.
Mr. Yesinghay, though an aged man, never failed to visit his old home and ancestors’ graves at Ningbo, once every year a moral that was found lacking among the younger generations of the present day China. He was 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 absence of drinking water. At his own expenses he had several artisan wells dug in the city for the public use. Following these, which proved to be very useful, many similar wells have been dug at Changhai by other people. Thus the drinking water problem of that city was 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 worked very satisfactorily and gave employment to 400 female workers.
Mr. Yesinghay was closely connected with several foreign firms at Tianjin. A largenumber of young men received such training under Mr. Yesinghay that they later became competent to hold responsible positions in Chinese concerns working on modern basis.
