A069012 The Ray of Beauty ebook_EN

Ray

The

of Beauty

Create Dream - Dream Created

The Beautiful Dream Founder – Amy Lin brought health and beauty to people by Easecox The Beautiful Dream Helmsman – Fred Lin brought Easecox to the world by courage and wisdom

Health Beauty Friendship Wealth

Preface My mother, Ms. Amy Lin, had the courage to pursue her own beautiful dream when she was still less than 30 years old. With her capacity and strength, she founded “EASECOX”, developed the company to become firm and strong, penetrating the international market. My elder brother, Mr. Fred Lin, took over the position of chairman at EASECOX when he was only 20 years old.

Although it was not out of his personal desire at that time; he still demonstrated his leadership to advance the company further in the international market.

At the same time, he diversified the product and established the foundation for sustainable management. Now, I succeed my elder brother in that same position. Under the skillful guidance of my mother and elder brother over the years, I’m going to turn a new page for my own career at EASECOX. I can remember that the lifestyle of my family was quite different from any of my other classmates. My parents were nominally divorced and didn’t have any relationship in law; however, they kept a close and friendly relationship with each other. Although my elder brother and I were raised by my father, my mother, busy with her work on weekdays, didn’t neglect our growth. On the contrary, she visited and called us regularly and showed us how much she cared about us. Our intimate parent-child relationship remained the same even after my elder brother and I went to Toronto, Canada to study when my elder brother was a senior high school student and I was in elementary school.

When my elder brother and I were very young, we often listened to my mother talk about her career, future and dreams. Seeing my mother’s business growing stronger and more stable, I felt a sense of pride beyond words when I was a little boy. As we grew up, my mother shared deeper details with us. We talked a lot about the company’s planning, future direction and so on whenever we got together. When my elder brother had to take over the position of chairman at the critical moment that my mother met with misfortune, I had asked myself some questions: did my mother have great foresight? Or did she have a feeling about her misadventure? In our daily life, as ordinary as anyone else’s, she gave us the elite education of a group heir in an unconscious way.

But, I suddenly realized something when I entered the same position that my mother and elder brother used to have. My mother was not farsighted or a psychic prognosticator, but was just always concerned about the interests of everyone in the group. Because she made everyone else’s interests her first priority all the time, she could imperceptibly pass down what she knew and learned throughout her life to my elder brother and me whenever she chatted with us.

The way my mother thought and behaved, which had passed to the former chairman, Mr. Fred Lin, has become the business’s “sustainable management”, as my elder brother has said.

My elder brother was four years older than me and had a more profound impression of and inheritance from my mother. My parents generally imposed the heavy burdens on him. His interpretations of “being a brother” were the warmest memories of my life, and I believe his interpretation of “being the firstborn son” must have been an irreplaceable comfort to my father, too.

His interpretations of “being a chairman” were the everlasting lighthouse in my soul.

Our father accompanied us to Canada so we were actually luckier than the other little students studying abroad. But, I was also too young to feel stressed out because of homesickness, the fear of an unfamiliar foreign country and the frustrations of the language barrier. My brother was four years older than me, so how could his worry and fear be less than mine? However, he was strong enough to face everything and open a powerful protective umbrella called a “sense of security” to keep me safe in his world. If I had to describe the situation at that time, it may have been a feeling of “depending on no one but each other”.

As much as I can remember, I have never been separated from my father or elder brother. In addition to the paternal love and brotherly affection they gave me, they also unobtrusively showed a motherly type of love to me.

I was a blessed child who grew up with love and happiness. Today, I want to share so much this love and happiness that I had with everyone around me and follow the long-held practice of my mother and elder brother.

Looking back over the past years, I always felt there were too many things I didn’t do for my mother and elder brother. Perhaps I will regret that throughout my life; however, after losing my mother and elder brother, I still feel gratified to have this huge stage, EASECOX, which allows me to go on with life as three people, live and continue their unfinished dream.

It’s too much of a stereotype to say “turn grief into strength”. I just want to transform all the regrets in my heart into energy, keep the accomplishments of my mother and elder brother strong as time goes by and share the warmth and happiness I have to all the people around me. At the same time, I would turn our three lives into a greater motivating power and make EASECOX a more glaring and beautiful stage.

Never too late, I’m going to recap and start a new era here!

Cherish the memory ~ for the founder, my mother, Ms. Amy Lin, and the former chairman, my elder brother, Mr. Fred Lin, who used to be the sweetest concern in my heart; Get ready to soar ~ for all the partners at EASECOX who will become the sweetest concern in my heart.

This book is dedicated to my mother, elder brother and all of my partners at EASECOX.

Simon Lin Chairman, EASECOX

PLEGARÍA DE CARNAVAL – Leopoldo Lugones, Argentine poet Oh moon! You lead as a wise sportswoman By zodiacs and your cute convertible eclipse: Under a burning sky, silk Arabia Oh moon, a full moon! Who were you, Joshua?

Endlessly love your whiteness my store, With the noble nakedness agraviara tulle; Oh, entranced in a pale old legend Your lover’s integrity perpetuates the blue.

Moon of dreams, on the lilac evening Your old gold disseminated delinquent disease, When on a lonely shore quiet Probed lugubrious heron as eternity.

In a mystical snow Mary bathes her feet Your disc reproduces the look of a harlequin, Crime and love make up the feces of your poetry Pale and heady as Rhine wine.

And all this high praise and fame that come Your premature baby face of alcohol, The centuries will count as the illustrious ancestry Because you, oh moon, are sun’s mask.

The Will Grows Along with Destiny in an Endless Succession Leopoldo Lugones, the Argentine poet, is famous for his delicate description of the theme of the moon in his poems. We usually use the moon as a metaphor for a woman’s fineness, tenderness and beauty. The two leading roles, the founder, Ms. Amy Lin, and the former chairman, Mr. Fred Lin, had passed away by the time I’m writing this book so the whole writing process has been completed by referring to information from the past and in interviews. No matter what kind of viewpoints exist in those observations from those references written with various techniques and narration styles, I can deeply feel the endless power of their dreams while reading the information that perhaps relates to the company or maybe private concerns.

During the interview, the interviewees told numerous stories about the founder and former chairman that were seemingly told to me in a plain tone but full of gratitude and remembrance. Authors should not put too much personal emotion in their writing, but I can’t help myself from sighing at the moment.

Ms. Amy Lin’s childhood and growth, the annual turnover from ten million to more than ten billion, the passage of time and personnel changes in the book, destiny’s beginning and end… all seem like an inspiring and entertaining soap opera, but were actually real stories, touching and soul-stirring.

Although the past is fresh in our memories and can’t be forgotten, there is still a long way to go ahead of us. As day becomes night, the end of one day is the start of the next day; the finish of a chapter is the beginning of another task.

“The will grows along with destiny in an endless succession” was an expression always mentioned by the founder during her lifetime and seems to carve the EASECOX’s philosophy and cultural spirit in a deep and fundamental way.

“Sustainable Management”, a concept highly insisted on by the former chairman, is the concrete representation of the spirit of “the will grows along with destiny in an endless succession” and sets up a lighthouse to shine the way forward for EASECOX. Why not lift up our heads a little bit and look to the future while recalling the past?

There is still a long way to go ahead of us; however, another brilliant carnival for EASECOX is about to begin. The will grows along with destiny in an endless succession.

Chapter I The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood Lived Countless Lives Before Living Her Own

Fortunes and misfortunes during childhood created an indelible personality and have a far-reaching influence in the future. Thus, the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said: “Children have the greatest possibility.”

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

Inheriting Mother’s “Brave Tenderness”, Accumulating Energy for the Future.

The protagonist in the story we are about to narrate is not a fictional figure in the novel. She was really once someone’s daughter, wife, mother, and the boss and partner of countless people. Like everyone else in the world, she experienced a range of emotions, joys and sorrows, and endured peaks and valleys in her life.

If a conclusion has to be drawn about her life in hindsight, perhaps her childhood environment was what molded her personal qualities and leadership charisma. However, this one-of-a-kind life was the outcome of the wealth of experience accumulated.

The first title in her life was as the daughter of Mr. Rong-Chun Lin and the last title in her life was the founder of EASECOX Group.

In 1960s, Amy was born in a traditional and prominent clan in northern Taiwan. Born into such a legendary family, Amy was supposed to be raised in her status as the elegant heiress. At that time, however, the Lin family was an extremely patriarchal family, and almost none of the daughters could escape the fate of being sent away as a foster child to another family. This had helped to develop Amy’s persevering personality when it comes to challenging fate, and this disposition was sufficient to have an influence on her life.

Amy’s grandfather and his ancestors had lived in Banqiao, New Taipei City for a long time. Her grandfather inherited a huge patrimony that guaranteed a better-than-average living standard for the family despite the material shortage in that era due to World War II. Being the only son in the family, Amy’s father, Mr. Rong-Chun Lin, was mainly responsible for collecting rents from tenants from place to place when he was young. After his first wife passed away, he met Amy’s mother one day

13

The Ray of Beauty

when he was out collecting rents and fell in love with her. Amy’s mother came from a poor family, was an adopted daughter, not to mention she was only sixteen years old. Amy’s father knew well that a marriage between the poor and the wealthy would be opposed by his conservative father, so he decided to get married first before informing his parents. In that conservative era, insistence from the parents posed as a challenge to the destiny of the only son of the clan.

Amy’s mother gave birth to her first child, a daughter, at the age of eighteen.

The birth of this child gave Amy’s mother a deep realization on the entrenched patriarchal notion within the clan. There was still a sense of lament when Amy later paraphrased what other family member had described as the situation during that time: one of the elders in the family would wait outside the delivery room and made it very clear beforehand that, if it is a daughter, the baby will be immediately sent away in exchange for a child bride; if it is a son, an open-to-all extravagant banquet will immediately take place to celebrate.

14

Due to the insistence of Amy’s mother, the first baby girl was barely allowed to stay. Fortunately, the second child was a son, Amy’s elder brother, which finally brought great relief to Amy’s mother. It was said that Amy’s grandfather was so excited that the open-to-all banquet went on non-stop for one month.

Many guests came to congratulate the family, and Amy’s mother at that time was able to enjoy an elevated status due to the newborn son.

Having experienced the treatments from the two extreme ends, when Amy’s mother was pregnant with the third child, she made a determination within herself to no longer yield herself to the fateful tradition. And so she made up her mind to stay far away from the current home, and arrived at a place where the clan’s power could not reach over the childbirth matter. With the support from Amy’s father, two months before birth, they took the seven-year-old daughter and the five-year-old son and moved the entire family to Qinshuikeng near Haishan mine.

Based on her strong “motherhood”, Amy’s mother had bravely challenged the destiny and protected Amy from being sent out for adoption after birth.

Amy could then grow up in her mother’s arms safely and happily.

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

Though Amy would only experience her mother’s “brave tenderness” for five years, this short but important memory had deeply rooted in Amy’s mind, it had influenced her tremendously for the rest of the life.

At the time when Amy born, the Government was implementing the new land policy on “Rent Reduction to 37.5 Percent” and “Land to the Tiller”. Under the compulsory policy, Lin Family was no longer a large landlord anymore; the land ownership had been reduced dramatically. Amy’s father began to work on other undertakings of the family; however, Mr. Rong-Chun Lin wasn’t highly interested in running the family business, as he lived a comfortable and plentiful life all along in the past. As a result, most of the family businesses had been transferred and sold; only one trading company was kept at last. With the family’s decline, child Amy didn’t have her own nanny or maid like her elder sister and brother.

Besides, the worst and most unfortunate thing happened when Amy’s mother died from heavy bleeding while giving birth to her fourth child. Though Amy was only five years old at that moment, the chaotic situation of the adults rushing to her mother’s bedroom in a flurry had given her deep impression; it was an unforgettable memory and scar in her life.

It was a great sorrow to lose her mother as a child. The newborn sister could no longer be exempted from adoption in the absence of care and blessing from her mother. The fate of Amy’s little sister was like salt sprinkling over the wound in her heart at the age of five.

As a little girl, Amy seemed to understand that she would lose all the security after the pass away of her mother. Could she surrender herself to the arrangement of destiny? Or should she challenge the cruel fate? If the worst comes to the worst, we can always deal with it. It became a good lesson in the life of Amy. After losing his wife, Amy’s father had the idea of moving the whole family to Kaohsiung because of his sadness and the business’s needs. The opinions to put Amy up for adoption arose again. Without her mother’s protection and safeguard, helpless Amy could not avoid this arrangement by the family because her father didn’t know how to take care a young daughter. In Amy’s recalls after grownup, as she could not reconcile herself to this fate, she cried

15

The Ray of Beauty

every day in the adoptive family until the adoptive parents got no choice but sending her back to the original family. In this way, Amy had been turned back three times by the adoptive family and escaped the fate of being adopted by a strange family.

Turning point came in the fourth time. On the eve of being sent away for adoption, Amy got new ideas and changed her strategy. With the assistance of neighboring companions and household servants, she successfully hid herself in a big water vat at the backyard for two days, and the whole family had been extremely anxious and worried about Amy’s disappearance.

The missing of Amy for 2 days had truly woken up the deep affection of Amy’s father on his daughter; he finally realized the unchangeable parentchild relationship. When Amy was found, they hugged and cried together, and Amy’s father made up his mind on never separating with his daughter again.

16

Every fleeting moment in life is always a choice. It was Amy’s first choice out of her own free will not to bow her head to fate and fearlessly challenge the established tradition. The assistance she gained from her neighboring friends and the family’s maids in this adventurous moment enlightened her enthusiastic personality in the future.

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

Be Strong to Face What You Have to, Choosing Is an Important Practice in Life.

Choosing to stay with her original born family didn’t mean that Amy could live happily ever after. The little Amy in the big family didn’t have a carefree childhood. On the contrary, she had to bear the many dark sides of human nature. As Amy was “the useless girl who should be sent away” originally, family relatives and friends who got opinions to put Amy up for adoption always double-faced. People would take good care of Amy and showed her love in front of Amy’s father, on the contrary, they made sarcastic and ironical comments to Amy in the absence of her father. The reality of a big family had ruthlessly shown before the little girl, and a play of social heartlessness had been staged at the little age in advance.

Children who live in a harsh environment usually have two extreme reactions. One kind of victims will become perpetrator who put the same evil experience to others, and they will “pay a man back in his own coin”. The other kind of victims will become attentive adults who know how to put themselves in others’ shoes, and they will care others and avoid doing bad things on others.

One’s personality will determine one’s fate: Being a cheerful and optimistic person, Amy chooses to be the latter one.

Her life may not be as beautiful as imagined after settled down; however, we can only stay in the same place and let history repeat itself if we are lack of courage in making our own choices.

Eventually, Amy’s father decided to move to Kaohsiung for development.

Among the four children, Amy was the only one left with her grandmother to be taken care of. Amy moved to Kaohsiung for family reunion with her father and siblings after 7 years old. Amy’s father had been hazed by the death of his wife and the family’s decline in the rest of his mopey life,

17

The Ray of Beauty

It had great impact on Amy to see the depressed and unhappy life of her father. After she had grown up, Amy often reminded people to “take things easy and be good to own self. Time would pass in vain, if we get our life unhappy because we are too serious towards things. Life is short and the happy time would not return. Why do we waste time on petty grievances?”

The close relatives that settled in Kaohsiung were much simpler than the large family in Banqiao in the past; however, the different personalities of her father and siblings had enriched Amy’s colorful childhood. Her father had an opinionated personality and set many rules and restrictions for the children. The eldest sister, a half-sister ten years older than Amy, was more enlightened and seldom interfered Amy’s decision. The second sister, elder than Amy by seven years, was more stringent and usually asked Amy to do everything based on her orders without exceptions. Only her five years elder brother was extremely playful and always encouraged Amy to do anti-traditional tricks to break the rules, and he would follow suit after Amy. 18

Family plays a critical role during the development of an individual’s personality. Because of the dramatically different personalities of Amy’s family members, Amy had been trained to become a good decision maker from young age. Due to the complicated interpersonal relationships in the large family, Amy got an iron fist in a velvet glove. With training of the fickleness and complication of interpersonal relationship, Amy had developed the capability and habit to observe others at a very young age. It was a great asset for Amy’s future career development, as she could understand the human nature and was considerate of others. The never defeating character of Amy’s mother to counter-traditions had entirely passed on to Amy and became her greatest spiritual support in future predicaments.

American educator John Dewey said “The moment children act they individualize themselves.” Amy Lin’s childhood is the best example of this quotation. Amy Lin developed her distinctive personality little by little through the different episodes in her life. Amy Lin the child had already sketched the outlines and reveals the potential of Amy Lin the adult in the future, her personal history is about to move from preface to the key subject in life.

While other children were still spoiled in the arms of their parents, Amy didn’t have the same blissful moment. When she was five years old, her father

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

decided to move to Kaohsiung for new business development. Amy was left alone with her grandmother in Banqiao who would take care of her. Thus, she was separated from her father and siblings between the ages from five to seven.

Although she was just a little girl, she had gradually revealed her pleasing traits of empathy to others. She didn’t want to make her father worry and at the same time had to endure the pressure of depending on someone for a living. Before reaching school age, Amy had already learned how to take care of infants, cook and wash clothes at the riverside. She started studying in Houpu Elementary School of Banqiao from grade one. At that time, people used charcoal or wood to cook. Though she was seven years old and shorter than the height of the stove, Amy stood on a stool to cook and prepare lunch box for herself. During this period, her father returned to Banqiao regularly to visit this little daughter and finally decided to bring Amy to Kaohsiung in the second semester of grade one.

She was transferred to San-Min Elementary School in Kaohsiung; she could then enjoy the family warmth again by staying with her father and siblings together.

Amy’s home in Kaohsiung was a two-story house located near Ersheng Road by the Love River. There was strict discipline from her father, Amy needed to go home immediately after school by 12:30 p.m. and do homework.

Since Amy’s sisters had started to work and earn money, she received a total of nine dollars from her father and sisters every day. Compared to other children of the same age, though little Amy got a very generous sum of pocket money, she felt lonely and bored at the desolate home after class. Money can’t make up for her spiritual lack as she had always been left alone by her father working at Tang Eng Iron Works and her two sisters. Moreover, she had been unfamiliar with the new environment; she started complaining and always thought that she was an unneeded child at home.

Amy dramatically changed when she sneaked out to play under the bridge by the Love River and inadvertently saw the immoral trading between some parents and the owner of whorehouse. Although she was too little to completely grasp the meaning of their conversation, she understood the tragic life of the little prostitutes and felt glad that her situation was worse off than some, but far better off than many already.

19

The Ray of Beauty

As a British historian once said “The winds and waves often help the outstanding Voyager.” Perhaps all the ups and downs in Amy’s childhood were exactly the stormy waves necessary to help this voyager.

20

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

Once freedom sprouts, it will become a fast-growing tree.

Lively and free, Amy finally could not help sneaking out in the afternoon when nobody was at home after adapting life in Kaohsiung. She helped the banana vendors behind her house to take care their children and in a way got more playmates for herself, too. The banana vendors loved her cleverness and cuteness; they often thanked Amy with red bean soup or bananas. However, she could not bring the foods back home as she sneaked out on her own, Amy thus shared the food with others and became more popular in this small neighborhood.

Once, almost every family got good harvest on bananas and Amy had been gifted many bananas, and she could not simply share the abundant bananas with others as previous arrangement. Amy decided to sell the bananas in the market. The neighbors immediately helped her in droves to bawl the bananas, she earned several dozens of dollars on that day. Amy began to sprout her business talent at nine years old.

Amy carefully saved up the money that she earned that time, as well as the pocket money given by her father and sisters every day. She sorted the banknotes out neatly, ironed them one by one, placed them into books and kept the copper coins in her piggy bank. By saving up money, she had a very simple idea that if they had a lot of money, her father wouldn’t have to work anymore, and they could have a fixed home without moving around, everyone would stay at home with her and the family would live happily together. This simple idea motivated Amy to develop the habit of saving in her childhood.

One day, Amy’s father took her for a walk and discovered the close friendship of his daughter with the adults and children along the way, so her father discovered her secret about slipping out every afternoon. Her father was

21

The Ray of Beauty

too conservative to understand her daughter’s loneliness and mistook it for a bad kid’s behavior, he moved house again intended to correct Amy’s “bad behavior”. Amy was studying in the fourth grade in that year, but needed to leave the neighborhood she had finally familiarized with and moved to the Lingya District to study in Ling Jhou Elementary School. This place was much closer to her father’s job, and her father thought it would be easier to look after both his work and family.

After they moved to the new house, Amy’s father stipulated that she could not leave the house after class. There were many wooden single-story flat houses near Ling Jhou Elementary School; whereas the Lins’ house was a beautiful two-story house located at the street corner. There were some shops nearby offering lucky draws for children in the neighborhood and some old ladies kept lucky draw stalls along the roadside, too. However, it is common for them to cheat the children by secretly replacing the grand prize in the game.

22

Due to her good financial management, Amy had already become a little rich lady with a wealth of several hundred dollars, and sometimes even her brother borrowed money from her. The attractiveness of lucky draw stalls to children aroused Amy’s interest.

In fact, Amy was only a ten-year-old child at that moment and she got her “childish” thoughts on managing the lucky draw business, it could not only make money but also getting a lot of children to play with her.

Amy managed the lucky draw business differently from the common profit-based vendors. She took out her past savings, and generously bought the most popular lucky draw games such as puppet cards, playing cards draw, candy draw and so on through wholesale every Friday afternoon. Amy would then invite the children to come for games at her house arcade on Saturday afternoons and she set up her lucky draw business by this advantage.

The new house was located at the corner of the intersection, which was essentially an ideal store location. Furthermore, Amy charged a lower price than the nearby stores and managed her business honestly without cheating; the winning rate was comparatively higher. Therefore, her business had been spread with word of mouth and became increasingly successful. Sometimes, she could make profit in one afternoon.

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

Although Amy was very young at that time, she was an expert in making money. On Sundays, she would share the remaining prizes with the children who got no price or small price and the volunteer helper. Under this situation, Amy got many loyal customers.

She saved up four-fifths of the money she earned and shared one-fifth with the children so that everyone could have fun together and share the joy.

She originally began her lucky draw business by chance to share happiness and make a profit; the belief had gradually developed to the concept of “profit sharing” in business. This spirit had become the foundation to her career and basic concept in running EASECOX. The idea of “make money happily and share profits together” had grown ever after since then.

23

The Ray of Beauty

Motivations come from sharing.

Sharing creates a greater future.

24

The Lin family moved again when Amy was studying in the grade five and transferred to Cianjhen Elementary School. There was a temple near the school; she thought it was funny to follow the believers to worship the gods and learn the worship dancing like the Seventh and Eighth Lords. Similar to the traditional Chinese tale “The three moves of Mencius’ mother,” in which the mother of Mencius moved their residence three times in order to find an ideal place to raise her son, Amy’s father decided to move back to their birthplace, Banqiao, Taipei and Amy returned to study in Hou-Po Elementary school.

Amy was unhappy with such a change because she never forgot that she had been given up to be an adopted child at Banqiao, it was a place that made her heart sore. Originally, she made to herself that she would only go back to Banqiao with accomplishments. However, she was too young to make her own choice at that time and had to follow her father’s decision.

This practically nomadic life made little Amy full of insecurity in her childhood. This encouraged her to save money so that she could make a stable life with a fixed residence. She saved all the ten cent and fifty cent coins in her piggy bank. These copper coins were not only her money but also the accumulation of her memories. She would never break open the piggy banks even when they were full, and she put the filled piggy banks into a large cardboard box one after another until the box was stuffed.

One day, the piggy banks that took Amy such an effort to save had been stolen by a companion who always came to play at her home. Certainly, she felt very sad by this but learnt the truth of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She repeatedly admonished herself not to arbitrarily take other people’s belongings, because she had experienced the same sadness when she missed her belongings. Amy changed her saving arrangement after

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

this incident; she began to change the banknotes into gold bars as a means of savings and investment.

Generally, other children at Amy’s age were still enjoying their care-free life. Perhaps it was because of the environment or her personality, the trilogy of making money, savings money and investing money had become part of Amy’s childhood, they became her habit ever after.

In addition to her agile mind, Amy had strong sensitivity for figures, too.

When she graduated from elementary school, she saw her neighbors raising a wave of the Savings & Credit Union and had great interest in joining the club. The most popular plans at that time were “monthly saving” and “daily saving”, which offered high interest return. “Monthly saving” referred to saving of two hundred dollars per month. “Daily saving” referred to saving of twenty dollars per day. Amy got considerable money already at that time, so she boldly applied for two saving plans. When Amy studied in junior high school, her eldest sister gave her twenty one dollars a week as pocket money, an average of three dollars a day. Her father and second elder sister followed the same pattern and so Amy could get nine dollars a day and sixty three dollars in total a week.

“Daily saving” required submitting one hundred forty dollars a week on a daily basis. So she used the money she saved every day and her own savings to switch between the 2 different saving plans to gain best return for herself.

With her figures sensitivity and remarkable memory, Amy passed the abacus calculation test Level III when she studied her Secondary One in Hai-Shan Junior High School at Banqiao. The school posted her brilliant test results on the bulletin board in the school atrium as recognition for almost two months. When Amy studied in Secondary Two her abacus skills elevated to Level II. The teacher encouraged her to work towards Level I. However, Amy assertively believed that being an abacus teacher was not her true goal in life.

In her opinion, Level II had been good enough to prove her ability on abacus, so she declined the teacher’s suggestion. Later, the teacher proposed her to learn mental arithmetic. In fact, Amy thought mental arithmetic and abacus were the same knowledge and so she never embarked on the life journey suggested by the teacher.

People usually think about various life issues at the age of fifteen or sixteen.

However, some people may take things for granted and gradually forget their

25

The Ray of Beauty

aspirations in life. If 14-year-old Amy also took her temporary success for granted, she might have completely different life!

Human personality is a “habit”; personal characteristics are not deliberately but naturally shown from a person’s heart.

Amy left Banqiao for family reunion with her father and elder siblings at the age of five. She did not return to Banqiao until the age of fourteen when she was a junior high school student. After a decade, she showed her unique temperament in life.

26

Sharing of experiences has persisted human beings to progress forward.

Amy was always generous in sharing. She loved to make money and dress up herself prettily; the school teachers once worried that she would be a bad example to other students and paid special attention to her. Although Amy continued on her part-time jobs while studying in school, she could keep her grades within the top ten. Furthermore, she always got a lot of information on part-time jobs, and tried to introduce work opportunities to students from the poor families, so that they can have better living support. Though, Amy got everybody stop working two days before the exam, so that they could keep a balance between study and work.

She was a person who was always happy to share, decisive, tough, free, easygoing and never scrupulous on minor details. Although she had a good memory, she didn’t use this advantage on unpleasant things. For the unpleasant experiences, she always gave a generous smile and forgot them as quick as she could. Due to her personality, Amy was a natural born leader and became a renowned character in the class Amy seemed to be a daring and energetic person but she felt distressed about her future when she was about to graduate from junior high school.

She had dreamt of becoming a teacher, nurse and even singer in her future.

However, she had forgone her thoughts as she considered herself as lacking of eloquence, patience and tones in singing.

With her part-time jobs experiences, Amy got the idea to become an entrepreneur supervising a business. She believed that being a boss would still have the opportunity to teach others like a teacher and take care others like a

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

nurse; furthermore, she would let her employees sing for her since she wasn’t good at singing. In this way, she could achieve her goals of being a teacher, a nurse and a singer all at the same time. Amy set her targets and reconsidered the need of attending higher education entrance exam.

Amy had good academic results in junior high school. Her teacher constantly encouraged her to continue to study in senior high school and even asserted that she would be admitted to Taipei First Girls High School or Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Girls High School if she participated in the entrance exam,. However, Amy got different views on this.

Although she avoided being sent away to become an adopted child because of her mother’s courageous guardianship, she became a mature children since her mother passed away early and dependent life on relatives before 5 years old, she determined to become self-reliance as early as possible. She secretly started part-time jobs to enrich her experiences and explore her own future path from junior high school. At that time, she targeted to change her fate and get success to break the conservative “family myth” that girls were useless.

With these aspirations and motivations for better future, she calculated the opportunities to fulfill the goal. . She found that the successful rate is low if she followed the route of common people by attending entrance exam for senior high school, studying in university after three years and getting a job after graduation. She understood that the chances of reaching her goal were small through the conventional path; breakthrough could only come by breaking the traditional stereotypes and creating more possibilities.

27

The Ray of Beauty

The child refused the joint entrance exam and insisted on going her own way.

People always take adolescent rebellions for granted; however, only few people can understand these so-called “rebellions” with heart and the teenagers’ true ideas behind.

28

When Amy studied Secondary Three in junior high school, she had already determined her own future with specific planning. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, she determined to refrain from the higher education joint entrance exam, so that she would not get any chance to study in senior high school. She had not told any family members about her decision to avoid their overreacted objections.

In the summer vacation that year, Amy continued her part-time jobs while her classmates were busy preparing for the joint entrance exam for senior high school. She saved all her salary at the post office, as she was afraid to let her family know about this.

After the results of the joint entrance exam for senior high school published, her family anxiously looked for her name on the list but couldn’t find it among the first few preferences. Her family tried to comfort her and recommended her to enroll for five-year College or private schools. However, they finally discovered that her name had not appeared on any of the senior high school lists. Seeing the anger and anxiety of her family members, Amy finally defeated by the guiltiness and pain in her heart, she could not help but applied the fiveyear college.

Even so, Amy had only applied for Chihlee Commercial College (now, Chihlee Institute of Technology). When the exam results were released, she was surprised to be admitted by Chihlee Commercial College. After all, while other classmates were trying hard on preparing for the exam, she was busy with

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

her part-time jobs without reviewing her books. This coeducational five-year college had been the top priority of many students. Her father showed the attitude that “it wasn’t satisfying but all he can do was to accept it.” Her two elder sisters weren’t too disappointed, nor did they feel completely satisfied.

Even so, they provided the tuition fee of college because they thought that it was their obligation to support Amy. Chihlee Commercial College was a familiar place for Amy, as she participated the abacus test held there when she was still a junior school student. Similar to a university, it was a coeducational school, as an, adolescence it was one of the reasons for Amy to choose this school. However, as Chihlee Commercial College was a private school, the tuition fee for one semester was two thousand seven hundred dollars, which is incredibly higher than ordinary public school which charged several hundred dollars only.

On the registration day, Amy went to the college with the huge tuition given by her sisters. Standing below the school name plaque and looking at the huge campus, Amy got great struggle inside her heart. She still hesitated on continuing the study based on advices from family and teachers t, or going out to work in the society based on her own preference. Regarding academic qualifications, the level of college was higher than senior high school but lower than university; this college qualification was somehow embarrassing and useless to her in Amy’s interpretation. Furthermore, she would be nineteen years old after graduated from the five-year college; it was difficult to be successful at this age. As for family, her two sisters had already got married, her only brother was in the military, and her father was nearly sixty years old; as a social freshman, she could not get further family support anymore. Holding the generous college fees at the front gate of the school, it was hard for her to make a decision. Ultimately, Amy decided to terminate her education plan, as she believed that working experience in the society would further enrich her life and future development.

Holding back the tuition fees into her pocket and turning away from the college, Amy moved forward to the university called “society”.

29

The Ray of Beauty

30

Famous Quote “Be an EASECOX people, you need much talk, much effort, much spirit and then you can earn much more money!”

Amy Lin

Chapter II The Hardships of Growth – Amy Lin the Youth People with great power comes with greater responsibility

French thinker Montesquieu once said, “If you want to be successful in the world, you must look like a fool but actually be very smart.”

The Ray of Beauty

Learning is the only thing you will not regret.

36

Amy seemed as if she were not really smart enough during her period of studying in school. She liked to share; she easily gave other people her earned surplus or gifts from neighbors and introduced part-time job opportunities to other students. She was too honest; she didn’t increase prices or keep the grand prize in private when she had her lucky draw business. In the end, she was extremely foolish; not only did she become “the child who refused the joint entrance exam for senior high school”, but she also rejected the only path to an advanced education. She was drawn into hard work instead of being an easy and carefree student.

Without telling her family that she didn’t register at school, Amy soon found a job at Sony Corporation. The school term began around the corner, but she was also ready to start work. She knew that she could not paper over it so she told her second lie. She told her father that she had changed to study in the evening division and worked during the day time.

In those days, academic qualifications meant everything, especially to the Lins, a prominent family in Banqiao. What Amy had done was considered very impudent insubordination. Her father was considerably uncomprehending about his youngest daughter’s rebellion and gave her severe reprimand and blame.

Amy had her own ideas for her future. When she was a little girl, she witnessed her father’s bumpy career, which made her father a self-pitying man every day for the rest of his life. In her early years, she had been ambitious to have better days and a happier life. At that time, she thought that no money meant no freedom; only making and saving money could secure her life. Thus, she could understand her father’s desire for his children to have a bright future,

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

her desire to make money caused her to eagerly enter the job market to achieve the goals in her mind.

As she wished, she finally entered the job market and found that the real workplace was completely different from the part-time jobs of a student. Almost all of the colleagues around her were experienced people from all walks of life.

Therefore, she quickly came to deeply regret that she hadn’t gained enough knowledge when she ought to have. One month later, the idea of going back to school to continue her studies emerged.

Subsequently, Amy finally “got smart” by the next year. She followed the tradition path, participated in the joint entrance exam, and was successfully admitted to the evening division of Yu Da High School of Commerce and Home Economics. As she wished and had earlier lied about, she began to actually work during the daytime and go to class in the evening.

The differences between junior high school and senior high school can be considered a “metamorphosis”. From a child to a girl and from the fragmentary part-time jobs to a full-time one, Amy launched a new stage of her life.

Amy’s girlhood rebellion was still active. The grooming check in Yu Da High School had always been known for its strict management: the skirt length must be below the knee level, the hair’s longest length can’t exceed the lower edge of the ear. Amy had nothing that met these standards since she liked to make herself look pretty since her childhood. These grooming violations that can’t even be regarded as violations nowadays were symbolic of a “bad student” at that time. However, that didn’t blight her personal leadership style and personality which were even more distinctive as she grew up.

Amy earned the title of “The Organizer of Extracurricular Activities” for her active participating in picnics, barbecues, camping, and other activities. In addition to her schoolwork, capabilities in event planning and promotion were the other subjects that she acquired during her schooldays. Her charisma and planning abilities were revealed one by one.

In the 1970’s an era of conservative, Amy had a happy high school life with a busy working schedule and wonderful extracurricular activities. The little girl had grown up into an active teenager. Although she had to observe the hairstyle

37

The Ray of Beauty

restriction, she had a weekly habit of having her hair done in a beauty salon to continue looking pretty since her eleventh grade. She particularly focused on caring for her shape. She was dissatisfied with her breast development so she bravely tried a variety of methods for breast enhancement, such as taking breast augmentation pills. For such actions, Amy was absolutely a trendy and avantgarde female student in her senior high school.

38

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

The accumulation of experiences is wisdom.

When it comes to successful entrepreneurs, their early years of youth will be repeatedly mentioned and emphasized. They were underprivileged therefore they had to do many lowly things. These humble things accumulated into a lot of experiences, and those experiences accumulated into wisdom for their future success.

Because of her family background, Amy had a sense of insecurity in her life and her strong zeal to accumulate wealth made her stand out from the crowd.

She believed that only money could improve her current situation and make her life secure, so she constantly had part-time jobs and developed the habit of saving early in her childhood. Most importantly, through her part-time jobs, she learnt experiences from all walks of life; these rich experiences created the stairs that led her to her future in which she would become a boss and have her own business.

Amy started her first job at the age of 12 where most people are still muddled and ignorant. When she saw the help wanted ads in red by the roadside, she who looked just like an innocent child, bravely went for interviews as “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. That job was as a plant operator in Feida Plastics Company in Banqiao City, Taipei County. She remembered her daily wage was 8 dollars. Compared to the price of a bowl of noodles at 1.5 dollars, the wage was an insane price for a primary school student. In the summer of her first year in junior high school, she worked at Far Eastern Textile Factory as a yarn cutting operator. During that period, she saw many of her colleagues stopping their work at hand in order to secretly gamble. She would voluntarily help those colleagues; the foreman was very satisfied with her diligence and took the initiative to help her report the overtime pay so that her hard work would pay off.

39

The Ray of Beauty

To thank Amy for her help, her colleagues always gave her some money every time they won from gambling. However, she also witnessed her colleagues’ dramatic array of emotions because of winning or losing money, and she had a profound experience from that, even though she was very young.

By chance, Amy discovered that Far East Golf Course desperately needed a caddy, so she transferred to being a caddy at the golf course in her second year in junior high school. She worked every Saturday afternoon and was paid twenty dollars for shouldering the golf gear around the nine-hole golf course. Usually, she could earn a wage of forty dollars in one afternoon, which was regarded as a very attractive income by the standard of commodity prices then. After working for a while, she became familiar with the administrators and learned that they still had a lot of vacancies, so she called five or six classmates from the comparatively poor families to take the part-time jobs together. Finally, ten students joined and she obligatorily became the leader for scheduling.

40

Even though there was no reward for being responsible of the scheduling, Amy was still dedicated to taking care of each classmate and the other caddies.

Her practice was based on the rules for management, which meant that she set the rules that everyone else must follow. She asked the classmates to let the elder sisters who had been working in the golf course longer to arrange their shifts first and then came her classmates and finally herself. If the guests wanted to treat someone to a Coke, which was a luxury at that time, unless everyone could share in the generosity, no one could accept the invitation alone.

In this way, the classmates scheduled their shifts in order and there were no unnecessary controversies. Even when guests chose her to shoulder their golf gear, she would unselfishly tell them, “My classmates have not yet entered the field, but they are also very capable; please give them a chance. Furthermore, I was the person responsible for arranging the shifts. Everyone has to take his or her turn before I do.” Since she always arranged herself last, her chance to enter the field was considerably less. Although the administrator once thought to take one dollar from each of the scheduled students’ wages, Amy turned it down and insisted that she was volunteering to do so. “A gentleman should only make money in proper ways.” She knew that she didn’t want for money, but her other classmates came to work because of their families’ economic difficulties so she could not take away their hard-earned money. She organized the shifts

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

well without taking extra benefit so everyone was willing to abide by her rules; even the guests were willing to accept her arrangements.

Amy’s roster system was eventually implemented; many of the guests were touched by her actions and would rather spend more money to have two caddies in order to help her to enter the field as soon as possible. Some guests would even tip her generously, so she was still the caddy who earned the most on the course. In just one Saturday afternoon, she could earn a hundred dollars.

41

The Ray of Beauty

“In the future, I will become a boss like you.”

42

In those days, United States was the major export destination of Taiwan.

It was very popular to sew patterns on exported sweaters for a short period.

In addition to her part-time job as a caddy on weekend afternoons, Amy saw classmates sewing sweaters to earn extra money and she had the idea to join them. At that time, the price of a sweater was about one to two dollars, which was determined according to the complexity of the pattern. At the start, she alone began this sideline occupation. Later on other classmates gradually wanted to join as well. She was the only one to have transportation in the whole class, a very fashionable mini hatchback bike, so she freely used her own bike to bring the goods from the factory and share them with everyone. Thereafter, her order quantity jumped. Amy had to sew the sweaters at night time at home, and she couldn’t even take a break during the holidays. Her neighbors were intrigued by this situation and knew that she offered the service for free without charging a single cent, so they also joined this sideline occupation in droves.

Surprisingly, her accumulated quantity could compete with the wholesalers, so the factory took the initiative to supply what she needed by truck.

The garment factory’s boss learned that Amy didn’t take any commission and voluntarily proposed offering her twenty cents as commission for each sweater. Gradually, other garment makers heard the news and asked her for her cooperation as well. Thus, Amy’s business was constantly growing and her revenue became the highest among all of her companions during her junior high student years.

From her previous working experiences, Amy obtained a deeper understanding of herself. She thought that she was very suitable for doing “people business”. Based on this past pattern, she was always the first one to help others and the people she helped would help her in return. She realized that

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

previous devotion that wanted nothing in return earn her many friendships, which was really the best investment. She believed that helping others equals to help her herself, so serving others was not just about looking forward to the payback from others but an investment in the future.

That summer when her classmates prepared for the joint entrance exam for senior high school, Amy chose to work a part-time job at the Sony factory in Tucheng. A year later, she chose to advance to high school, but still continued the life of part work, part study. In the second semester of her first year in senior high school in 1975, she worked at a one-man company. She was the only employee and had to be responsible for many tasks, such as grocery shopping, housework, babysitting and providing photography assistance when she was free. Because she worked very hard, the boss gave her a raise from one thousand five hundred dollars to three thousand dollars to show his appreciation.

In Amy’s second year of senior high school, she worked at Guangming Film Processing Company as an assistant accountant. She voluntarily took charge of being a caterer, so her boss gave her an extra two thousand dollars in addition to the original salary. As a caterer, she had to purchase the ingredients in the market. When the elder ladies who owned booths in the market became familiar with her, they even treated her to breakfast.

Throughout Amy’s part-time jobs, she was usually favored by people associated with her or her boss. She cheerfully said, “I took one paycheck but did two jobs. I can often think from a boss’s viewpoints. I would be responsible for finishing the tasks of my own. As for the rest, I did it better than I should.”

This was the principle and lesson accumulated from her long-term experience with part-time jobs.

Although she took the more traditional road and advanced to high school later, her aspiration to start her own enterprise stood firm. Whenever she wanted to quit, the boss usually tried every effort to retain her and would even offer her a double pay raise. However, she always bravely and clearly stated, “You were unable to keep me because I will become a boss like you in the future.”

After resigning from the film processing company, Amy worked at Gui’s Advertising Company as an accountant. In addition to the regular job, she did the bookkeeping for small-scaled companies on a case by case basis. Because

43

The Ray of Beauty

of her good service and fair prices, she received more and more bookkeeping cases. Through her third year in senior high school, she continued to do the bookkeeping at three hundred dollars per case during holidays. There was a time that she had more than twenty clients, which was equivalent to no less than a small accounting firm.

In addition to the bookkeeping, Amy also assisted the owners in collecting bad debts. The money that she collected was equally shared by her and the owners so she accumulated a lot of wealth in a short time. However, it still is not easy to collect the bad debts even though the laws and decrees have become more comprehensive today. Collecting bad debts requires a special courage that most people don’t have.

44

In order to collect the bad debts, Amy, who originally liked to make herself look pretty, began to cut her hair above the ears to highlight her innocence as a high school student. Wearing the uniform, preparing the newspapers and radio by herself and taking the debtor’s address, photo and account information, she set out alone. She usually arrived at the door of the debtor’s house around six or seven o’clock in the morning. Even if the debtor wouldn’t meet her, she didn’t take it seriously but calmly laid the newspaper in front of the door, sat down and listened to the tape recorder or read a book to kill the time. Patience was the basic requirement for this job. Because she didn’t make any trouble and was a very polite and young student, she usually was able to complete the mission.

Some people even gave her a tip to reward her hard work after having paid the money back.

Amy earned an income of tens of thousands of dollars in just one month’s time, and although it was a very attractive income, she didn’t want to stay. After all, the main purpose she entered this industry was to seek experience.

In her third year of senior high school, Amy changed to work at a construction company as a house sales representative. For ten successive days, she didn’t have any cases because she was only seventeen or eighteen years old at the time and as a student, the clients didn’t have much confidence in her.

Moreover, the other sales representatives gathered around to serve the clients dressed up more gorgeously; she couldn’t compete with them due to her lack of experience, but her natural ambition pushed her more attentively to observe.

She realized the general sales representatives were always eager to serve the

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

clients that looked wealthy but no one paid attention to the old ladies dressed plain. Thus, she took the initiative to serve these old ladies.

Most people were more or less wary of “being promoted sales”, particularly those old ladies. Seeing the client’s concerns and alarm, Amy just chatted without involving the business. In this way, an old lady’s cold heart melted and she would finally agree that Amy could come to visit her in her house. When arriving at the old lady’s home, Amy found that the old lady had considerable assets and actually had the intention of buying a house.

Amy had always upheld the mindset of “talking straight” when doing business since her childhood days so she advised the old lady not to buy the house impulsively; after all, buying a house required a big budget and must be properly planned. Then, she helped the old lady to make a comprehensive financial plan and suggested that she buy a three-story or four-story house so that the first floor could be rented as a storefront to increase her income. Furthermore, the old lady could live on the second floor because it was inconvenient for her to climb stairs. Then her children could live on the third floor, thus fulfilling the old lady’s wish and dream to have the whole family gathered together.

The old lady gladly accepted her proposal, which included the distribution of property and the future life planning, and immediately bought the fourstory house that Amy recommended. By sincerely bearing in mind the interest of her clients, she won her clients’ trust and former clients continuously brought her new clients. Hence many neighbors that wanted to purchase a house would ask her for help. Once again, she could use her talented financial management skill and help her clients to have the best house purchasing plan. Because the plans she drew up were usually for the whole family, the units of the sold house was not per room but per building. As a matter of course, she continuously ranked top sales of the month for three times.

Shortly afterwards, Amy’s father, who treated her particularly strict, learned about her secretly working outside. At that time, her father also had his own company and thought that she could help at his work instead of working out. To this end, her father strongly opposed her part-time job and personally brought her home back from the construction company.

45

The Ray of Beauty

Amy started her part-time career when she was very young. She acquired rich experiences from all walks of life, as well as accumulated adequate wisdom and various contacts.

During each working experience, she behaved in a well-rounded manner and put herself in every respect. That may be considered a kind of business tactic, but that was indeed her enthusiasm and personality of loving to share.

The accumulation of experiences is wisdom. All of these experiences became rich entrepreneurial assets for Amy’s future.

46

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

Devotion to Hard Work Led to Positive Results in Her Senior High School.

Many financial magazines like to quote such phrases as “life’s first pot of gold” and they always educate the public on how to earn the first pot of gold in their life as early as possible.

But no pain, no gain.

Amy had started her first part-time job from the age of twelve, at which point most people were still acting like spoiled children dependent on their parents. She could do anything and was willing to do anything, so she was able to overcome the various subjective and objective difficulties for each job, solved problems and created more tangible and intangible profits for herself.

As she gradually grew up, those accumulated experiences became her personal wisdom so that she had the competence to confidently impose work on herself.

She truly interpreted the spirit of “With greater power comes with great responsibility.”

When Amy was in the first semester of her third year in senior high school, her father began to suffer from eye diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts and so on. Due to such eye diseases, her father not only had difficulty reading but also felt that sunlight was quite harsh to his eyes. Originally, her father’s own trading company engaged in the export business, including hardware, textiles and so on. Since her eldest sister got married and immigrated to Japan, her father suddenly lacked a helper, and her father’s eye diseases made him feel more stressed all the time. Therefore, her father was very uncompromising with her jobs outside and wholeheartedly hoped that she would return to help him with his own company.

47

The Ray of Beauty

Although Amy was only a high school student, she had accumulated a wide range of work experiences. She conformed to her father’s request to work at their own trading company. The first client she had to face was the chairman of the Hong Kong Li-Xin Group, Mr. Lim Por Yen. Mr. Lim was a very important client to their company. She attended the entertainment for the first time with her father and her elder sister. Before the event, her father and sister repeatedly asked her to behave modestly and speak correctly. However, she admitted that she had never eaten the most expensive steak in the restaurant before and would like to give it a try. Because of her honesty and candor, Mr. Lim was impressed by her.

48

When starting at her father’s company, Amy found that the company didn’t have a favorable balance sheet so she began to reform the business. First, in order to save on payroll and other costs like accounting fees, she streamlined the personnel, laid off some redundant employees and ran the whole administration by herself including accounting, operator functions and so on. At the same time, she made a major reform: change the habit in which people must have entertainment and drinks when doing business. This idea may be supported by most social perceptions today; however, it was a “mission impossible” at that time.

Undoubtedly, the clients felt a little bit uncomfortable with these changes and some of them still wanted dinner entertainment as usual. For such clients, Amy didn’t change her mind and frankly said to the clients, “It’s fine to have dinner together, but the following entertainment depends on you. I can drive you to the places you want to go, but I won’t join you. Certainly, I won’t pay the bill, either.” By behaving in this way, she showed a standpoint of neither opposition nor encouragement. If there were any clients unwilling to continue business with her for this reason, she would let go of them. Her company’s quotations may not be any cheaper than other competitors, but she had the confidence that her company was more responsible than others and would provide better service. She had never competed through price wars and was tolerant of the clients who transferred their orders. By leaving the possibility of cooperation with each other open in the future, she told the clients, “If the other suppliers were not ideal for you, you are always welcome to come back as our customer again.”

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

In addition to the internal consolidation, she also began to reduce their number of customers and streamline their operations. Except for the textiles, she terminated most of the remaining small-scale export business. In order to achieve the best economic benefits, she concentrated most of the company’s attention on the big clients.

Amy’s long-term career had cultivated her vision. Although she focused on the big clients, she didn’t offend the small ones. She believed that “The small clients may become big ones someday.” Therefore, when she received the small clients’ orders, she usually calculated them with meticulous care in advance and then politely told them, “We would like to accept your order; however, we may not be the most appropriate for your company in consideration of cost. I would like to introduce you to another trading company that may be better for you. If there are any issues, our company will take full responsibility.” Then she played the role of hostess and invited another company to attend the dinner party, formally introduced both sides to each other and handed over the work on the spot.

In this way, Amy didn’t offend the small clients and also won the friendships of the other companies in the industry. She won trust and friendly relationships from other companies in the same industry, which were considered hardearned intangible assets in the business industry. The companies that had received orders from her introduction would return the favor one day when their business had too much growth and would refer the orders they couldn’t handle to her company. This was what she called a win-win situation.

In the beginning, some businessmen disagreed strongly with what Amy did; however, she just smiled and said, “There is a piece of pie in front of me.

I can try to fight for the pie with others, but no matter who takes the pie, the loser must be unhappy. If I tell the other people that there is a piece of pie somewhere and ask him to eat it in a hurry and he feels that it was delicious after eating it, perhaps he will share some with me in the future. In this way, isn’t everybody satisfied?”

Of course, Amy’s father didn’t accept her unconventional practices either.

Her father thought she offended all the clients and that she was too fearless with the big clients like Mr. Lim Por Yen. Mr. Lim once asked her, “Why is your offer higher than others?” She replied “I’m confident that we are more responsible

49

The Ray of Beauty

than others and provide better service. Business is business. In terms of costsaving, you would place your order with my competitors. However, I suggest that you consider it this way: place two-thirds of your orders with the others, one-third of your orders with me. The slight cost increase is acceptable. Plus, you can source and develop one more supplier which could be useful whenever you need it. Isn’t that a win-win situation?”

Perhaps from the senior businessmen’s viewpoints, Amy did not seem practical enough, which meant she didn’t act like “a businessman”. She always lacked a calculating mindset when dealing with clients and did her best to give them extra help from her business. These days, the business industry often mentions “service economy”. In fact, Amy had carried out such concepts automatically at the age of eighteen or nineteen.

50

Because of her sincerity, responsibility and service, Amy quickly won all of the major clients’ trust. She specialized in careful and meticulous calculations and they soon realized that the price she offered was not expensive at all if the price was subject to the costs of time and service. Therefore, large orders gradually stabilized during her service.

Amy was only nineteen years old then, but the business she managed earned millions at every turn. She earned her first million dollars in life and bought her first house when she was still only studying in her third year in senior high school. She has saved the money bit by bit with the part-time jobs from her childhood. When she was very young, she had the habit of saving money. Like most people did, the way she saved money was to buy gold bars and join the Chinese money-loan club. She would use the money she bid in the money-loan club to buy the gold bars and saved them up. When she was in her third year in senior high school, she occupied the position of originator of the money-loan club for the first time and bought her first house with the money she bid. She remembered the price of the house was three hundred and thirty thousand dollars and it cost another three hundred thousand dollars to decorate and furnish it.

A German poet once said, “Wealth is good only for the people who gain wealth through diligence and use the money to benefit goodness.”

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

From the time when Amy was very young, her biggest wish was to have a house that belonged to her family so this house was bought for her father.

Needless to say, it was her father’s favorite location! For people who use the wealth earned from their hard work, the money would have real value!

51

The Ray of Beauty

Personality Determines Fate; Choice Made the Future.

Amy, with her sweet looks, had a close boyfriend when she studied in senior high school. Once when she was cutting the tofu to prepare a meal, no matter how many times she tried, she could not make the tofu presentable due to her hasty personality. Her boyfriend next to her saw her tofu and jokingly said, “You’re so impetuous, how could someone want to marry you?” With a stubborn temper and an unwillingness to admit defeat, she toughly answered, “I will prove it!” on the spot.

52

It so happened that there was a brother-in-law’s relative who was a very close friend with Amy from their childhood, as well as a neighbor when she lived in Kaohsiung. Mr. Lin had a crush on her since he was very young and often helped with her homework when they studied together in elementary school. When Amy moved back to Taipei, Mr. Lin often made special trips to see her from Kaohsiung. Mr. Lin even stayed in Taipei for a short time for exam preparation; he still helped Amy to do her homework although he was very busy. Since Amy lost her mother in her childhood, Mr. Lin’s mother loved her dearly and often came to visit her. However, Amy interpreted Mr. Lin’s thoughtfulness as the friendship from their childhood instead of the grown-up love of a relationship.

On that day Amy was moping about her boyfriend and when she arrived home, Mr. Lin’s mother happened to visit her. Thus, Amy told Mr. Lin’s mother that she was willing to be engaged to Mr. Lin. Everything seemed to be child’s play, but it was really an important event in Amy’s life. When they were engaged, her fiancé was in the United States. He came to Banqiao to visit Amy when first returning to Taiwan but she was still indifferent to him. Mr. Lin felt sad and returned to Kaohsiung. When he heard from his mother that he was engaged to Amy, he happily went to Banqiao by train at night. Mr. Lin asked

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

Amy, “Since we have been engaged, why are you still ignoring me?” Amy said to him seriously, “We’d better not get married, or in the future, you will regret it.” However, Mr. Lin said that they can give it a try and that he was willing to give her five years to adapt and develop their relationship.

Her decision to contract a marriage at the age of nineteen alone without telling her family was a very bold action, not only in that era but even today.

Of course, her family strongly opposed this decision, especially her father.

After her mother had died, her father did not marry again for the rest of his life. Her two elder sisters left their family when they got married at the age of eighteen. It seemed that she and her father could depend on no one but each other. On one hand, her father thought that she didn’t think her decision over carefully; on the other hand, her father was reluctant to let her leave home so early. Those were the reasons why her father opposed her decision. She knew very well that she was a positive and ambitious person, but her future husband was a leisurely and steady-headed person. Their personalities had nothing in common, but since she had promised Mr. Lin’s mother, she thought she must keep her promise. Regardless of the opposition from her family, she resolutely had a formal engagement ceremony the year when she graduated from senior high school and quickly got married six months later.

From the traditional women’s viewpoint, Amy had a happy married life.

Loved by her husband, without any problems with her mother-in-law or any economic concerns, she lived the life that most people would envy. However, she wouldn’t be her if she was content with this kind of life. She and her husband had completely different attitudes toward things and ways of expression. Her husband liked a stable life and behaved without haste, but she was an impatient and energetic person. The gap between them grew larger and larger. During their first five years of marriage, she opened her own company, had three houses under her name and gave birth to two sons. Her husband shared the same ideas as her father. They didn’t understand why she wanted to work so hard when she already had no financial worries. After five years, their personality gaps had evolved into two inconsistent life goals. Although there were neither quarrels nor third parties, she was determined to propose the divorce request in order to strive for her further development.

53

The Ray of Beauty

She said to her husband, “The pursuit of a life goal is to complete an unfulfilled dream.”

Her husband was puzzled and asked, “How many dreams do you have in the end?”

Amy frankly said, “I am weaving my dreams every minute and every second so my dreams will never finish.”

Then, her husband asked, “When will you be willing to settle down?”

She said, “I’ve settled down this long because I knew what I wanted. I like to be needed; that feeling was very great.”

54

Her husband had not wanted to divorce, but wanted to respect Amy’s decision and give her the stage to perform, to make her feel happy and to bring her talents into full play, so he finally agreed to get divorced. At that time, her husband’s only request was that Amy didn’t take their two sons away from him.

With careful consideration, Amy believed that her husband loved their children very much and she would be starting a new life, so her husband was indeed more suitable than her to raise the children. In 1983, after Amy agreed to give up the children and leave the two houses and company to her husband, she left the home that she had lived in for five years.

Amy was always grateful for her ex-husband’s tolerance, love and care during the five years of their marriage. After the divorce, they maintained a good friendship and her two sons got along with her like friends. In children’s minds, she had always been an open-minded, easygoing, ambitious and lifeloving mother.

After the divorce, Amy had to completely back to the square one, but she was still optimistic and confident. She believed that an end represented a new beginning. The reason why she chose to leave was to create more possibilities for her future. With some remaining cash at hand, she went sightseeing in Southeast Asia. She said that taking a rest helps go further and returning is to re-start the journey.

Chapter II: The Miraculous Birth - Amy Lin’s Childhood

55

Famous Quote “In our life, perseverance and determination are rather important in our road to success, than quarrels and conflicts.

We don’t win by one time fighting, but long term persistency.

Championship will go to the firm dedication forever and ever.”

Amy Lin

Chapter III Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success Being busy is the greatest joy.

“My creed of life is to work, to thoroughly study the mystery of nature and make it to the work of human happiness, to cheerfully overlook everything and work from the perspective of human happiness.”

– Thomas Edison, American inventor

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

An end is another beginning.

Strive to create one’s own life.

Amy got divorced in 1983 when she was only 28 years old. She started over with a one-man company and ran the small company by getting jobs on a case by case basis. She had accumulated many contacts earlier in life; the network of old friends gave her a lot of assistance in the beginning of her business. At the end of 1985, she finally got some benefits and could be relieved financially. Amy dressed up again, she bought some jewelries and luxury goods to encourage herself.

When Amy was young, she had been dissatisfied with her body shape, she always liked to make herself look prettier. She has lost confidence in her body’s proportions, especially after giving birth to two children; she had an inferiority complex on her body shape. When she could get good income with steady life, she finally got time and ability to confront this problem.

She had always thought about injection treatments but gave up the idea for fear of the cancer risks. She had also made appointments with a cosmetic surgeon several times for breast augmentation surgery to improve her body shape but decided to go back home at the hospital’s entrance due to a lack of courage.

Amy firmly believed that she could not be the only woman bothered by her body shape and that there must be plenty of women with this problem in the world. She began to wonder why there wasn’t a machine that you could put a fat lady in and have a thin one come out. This question triggered something in Amy, who was very sensitive to business potential and already had a profound interest on the issue, so she started to conceive the ideal of “body shape-maker”.

Since some members of Amy’s family had engaged in the industry related to mold making, she had tried to make ​​a plaster mold of Venus, the Roman

61

The Ray of Beauty

goddess of beauty. However, Amy found that it was impossible to push out a satisfactory body curve by setting two thick gypsums on the body. Amy then thought of the warrior’s armor in the Roman era, but that was too heavy.

Finally, she fixed her idea, “It should be a soft material to mold the figure,” like making a mummy by tightly tying up the whole body with bandages or making leather​​clothing into an underwear style. However, these two methods still got disadvantage of impeding the body’s movement. Amy’s ideas and belief had been actualized step by step, though far from the destination.

62

Amy’s fanciful idea was stuck in a bottleneck; and she was very frustrated as no further progress made. One day, she saw an old grandmother wearing an old-fashioned corset in Tachia and trying very hard to clasp a row of buttons around the waist. All of a sudden, Amy came to an understanding and thought, “Isn’t this what I want?” She asked the grandmother, “Do you feel that wearing a corset effectively maintains body shape?” The grandmother responded, “Look at me. What do you think?” Amy took a close look at the old grandmother, who had past the age of eighty, and noticed that the grandmother kept her figure in good shape. And most importantly, her breasts were still very perky.

The grandmother carried on and explained, “You have to wear the corset from girlhood and keep it on. If the figure has already been out of shape or people at an age like yours want to wear the corset, it is too late.”

Undoubtedly, what the grandmother said poured cold water on Amy’s plan, but she wasn’t discouraged. She took the grandmother’s two-piece corset, as well as her idea of the “body shape-maker”, and flew to Japan. The original plan that Amy flew to Japan was to have breast augmentation surgery, but she was too timid to step into the hospital when she was at the hospital’s entrance, just like the situations before in Taiwan.

In Japan, Amy found a textile company that specialized in undergarments and she tried to express her new ideas on “body shape-maker” directly with the company’s design department. In the past, the main function of underwear was to protect and beautify the breasts. At the same time, the underwear could prevent breast sagging or expansion. Amy’s new concept was a body shapemaker that could change the body’s curves at the same weight and volume. This company thought that her idea was very interesting and agreed to get the head of design department to take charge of this R&D project.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

In the beginning, the Japanese company had designed a “body inch-mining machine”, which could computerize, simulate, analyze and record the body’s curves and transformation. The textile engineers had used the concept of “sculpt and complement”, as well as the principle of “fat shift” to change the curve. No matter which theories they used, they encountered considerable difficulties in making a piece of lingerie that could change the body’s curves. Furthermore, since the Japanese companies improved existing products to meet their new targets, the desired results could not be easily achieved in this way. The designer got tries and errors for two years but continued failing, they became desperate.

One day, the designer went fishing at a lake. As he didn’t catch any fish, he was upset and began to pick up the pebbles around his feet to throw them into the water. The idea just flashed at him when he saw the water waves spread by the pebbles so he started to play ducks and drakes from various angles.

Watching the natural phenomenon in which the pebbles’ final placement rippled layer upon layer and then sank into the water, he finally comprehended the pressure theory. He realized the design theory of shape-wear: converting “kinetic energy” into “potential energy” should be the key in putting the idea into practice.

Formerly, this textile company had designed underwear using the traditional “average pressure” fabric. Later, according to the principle of ducks and drakes, they had manufactured a variety of textiles with high, medium and low pressure, by special weaving and tailoring techniques, achieved effective fat shifting by segmenting pressure horizontally and vertically. After two years, Amy’s idea was actualized and the new shape-wear product first appeared successfully.

63

The Ray of Beauty

Be persistent in the pioneering stage, nothing is easy at the beginning, only dreams keep you on.

64

In September 1987, the Japanese company informed Amy that she could fly to Japan to test the new product. After trying it on, Amy found the new shapewear with satisfactory and good effect. When she wore the new product back home, her family and friends thought that Amy got a successful plastic surgery in Japan. This convinced her even more that her idea was correct and hoped that this product could help more women like her. So, Amy decided to promote this new product in Taiwan with her full effort.

In the beginning, Amy asked her family members and friends to try the new shape-wear as product testing. She found that as the garment was based on Japanese women’s sizes and body shapes, they have to be fine-tuned as Taiwanese woman’s waist was much longer. Therefore, Amy had collected more data on Taiwanese woman for the Japanese textile company to make modifications on the shape-wear accordingly.

Although the product performance was good with fine comments, Amy’s family and friends opposed her idea to start her own business. They could not understand why she would want to give up her stable and excellent career, and put herself into a whole new industry. Besides, though friends recognized that the good effect of the shape-wear, they could not accept its price of up to two thousand dollars. At that time, even the well-known brands in the market, such as Wacoal, sold a shape-wear set priced at three or four hundred dollars only.

Though imported underwear was priced at three or four thousand dollars, the lace and sexy design was much more popular than the conservative shape-wear design that tightly wrapped the body.

Most people considered the new “shape-wear” as “traditional underwear”, so no one felt optimistic about her new career. There were negative comments

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

from all directions, “This industry isn’t practicable,” “You can’t work it out,” “This product can’t be sold out,” “No one will accept it,” and so on. Amy faced severe setbacks. In her mind, the profitability of the new business was not her main concern. What frustrated her most were the doubts of other people on her judgments and abilities, “Is my vision very bad?”, “Has my business sense disappeared?” and so on. Amy was self-doubted; on the other hand, it aroused her strong determination to get success.

Coincidentally, a lot of other business opportunities emerged during that period of time when Amy was facing the most important career choice in her life. She found herself in a cleft stick. After hesitating in this critical situation, Amy believed that the only way for her to concentrate on her new shapewear career was to forgo all the other opportunities and had no fallbacks at all. Therefore, she ended all her other jobs, destroyed all business contacts and previous business social networking. To strengthen her determination to launch her shape-wear business, she even put all her jewelry into a safe deposit box in bank and dressed herself with simple makeup, Amy explained, “Trying on the shape-wear for customer requires body measurements. If I wore the rings, it could easily tear the shape-wear’s lace and make the products imperfect.”

She put herself in a whole new battlefield, a new start.

Amy recalled that each order she took in the trading business was from hundred thousand dollars to millions dollars every turn. However, when she engaged in the shape-wear business, an order was amounted several thousand to twenty thousand dollars only, which is far less than the original business Amy engaged in. She needed a lot of efforts to adapt the changes.

In the beginning of her shape-wear career, Amy met many setbacks, and the sales team brought the biggest difficulties. Sales managers made all kinds of excuses to settle the payments for the goods to the company. Though, the sales figures in the account book are good, the actual income was not as much as expected. Finally, not only the sales managers cheated her and slipped away with money, the salesmen also quitted their jobs. Amy suffered a lot of losses.

Secondly, Amy’s concern fell on the customers. Only if there were customers, there would be sales to generate revenue. But, at the initial stage, even Amy had no ideas on where the customers were. Carrying a suitcase for sales calls

65

The Ray of Beauty

whenever there was an opportunity; Amy would ​​grit her teeth and made every effort to develop the new market anywhere she possibly could reach out.

Amy quickly sorted out her own logic and approaches in developing the shape-wear business from that state of chaos. She believed that Taiwan is a multi-ethnic place; in which Hakka got the most frugal culture among different races. If the Hakka could accept the shape-wear, which was considered as highpriced commodity, it would prove that her product had marketability. So, Amy focused on the Miaoli area where the most Hakka lived as her first targeted region.

66

When she arrived at Miaoli, there was a house beside the road, so she immediately took the opportunity to test the market by asking permission to use the toilet. Later, she chatted with the hostess and began to talk about her new career when the hostess asked about her work. The hostess even tried on the shape-wear and felt quite satisfied with the product. However, the husband hesitated, when they were asked to become distributors of Amy’s company. Amy took nearly five hours to persuade him, who finally became the first generation distributors of EASECOX. It was a rocky road in developing the business. Sometimes, the shop owners didn’t like her products and they would directly and unceremoniously throw the products away. With more experiences established, Amy joked herself as “the best catcher” who can catch the thrown-away products quickly and properly.

In some cases, shop owners would give Amy favor in displaying her products in the shop. However, when she visited the shops later, she always found her products putting aside with a thick layer of dust. The shop owners had not displayed them in the shop or even opened up the boxes.

The most impressive experience occurred when a customer came to her company and ordered two full sets on every size. Paying for the goods with a check in advance, the customer took one set on the spot and asked the staff to send the other set by post. When the staff excitedly told Amy about the deal, she decided to visit this customer personally. Amy pretended to deliver the products to the client’s designated address. When she arrived at the location, Amy found that the customer was actually an underwear factory. She witnessed

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

the customer tearing down the shape-wear and was ready to copy. The second set was prepared as reference to the imitation.

Knowing the situation, Amy had not offered the second set to the “customer”.

However, the counterfeit had still sold in the market as “magic underwear” through supermarkets. Nevertheless, the copycat factory had eventually closed down due to quality and other business factors in the market.

Her efforts had not been paid off proportionally; there was no significant growth in her business performance no matter how hard Amy had worked.

She had never backed down from the countless setbacks but bravely stuck at her business. By choosing a very unpopular industry and a market-neglected product, Amy considered these challenges as the touchstone of her life career; it is the starting point of her dreams.

67

The Ray of Beauty

People who do great things are not worried too much about trivia.

Fix the errors and then determine the way forward.

68

When Amy started her enterprise, she had many other opportunities to make money. In 1988, Taiwan’s stock market boomed like a hurricane and the value of real estate had skyrocketed, too. Underground investment companies suckled gold like wildfire. She had once invested in the real estate market and received a considerable reward. Though she knew that continue investing in the real estate market would bring her even more profits, Amy gave up the easy opportunities to make money. As she believed that all short-term businesses with huge profits were not long-term careers. Amy got the belief on a sustainable management career and she insisted on pushing the shape-wear business to the forefront of her life in spite of everyone’s opposition.

After one year, “EASECOX” was formally established on September 10, 1988. At the same time, Amy created her own brand “EASECOX” that officially marketed the shape-wear as its core business. EASE means “free and easy” while COX has the meaning of “to take the helm”. “EASECOX” means that consumers can master their life direction by following EASECOX and moving forward. In Amy’s opinion, as long as there was a place with women, there should be a shape-wear market. Therefore, she didn’t intend to limit EASECOX to local development started from the beginning; the reason she created her own brand was also a preparation to enter the international market.

Amy’s autonym was Lin, Su-Zhu (林素珠). When she studied in high school, she used “Lin, Ya-Zhu” (林雅竹) as a pen-name to communicate with her pen pals (the Chinese word “zhu” (竹) means “bamboo”). Amy thought that although bamboo can’t grow strong like a tree, it can grow tall with a long and sharp shape, it is none the less flexible when swaying in the wind; that was the attitude she pursued in her life. In order to name her company, she felt that the

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

word “zhu (bamboo)” 「竹」 was too weak so she decided to use the word “zhu” 「筑」 instead.

The “zhu” was a musical instrument in ancient China, shaped like a large zither and performed by striking the chord with bamboo. It was suggested that adding some strokes of a Chinese character below the word “zhu” would accordingly give her a better fate, but she thought in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is the king already. She also believed that if people can work hard, find the right way, select the correct strategy and have good management, they will naturally ripe for success. Therefore, she didn’t care about the science of naming or superstitious belief like that.

On the opening day, only 20 to 30 guests of friends, family and distributors came to the celebrations. As the general manager, Amy worked without any salary. She had home-office with two hired employees. After all, it was hard at the business starting stage; saving was her highest principle at this stage.

Amy gradually revealed her business sense and mindset she had long developed since childhood. After starting her own business, more and more people recognized her leadership and organization abilities.

In the first year, Amy had set her business goal to find thirty distributors with turnover capacity of three hundred thousand dollars per month; in other words, she had targeted company’s annual turnover to nine million dollars at least. In the beginning, EASECOX had adopted dual-channels in its marketing strategy. The shape-wear would be sold through traditional channels such as department stores, general stores, and lingerie shops…etc; on the other hand, salesmen would directly sell the products to consumers or wholesalers too.

EASECOX would send shape-wear designers to offer services in the shop of the new distributors; it proved that shops with an in-store designer would have good business performance.

Selling shape-wear required professional knowledge and thus Amy had arranged product trainings to the store operators. Amy hoped that store operators could get adequate professional capability after completing the course, and introduced other shops to become EASECOX’s distributors. Amy formulated a series of incentives, including new stores referring bonus equivalent to 2% business of the new distributor.

69

The Ray of Beauty

The incentives program looked perfect, but the business’s expansion progress was still slow. Only an average of three or four new stores joined EASECOX’s referring program each month.

Continuous errors correcting and direction fixing is always inevitable in a company development, there was no exception for Amy. Fortunately, Amy was always open-minded in accepting other people’s opinions. A distributor from the central region proposed to sell the shape-wear through direct selling; Amy had considered the suggestion seriously and carefully. Amy thought that the shape-wear required professional explanations and fitting, therefore, one-on-one service should be more appropriate than retail selling in a department store.

Amy gradually adjusted her marketing direction. She agreed to get the distributor’s support in inviting friends and consumers to attend educational workshop held by EASECOX. 70

On that day, more than thirty people had enrolled originally and the presentation was prepared to kick-off in a hotel meeting room at Taichung.

However, the hotel had canceled their rental at the last minute and the event was mired in trouble.

Later, Amy learned that it is the local marketing companies that threatened the hotel to cancel EASECOX’s venue booking. Even so, Amy remained calm and found a coffee shop to hold the workshop. There were about ten participants and they had used restroom as the fitting room, Amy worked with perseverance according to the original plan.

Good result can be achieved after hard work delivered. Four participants had joined EASECOX as distributors after the workshop.

A series of setbacks prompted Amy to reflect on her marketing strategies.

She made self-examination, “If I think this is such a good product, why aren’t other people interested in it? There must be a problem in how I am selling it.”

Again, she asked herself, “If I were the consumer, would I stop over to take a look at the conservative underwear when I walked past the window display of the department store?” Finally, she understood that if the product could not attract consumers at the first glance, it would fail to draw their interest even if

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

it had excellent functions. Continuing the retail sale of the shape-wear at the shop front would eventually lead to failure.

Through deep reflections, Amy got several profound conclusions: 1. Her shape-wear could not compete with traditional underwear with its looks and price. Only emphasizing the shape-wear’s functional performance could get a turning point and find a position in the market.

2. If the shape-wear had been positioned as traditional underwear by consumers, it would lose its competitive advantage and became inferior comparatively.

3. The shape-wear should get new positioning in the market. EASECOX was selling “shaping function and body curve” instead of common underwear.

With the above understanding, Amy believed that it was necessary to readjust EASECOX’s marketing strategies.

Amy confessed that it was not easy to admit the failure of all her past efforts, but she still resolutely re-drafted various corresponding strategies.

At first, Amy established several principles: Principle No. 1 - Before the consumer enters the design studio, avoid exposing the shape-wear, as they were not selling “underwear” but “perfect body shape” to the customer. She created a set of sales pitches for all salesmen, “Without injections, medications or hard exercise, you can get a new and satisfactory body shape. I can show and prove it if you do not believe me.”

Principle No. 2 - Before the consumer tries on the shape-wear, avoid talking about the price, as the value of the shape-wear is infinite and immeasurable, consumer should understand the function and value of shape-wear first.

Principle No. 3 - Avoid asking feeling of the consumers within three minutes after putting on the shape-wear. Generally, the shape-wear’s pressure design may lead to uncomfortable at the beginning but the uncomfortable feeling would disappear after getting used to it later. The consumers would

71

The Ray of Beauty

appreciate and satisfy with the shape-wear after they found the good shaping effect attained.

Having a clear market positioning, the product can be appropriately interpreted. “A make-up artist for body beauty” and “Creator of body beauty” became the best description to the shape-wear.

72

To assure the best marketing strategy, Amy had created her own business philosophy, “The trinity of production, marketing and consumer”. This philosophy chiefly emphasized the marketing system of “mutual cooperation and common prosperity”, which referred the establishing of an “Equilateral triangle of production, marketing and consumer”; the interests of the 3 parties would be taken into account. Balance of interest should be achieved to avoid dissatisfaction and conflict. Amy believed if her business philosophy can be implemented thoroughly, the three parties can cooperate closely to cultivate the company culture in long run, which will develop EASECOX in endless succession.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

In the ever-changing market, Achieve the first annual turnover of one billion with great joy.

Amy upheld her determination to invest her own business for three years at the initial stage. During the first three years, Amy didn’t receive any pay and got involved in every detail herself, she tried to minimize the company costing to avoid deficit on the books.

Whenever the monthly turnover exceeded one million dollars, Amy would recruit two more employees and trained them to become body designers who could replace her to serve customers and help them to try on the shapewear. Amy could then gradually withdraw from the front line to direct and plan the development of EASECOX systematically at organizing, planning, computerizing, staffing, and controlling…etc.

Becoming an international company had been EASECOX’s blueprint since its establishment; it was the dream goal of Amy. Therefore, she had offered good opportunities to employees with international expertise. With the superb quality products from Japan, international experience from Hong Kong and the humanities management from Taiwan, Amy had integrated a strong team for globalization of EASECOX. From September 1988 till the end of that year, the turnover was about two million dollars over the first three months, and it was accounted to about ten million dollars for the whole year.

In 1989, with approval from the Investment Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the staff size and management structure of EASECOX had been expanded by capital injection of international investment fund.

The company name had been renamed to “EASECOX International Group” officially. With the strong lineup of shareholders and financial backing, the business’s performance began to have significant improvement. There was

73

The Ray of Beauty

amazing results after three years, the annual turnover of EASECOX had exceeded one billion dollars.

With progressive development of EASECOX, Amy timely adjusted her role in the company accordingly. In 1989, she initiated the education & training program to distributors, Amy shared her personal connections with the distributors unconditionally, and she helped them to establish their own marketing networks. Amy’s generosity had been nurtured since her childhood, “People will share their cake with you, if you share yours with them first”. She put her belief into the business culture of running EASECOX, a fair balance between “Production, Marketing and Consumer”.

In this way, Amy trained up five distributors to develop their own EASECOX business independently; they were the extension of her own strength.

74

When the monthly turnover of EASECOX reached five million dollars, a better management system was needed to accommodate further development.

IT team had been set up to facilitate the establishment of comprehensive accounting system, financial system and computer reporting…etc., an overall enhancement of EASECOX was under Amy’s direction.

The company’ had been on the right track with steady development the next few years. One day in 1992, Amy thought that it was the right time to get back her jewelry and gold which she had put into a safe deposit box since the starting up of her own business. To devote herself to EASECOX, Amy had paid the safe rental by post for the past 5 years. However, when Amy opened her safe deposit box, she found that all the jewelry and gold inside had gone, leaving only a bank receipt stating her annual payments of one thousand three hundred dollars.

The bank teller was really frightened at that time for the asset loss that Amy had suffered. Amy calmly asked the teller to check the original contract, the papers had become yellow and the signature on the papers was blurred after a decade. Amy then requested the access records, which needed 3 working days to process.

After leaving the bank, Amy remained composed and went to meal with her accountant, who was greatly surprised by her calmness.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

In fact, Amy was restless that night. The market value of jewelry and gold bars were around five to ten million dollars at that time, however, they were priceless to her with infinite value. Amy felt deep sorrow, as all items in the safe had been the accumulation of her dreams in the earlier life and the microcosm of many wonderful memories. Each jewel and each gold bar got Amy’s unique story behind them, they accompanied Amy’s growth from childhood to youth.

There were her wedding ring and other commemorative jewelries.

She had no idea why she had to suffer from this test.

Three days later, the bank informed Amy that no access to her safe deposit box had been recorded; she suspected that it was the embezzlement of the bank staff. When Amy requested compensation, the bank rejected her claims because they could not confirm the assets in the safe. Amy accepted the fact calmly. Though her accountant and legal staff suggested filing a lawsuit against the bank, Amy decided to forgo this, as she had no assurance in winning the prosecution. The suspected embezzler should have gone already; therefore, the legal procedure would be costly and time consuming in this case. She wasn’t interested in struggling with such trivial matters anymore.

This decision was an important turning point in her career. If raising a prosecution against the bank, Amy would have suffered from the prolonged legal procedures and it would divert her focus from the business.

Amy understood that this event had given her a very important lesson on making decision between different choices. Gains or losses depend on your mindset and belief; Amy believed that life usually confronted with challenges, which would be getting tougher and tougher through age. However, growth meant the growing capability to face the challenges, which become the driving force in one’s life.

75

The Ray of Beauty

Firming the root of distributors to EASECOX Getting the dream of internationalization.

EASECOX got substantial growth in the 1990s; the annual turnover had almost reached 500 million dollars in 1992., The annual turnover had broken through to 1.403 billion dollars in 1993 and the strong growth brought another 1.558 billion dollars in 1994. The business of EASECOX was in full bloom during this period, just like the sun at high noon.

76

At the beginning, the EASECOX shape-wear had been named “magic underwear” because the product can provide an immediate drastic effect to shape the body like magic. At the same time, “functional underwear” that emphasized the effect on supporting and pushing the breasts up was selling in the market, too. The magic underwear was better as it could improve the body shape. However, after EASECOX opened the market for magic underwear, “magic underwear” had unexpectedly become the generic term for functional underwear in late 1990s, which caused confusion of EASECOX with other brands.

Due to the situation, EASECOX had changed the product name from “magic underwear” to “adjustable underwear”. Though, this name was still abused by other companies, many so-called “adjustable underwear” emerged in an endless stream.

In order to differentiate the shape-wear from others, EASECOX had renamed the product once more to “Reshaping Undergarment”. However, competitors started to use “Second Generation Reshaping Undergarment” as their slogan to attract consumers, confusion to consumer continued.

Thus, product name had been a critical issue puzzling EASECOX since then.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

Amy always stressed the marketing position of her product was not simply an “underwear” but the “shaping effect”; the shape-wear was only an accessory to achieve “perfect body transformation”. No matter how the shape-wear named, Magic Underwear, Adjustable Underwear or Reshaping Undergarment, Amy put them in adjectival noun, a descriptive adjective to the shape-wear.

“Magic, Adjustable and Reshaping” were all descriptive adjectives, the true meaning behind was “Body Design”, which meant “Trimming and Correcting”. Amy explained that the professional body design included functions of reshaping and modeling, she further elaborated that if the breasts were too flat, the shape-wear would perform reshaping; if the figure was overly plump, modeling and beautifying would help to improve.

From the start-up through the end of 1989, EASECOX got 15 million dollars capital account only. Amy insisted on transferring the annual surplus to increase capital investment of EASECOX. After 3 times capital replenishment, the capital account of EASECOX reached 180 million dollars in August 1995.

Frequent capital replenishment to EASECOX led to dissatisfaction of shareholders as they could not get good investment return from the company profit. Against all odds, Amy tried to communicate with the shareholders on her belief. She thought that the support and backing of the mother company was the most important in the direct selling industry. “If the company contributed money, the partners would contribute their efforts accordingly”, distributors would consider EASECOX business as their own career rather than a job.

Furthermore, she believed that only huge capital investment could achieve great business for the partners, and EASECOX would get sustainable growth with infinite development potential under this everlasting momentum. This would accomplish the ultimate goal for genuine mutual cooperation to reach joint prosperity though collective efforts.

The firm belief of Amy had persuaded the shareholders successfully and won their support.

It was obvious to everyone that Amy had great capabilities for digital concepts and financial management since her childhood. She fully realized her talent when running the business, she had increased the company profit by using foreign exchange operations; she had also increased the company’s net

77

The Ray of Beauty

value to 500 million dollars by buying real estate. The company gained the bank’s trust because of its high net value; a dozen banks had jointly provided a credit loan amounted up to 1.2 billion dollars to EASECOX. Based on three hundred EASECOX distributors at that time; each of them could get an average financial backing of 4 million dollars.

78

While increasing the company’s assets as the strong backing to distributors, Amy had also created a miracle to the direct selling industry. Direct selling industry had long been misunderstood as a “rootless business”, however, Amy invested a huge capital of 1.2 billion dollars to build the “Headquarters of EASECOX” in Tucheng of Taipei in 1995. It was a multi-story building with eighteen floors, the first to fifth levels of the building were conjoined floors while the sixth level and above were divided into 2 blocks. Amy had been involved in the whole process of choosing location, raising fund, getting design and decoration. The internal design of the building had accommodated the need of EASECOX’s future development and residence. It is not only Amy’s work place but also her home.

The whole building was designed for both residential and commercial purposes. After the construction completed, Amy chose to live on the sixth floor, and she thought that it was the genuine mergence of EASECOX and the distributors into a big family. With the perfect ideas on her dream home, Amy requested the inner décor of EASECOX building should be spacious with high ceilings; she managed to get state-of-the-art IT equipment, fine furniture, allround security system. Though, she charged distributors on the general costs for a normal house only; EASECOX had absorbed all the extra costs involved in the sophisticated design and public facilities. Amy believed that it was the fringe benefit to distributors.

In 1996, the dream of having a big family was finally realized, but Amy had never stopped here. She started her plan on bringing EASECOX to the international markets. Hong Kong was the first stronghold.

Internationalization” had long been the major direction of EASECOX since its establishment. After considerable assessment on the market situations, Amy thought that Hong Kong was the most ideal location to start the overseas expansion as an international economic and trade center. Hong Kong became the base in Amy’s planning; it is the best location to expand the marketing

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

network towards the south, west or north in the future. Therefore, Amy took the first step of internationalization from Hong Kong.

Amy planned every step carefully for internationalization. At first, she selected her top thirty sales experts of Taiwan as pioneers to open the market in Hong Kong. As the general manager, she shuttled back and forth between Taiwan and Hong Kong, took charge every detail to create brilliant performance.

EASECOX shape-wear got considerable public awareness and good reputation already in Taiwan at that time. Based on the good foundation, after the grand opening of EASECOX Hong Kong on 28th May, 1996, the business operation started on 1st June. The sales turnover approached 50 million dollars in just one month and the sales target had reached six months ahead of original schedule. The whole company leaped with joy for this excited news.

Amy had an insight into the EASECOX business. In fact, the growth of Taiwan market was remarkably sluggish before the internationalization.

EASECOX successfully made its breakthrough to Hong Kong with excellent timing. EASECOX had been positively recognized by the public. Actually, Amy began adjusting EASECOX’s constitution and structure one or two years prior to globalization, which made it more capable of getting in line with the international community. The new export business reactivated the vitality of the company, simultaneously increasing the overall growth and preparing EASECOX for another higher level.

79

The Ray of Beauty

The most glorious and splendid milestone in her career, Entrepreneur recognized by national award.

1995 marked the most glorious and splendid milestone in Amy’s career, she was given the “Young Entrepreneur Model” Award in that year. This was the first time that this award was presented to an entrepreneur from the direct selling industry; Amy’s brilliant achievements had made a remarkable honor for the direct selling industry.

80

The awards ceremony of the Eighteenth ROC Young Entrepreneur Model and the Fourth Overseas Outstanding Entrepreneur was held on the second floor at the International Conference Hall of the Holiday Inn Taipei at 2 p.m. on December 12, 1995. The Premier, Mr. Chan Lien, personally presented the awards to the twenty-four young domestic and overseas entrepreneur models.

As the general manager of EASECOX, Amy was one of the award winners.

According to the news published by the awarding units, the award-winning reasons of Amy were as follow: 1. Entered the rank of Taiwan’s top 500 of service industry by providing professional service.

With compelling business performance, Amy made her enterprise jump into the top 500 service providers in just a few years from an unremarkable start. Amy created her own brand and marketed it domestically and abroad. EASECOX was ranked 40th in the class of national trade.

2. Constructed the international headquarters at Taiwan; promoted enterprise diversification and market internationalization.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

When the investment environment in Taiwan was not very favorable and a large number of domestic enterprises relocated their factories overseas, Amy had not been perturbed; on the contrary, she invested huge capital on the construction of corporate headquarters in Taiwan, implementing the national policy of “roots in Taiwan, eyes on the world”.

3. Promoted corporate IC card to match up the financial development.

In line with fiscal and monetary policies, the government encouraged enterprises to issue IC debit cards. Amy took the lead by signing a contract with Chung Shing Bank, and aimed at issuing 40 thousand corporate IC card. As of April 1996, the cumulative amount of debit card payments was more than 50 million dollars.

4. Created more than 80 thousand employment opportunities by combining the concept of marketing and communications.

Over seven years, EASECOX created more than 80 thousand employment opportunities, which had not only promoted the development of society, but also created successful and confident women of the new era.

5. Constructed affordable housing and helped employees to get married and start their careers.

Amy offered one hundred apartments in the EASECOX International Building for distributors at discounted prices, so that they could get married and concentrated on their careers.

6. The good business performance of EASECOX had increased the national tax revenue.

EASECOX International Ltd. got rapid growth with brilliant performance. The good revenue had brought gorgeous national income to the government by both the company business tax and personal income tax.

81

The Ray of Beauty

7. Created a series of “Beauty Engineering” products that was elected among the top ten products of the year.

With advanced technology, the “Beauty Engineering” Series had been created by Amy after long research & development. These products helped women to create their shape and rebuild their self-confidence; the series was popularly loved by female consumers in the country and was elected among the top ten products of the year in 1994.

8. Branched out into the international market; established EASECOX Hong Kong.

9. Corporate charity.

82

Amy established the EASECOX Cultural and Educational Foundation, which cared the lives of women, implementing the spirit of “whatever you take from society, contribute back to the society.”

After receiving the award, Amy explained that she accepted participating in “Young Entrepreneur Model” election, as it would allow top professionals from the industry and academia to comment EASECOX so that the company can learn and improve. Her winning on the award proved the enormous potentiality of EASECOX. It was not only the honor of herself and the company, but also the glory of the entire direct selling industry.

It is also worth mentioning that the first lady, Miss Wen Hui Zeng (the wife of the President, Mr. Teng Hui Lee) had presented the “Supporting Award” to Miss Su Mei Chong Lin, the chairman of EASECOX, at the gala cocktail party that evening, which was full of touching moments. Miss Su Mei Chong Lin was Amy’s second eldest sister and played the role of both mother and sister after their mother passed away. The two sisters worked and started up EASECOX together, they supported each other all the way through, the “Supporting Award” was well-deserved.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

Ideas determine the way to go.

Dreams determine the way to live.

In a speech, Amy once mentioned, “The breadth of mind stands for the vision. A train of thought determines the way to go and also represents the idea that determines the mindset. A person’s mindset will come out with different results and therefore a different life.” She added, “One can’t be called an entrepreneur if one just wanted to find a way to slip out of a predicament like a cicada sloughing its skin or how to fleece a company while encountering problems. When suffering through troubles, a real entrepreneur would try to use a variety of resources to make every effort to save the company. When life passes from one stage to another, one’s responsibility will increase accordingly and the challenges will aggravate, too, but it is an inescapable reality that an entrepreneur has to face.”

In the beginning of starting her own business, Amy had set a grand and specific goal for her company, even though the market positioning and the consumer segment of the product had not been clarified yet.

Amy firmly conveyed her specific objective to all the employees in a meeting.

She said, “We must become the top 500 service company in the future!”

Although nobody consented to her thought on such promising prospect, she still carried out her dream step by step.

According to her dream, EASECOX International Group would be developed under specific objectives and plans. From 1988 to 1992, the first five-year plan was undertaking, the goals of this program included increasing brand awareness, capturing the market ASAP, becoming the top 500 service company and so on.

In 1992, EASECOX had quickly captured the market and become the No.1 brand shape-wear brand of the domestic market through direct selling.

83

The Ray of Beauty

In 1993, EASECOX International Group officially became the top 500 service company.

In 1994, in order to enhance the company’s assets and follow the government’s policy of “Roots in Taiwan, Eyes on the world”, Amy boldly made​​ the decision to construct the group’s headquarters building in Taipei. She chose to buy the land and construct the building all by EASECOX. This building was not only her preparation for internationalization, but also a declaration to the public that the direct selling industry was a long-term business. Moreover, she wanted to give herself a “root” since she had moved around from places to places throughout her childhood.

From purchasing the land to design and construction, Amy showed her determination and exceptional capability in running the business.

84

The EASECOX building officially broke ground in February 1994. The land had a total area of seven thousand nine hundred square feet and was planned as two 18-story buildings. It was not only the headquarter of international business, but one hundred residences had been planned for distributors at a modest price, all were quickly sold out. This had demonstrated the firm support of distributors to EASECOX, furthermore, their advance payments was an important fund sources for the construction project.

Amy had participated in the whole process, including location search, procurement, prepare blueprints, engineering details and contracting works; therefore, the project progressed much faster than expected. The construction area was at 4000 square feet, the two floor basements and first six floors was the headquarters of the company, which included heritage halls, international audiovisual centers, research centers and laboratories. This headquarters building was customized in response to the company’s future development.

The construction of EASECOX Building showed the long term vision of Amy, the development of EASECOX cannot be satisfied by ready-made commercial floors.

The first five-year plan was achieved satisfactorily. The dream of Amy had been reached with her persistent efforts.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

In the consequent year 1993, Amy initiated the second five-year plan from 1993 to 1997. The specific objectives included: 1. Complete all preparations to penetrate the international market 2. Consolidate the business 3. Diversify benefits 4. Develop corporate charity 5. Execute marketing internationalization The first target of this five-year plan clearly revealed the determination of EASECOX to penetrate the international market. EASECOX had to enhance both its software and hardware to accomplish the objectives.

Basically, the hardware had been improved by constructing the headquarters while the software had been improved by establishing good reputation and professional image.

Based on the five major objectives, EASECOX established its major tasks and directions year by year.

1993 was “The Year of Education”, the number of counseling centers had been increased, so that the professional quality could be improved to protect the consumers’ rights and interests.

1994 was “The Year of Charity”; EASECOX upheld the spirit of “whatever you take from society, contribute back to the society”, the company encouraged distributors’ participation in more public services and charity activities. As a result, the corporate image of EASECOX had been enhanced. Furthermore, EASECOX advocated the activity of “Four Hours Charity” to distributors, in the hope that each distributor can engage at least four hours charity work each month.

1995 was “The Year of Benefits”. The direct selling industry was not supposed to spend on advertising in the past; however, many fake shape-wear had turned up after EASECOX got good development in the market, which caused consumers to suffer losses. By the consumer point of view, EASECOX spent nearly ten million dollars on advertisements in the media to improve consumers’ knowledge on the shape-wear. The advertisements were educational ads only which talked about the shape-wear’s knowledge, they were not

85

The Ray of Beauty

promoting EASECOX’s products or attacking competitors in the industry. The educational advertisements supported the consumers to know and understand the product well. Besides consumers, EASECOX had provided good benefit to the internal staff and distributors with affordable residences at the headquarter building in “The Year of Benefits”.

1996 was “The Year of Consumer Protection”. In addition to market education and consumer awareness promotion, EASECOX Cultural and Educational Foundation held many seminars on shape-wear’s expertise.

Though consumer interest awareness was not popular in Taiwan at that time, EASECOX had already introduced the measure of “Goods can be returned upon dissatisfaction” to protect the consumers’ rights and interests. The consumer could return goods by invoice within seven days after purchase; this was considered a bold policy by commercial entity at that time.

86

1997 was “The Year of Prospects”. The headquarter building would be completed in this year; different aspects of EASECOX are at their full gear.

EASECOX was fully prepared to further explore and develop the international markets. Moreover, a succession of new products and services would be launched. This was a year full of breakthroughs; EASECOX was heading towards another milestone.

“Internationalization” played the most strenuous role in the second fiveyear plan. Amy had drawn up the “southward” and “westward” business plan, international markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the United States, and Canada etc. were under her planning. China, the most attractive market for the direct selling industry, was one of the strongholds in her plan. Amy planned to build her own factory and corporate building in China one day.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

A determined heart with unwavering commitment.

Glorifying towards the 21st century.

Amy always believed that the success of EASECOX was the cooperative efforts of everyone; therefore, “contributing back to the society” had always been her greatest wish. In 1995, Amy took the lead to donate 2 million dollars personally in setting up a charity foundation. The other shareholders of EASECOX immediately responded in donating another 5 million dollars. All the directors of EASECOX donated further 3 million dollars together. The EASECOX Cultural and Educational Foundation was then established with a total of 10 million dollars finally, achieving one of the goals of Amy had set when starting her own business.

With the successful achievement of second five-year plan, Amy set up the third five-year plan, which would be implemented from 1998 to 2002.

The objectives of this program included: 1. Corporate diversification 2. Product diversification 3. Talent specialization 4. Business globalization While EASECOX had successfully penetrated the overseas markets, the “EASECOX International Building” was also completed in 1998. The building was not just an office construction but the career base for every EASECOX distributor, it was the “home” and “business base” to support their pioneering works worldwide.

In 1999, EASECOX strode forward to its tenth anniversary since its establishment. The company had developed successfully and maturely on

87

The Ray of Beauty

product, education, technology, management and image. Amy had also received appreciations from many notables of industrial, government and academic sectors. Though the business of EASECOX had been well-positioned with good progress, Amy spared no effort on the research and development. Due to her persistence in pursing high product quality, EASECOX won the Taiwan Gold Quality Award in the category of lingerie and skin care products. EASECOX had become a brand that guaranteed good quality, which made EASECOX well-deserved the label of No. 1 brand in shape-wear industry.

In 2000, aimed at promoting more business venturing opportunities to young entrepreneurs, Amy had enthusiastically participated in the activities of the Youth Career Development Association. She was elected as the chairwoman of the Taipei Youth Career Development Association with the highest votes.

EASECOX got reaffirmation and recognition on excellent goods and services from consumers by winning the “National Consumer Millennium Gold Medal” and the “2000 National Consumer Trusted Mark Gold Business Award”.

88

In Amy’s internationalization plan, passing the ISO 9002 international certification was the most important accomplishment. This showed that EASECOX had confirmed to international standards in all aspects of its system, operation and workflow, and it was a crucial step in internationalization.

In 2001, at the beginning of the 21st century, Amy tried to transform and improve EASECOX to meet the future challenges. By the five-year plan, Amy had built a solid foundation for the next phase of growth, which focused on “product diversification” regarding health, beauty, slimming and related products. She also extended consumer segment to people of all ages without gender-specific. With her outstanding performance as an enterprise leader, Amy won the “Person of the Year” in 2001 while EASECOX gained the “Excellent Enterprise Award” of this year.

2002 was the era of e-century; Amy never stopped behind the time and she had used “The wheel of Time greeting the e-century” as the event title of that year. She knew that if EASECOX wanted to achieve the goal of “moving towards the international market and global management”, she had to run faster to catch up the e-age: the EASECOX official website was established in February 2002.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

In order to complete the Asia-Pacific business network, Amy actively developed SEA markets and personally flew to Singapore, Malaysia, etc, in addition to Hong Kong and China.

Always full of passion, Amy pursued the eternity instead of momentary reward. In her golden era of life, Amy broke traditions in the direct selling industry, she was the first one who constructed a corporate building, and she had been selected as the Model to Young Entrepreneur with the title of “entrepreneur”, Amy was the first entrepreneur in the direct selling industry to win national awards recognition.

Amy was once interviewed and said, “There were no secrets to my success, but work with great passion like a volcano, passion is my source of inspiration and vitality.” For her, what EASECOX sold was not just a piece of underwear, but “hope” and “a better future”. She loved the marketing slogan very much, “God created women, EASECOX created curves.” Amy put “professionalism” as the guide and direction of the company, because only professionalism could cultivate professional insights, which could develop areas of expertise and in turn provided infinite room for development.

Amy was a woman who loved beauty, and thus she sincerely hoped that every woman could get the beautiful and satisfactory body shape.

89

The Ray of Beauty

A special adieu to a special woman

In 2002, Amy’s career was at its apex and she was preparing to pass the torch to her eldest son, who was about to complete his studies abroad and returned to Taiwan. Amy could then devote herself to the charity works on public services.

Amy flew to Beijing for a business trip on 25th May, 2002. Unfortunately, the Flight 611 of China Airlines that she took had crashed into the sea in Penghu.

90

In addition to consternation, everybody was dismayed at getting the sad news. EASECOX had lost the soul leader; the spiritual pillar of the company had suddenly collapsed. Amy had always praised herself as a person who was in pursuit of the eternity instead of moment; at that instant, she became the everlasting spiritual leader for EASECOX. To recall the entire life of Miss Amy Lin’s, it may be somewhat superficial to praise her by common words. However, Leopoldo Lugones, an Argentine poet who excelled at praising the moon, once wrote a poem, “Prayer of Carnival”, which may give the best description to Miss Amy Lin.

Chapter III: Transformation of Amy Lin – Destined for Success

Prayer of Carnival Oh moon! you lead as a wise sportswoman By zodiacs and eclipses your cute convertible: Under the burning silk of your sky of Arabia Oh moon, good moon! who was your Joshua.

Your whiteness will endlessly charm my tent, With such noble nakedness that it offends the tulle; Oh entranced in a pale old legend Your bride’s integrity perpetuates the blue.

Moon of dreams, over the lilac evening Your old gold disseminates delinquent disease, When in a lonely tranquil shore You test eternity like a mournful heron.

In your mystical snow Maria bathes her feet Your disc reproduces the look of Harlequin, Crime and love make up the dregs of your poetry Pale and heady as Rhine wine.

And all this high fame with which I come praising Your premature baby face in alcohol, The centuries will tell you as the illustrious lineage, Because you are, oh moon, the sun’s mask.

91

The Ray of Beauty

92

Famous Quote “The target of my life is to fulfill the uncompleted dream.”

“I’m making new dream every moment, therefore, I’ve got unlimited dreams to accomplish ever after.”

Amy Lin

Chapter I: The Miraculous Birth – Amy Lin’s Childhood

Chapter IV Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman Stormy waves often help an outstanding voyager.

“True wisdom generally calms people down and enables them to use the right balance as basis for observing things” – Yu-Tang Lin, Chinese litterateur.

93

The Ray of Beauty

A low-key and simple temperament translates to a life of freedom and ease.

Fred Lin, the former chairman of EASECOX Group, went to Canada to study with his brother, Simon Lin, when they were senior high school students.

Their father decidedly put aside his business in Taiwan and went together with them to Canada to take care of the two young teenagers who were in the rebellious phase of their adolescence. His way of education was “Example is better than precept,” and he got along well with Fred, the oldest son, not only as father and son, but also as friends. Through Fred’s adulthood and even when he 102 became chairman of the company, the father and son pair could talk all night long without realizing the day was dawning.

Because of Fred’s cordial personality, everyone likes to call him by his English name, Fred. Fred’s life in the foreign land was considered lucky when compared to other international students. He did not have to worry about making ends meet, and his father and younger brother were always with him.

Then again, the environment was not the same as those familiar skin colors and faces back home after all. It was perhaps because of this reason that he, along with his inherently introverted personality, became even more lowkey. Although his mother was the leader of a large enterprise, one could not see any luxury apparels on him nor an arrogant temperament. He also never bragged about his family background anywhere. A simple and plain life was the portrayal of how he lived in Canada.

Fred loved reading; history books were especially his favorite. Going through a wide range of books in the reading room in the Canada home, comparable to the ones in the library, was his favorite after-school past-time. Although his parents were divorced when he was at a young age, they still maintained a good, friendly relationship. After Fred’s father took the two brothers to Canada to study, his mother still managed some time out of her busy schedule and visited

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

them from time to time. The long distance did not affect the familial love; on the contrary, the family time became one that is quality-oriented.

Ms. Amy Lin at that time had already wanted to pass the torch to Fred, her eldest son, so she often mentioned her work when they chatted. In order to let Fred get in touch with and understand her business earlier, she also used every opportunity available to bring Fred along with her on business trips abroad. Thus, Fred was already undergoing the elite education of the Lin family through the examples set by his mother while his peers of the same age were still in the “youth and naïve” phase.

When Fred was a student, his life was just like who he was, simple, but with ideas of his own. Because of Bruce Lee, he loved sports; Chinese kung fu was especially his favorite. He would strap sandbags to his ankles while walking.

After the class, he also spent two and a half hours walking back from school, whether sunny or cold.

Fred was a carefree ordinary student while in Toronto, Canada. He had 103 his share of joyful school life like any other ordinary youngsters. He also had his own wishes and things to look forward to in the future. Keeping a low profile did not mean he was sternly cool or unmoved; treating people with tolerance was his warm way to get along with others. He did not care about trivial matters, but clearly understood everything in his mind. Since he led a life with no financial concerns, some people would simply take advantage of him.

Although he knew it quite well, he never showed his emotion outwardly, but instead kept his distance from such people in his own way as long as no feeling is hurt. He was quite similar to his mother in the importance they placed on harmony.

To Fred, life in Canada was a matter of the whole family standing together in times of testing. His father taught him in a strict but reasonable manner, showed hospitality towards friends he invited home, as opposed to treating them like little children. It seemed like a chore that he had to take care of his younger brother, but this was a warm load on his heart.

To his father, the twenty-year-old Fred, was still a kid who loved basketball, kung fu, reading, and his family. Fred had an infinite amount of ideals for the future and an unlimited imagination about the world.

The Ray of Beauty

To his friends and classmates, Fred led a life of freedom and ease. There was a tender and warm heart beneath his staunch and strong appearance; his kindness led him to always treat people with tolerance. Within his optimistic personality, there was the intrinsic element of shyness, and the ambition inherited from his mother pushed him to develop superior ability of execution.

104

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

Accepting mission in urgent times at the age of twenty.

Facing self facing everything.

However, the “kid” in his father’s eyes and the “polite, kind, boyish” Fred in his friends’ eyes, was forced to grow up overnight and shoulder the future of the company, as well as its hundreds of members and their families.

All that the world can imagine is perhaps one word, “pressure”, to describe it; however, to Fred, how could this mere one word be adequate to describe the emotional rollercoaster he was experiencing?

After the China Airlines plane crashed on May 25, 2002, Fred and his 105 younger brother returned to Taiwan on the first flight available; their father stayed back longer to deal with some unfinished matters in Canada. At that time, Fred was studying for a degree in business management. He was in a hurry to get back to Taiwan, so he packed only four books in his luggage: the Bible, the Buddhist Scripture, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the Art of War. He hoped these four books could offer him sufficient strength to deal with what lies ahead. During the eighteen-hour flight, he repeatedly thought about how to cope with changes and win this uphill battle.

Upon stepping back onto the home soil, when faced with the swarming crowd, the reality finally sank in – “Mother is gone”. The current chairman, Simon, recalled that moment when he witnessed the emotional rollercoaster his brother went through from panic to calmness and finally to courage; Simon’s admiration for his brother still showed in his expression even after all these years.

EASECOX International Group held a board meeting on June 5th. The board unanimously resolved for Fred to be the successor and his chairmanship to come into effect immediately, so that he could continue to carry on Amy Lin’s business objectives.

The Ray of Beauty

At that time, vicious rumors spread; some did not think Fred dare to come back to take over such a large enterprise. Of course, there were even more questions and doubts regarding his capability: could a young man who is still a student be capable of leading the company?

However, everyone was impressed by how Fred steadily came through stepby-step, showing his strength and toughness the whole time, from dealing with the funeral arrangements to taking over the company.

Fred admitted that he had dealt with endless telephone calls and documents on the first day he returned to Taiwan; numerous burdens and responsibilities fell on him all of a sudden; he had no confidence whether he is capable of shouldering an enterprise of such large scale.

One day, in the midst of the suffocating hurry-scurry, Fred drove from the scene, attempting to escape all the overwhelming burdens. He was speeding and in tears at the same time; it was the first time he let his emotion out after 106 learning of the news of his mother’s passing. He cried for missing his mother, as well as because of all the responsibility and pressure he was about to face.

Without being conscious of it, Fred drove to the end of the mountain road.

It was difficult to turn the car around since the road was too narrow. At that time, he suddenly realized that “it is hard to turn back when the road comes to an end; the only way to move forward is to continuously open a new way”. After he had let out his frustrations, he began to think calmly. Although he believed he might encounter great setbacks in the future business, those subsequent problems could also be readily solved as long as he could survive this crisis before him.

He thought, “Even if I wander around, I can’t escape from myself”; therefore, he decided to face himself, as well as everything. After clearing his mind, he immediately made the turn and headed back to Taipei. He arrived back at the company after 10 p.m. The core executives were still waiting for him; their support gave Fred more courage and confidence to face future challenges.

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

Using own effort and strength, Leading the group into a new era.

After taking over the position as chairman, the first step Fred took was to hold the chairman’s forum, and he did a non-stop round trip all over Taiwan from North to South. Having inherited his mother’s frank quality, he openly talked about himself at the forum, confessing that he never held any leadership role when growing up. The first ever leadership position in his life was being the chairman. Such a drastic turn of fate caught him off-guard, he was not prepared for it. However, time after time, he overcame his nervousness of going on stage and went over that part of him that was shy. From a meeting of fifty 107 people to a large lecture to hundreds, even thousands of people, he gradually crossed over all the hurdles and grew at an incredible speed.

Although charisma was something to be born with, but a heart-felt sincerity is what touched people’s heart.

What Fred spoke of at the forums truly came from his heart and expressed his most genuine inner feelings, and this had always made attendees moved and surrendered. He also impressed people with the flexibility he has demonstrated when it comes to his management and leadership, as well as his inspirational side.

He once said in a forum “Each one of us is ordinary. So am I. However, a group of ordinary people coming together for a common belief can achieve an extraordinary business.” The distributors who were there were moved by his speech and he gained the full support from all the distributors.

Seeing such a change in Fred made his father who sat in the audience very sentimental and could not conceal the excitement in his heart. Fred, his eldest son who was still a child in his eyes, has now transformed into a leader of an

The Ray of Beauty

enterprise, a figure whom everyone in this enterprise would depend on. Only Fred’s father could share the same struggles and painful feelings with Fred.

History was Fred’s favorite and he always used historical figures as references. In the meetings with the distributors, he resolutely indicated that he would lead all the companions in carrying on the founder Ms. Amy Lin’s unfinished dreams and aspirations by applying Emperor Kangxi’s wisdom, Emperor Yongzheng’s daring and Genghis Khan’s ambition.

It is not being crowd-pleasing but the capability and effort of one’s own that should be depended on throughout one’s life. Fred, who used to be someone who could not help but tremble even if he only had to give a one-minute speech on the stage, was finally able to freely express his own ideas and ideals to win the trust and cooperation from the distributors of the EASECOX Group after overcoming and fully understanding his own self.

For EASECOX, it has finally passed through the most dangerous moment; another new era for EASECOX International Group was about to unfold!

108

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

Presenting personal management styles: swift as the wind, calm as the woods, ambitious as fire, but stable as a mountain.

EASECOX Group was suddenly rendered rudderless after the China Airlines’ plane crash. While taking over this large enterprise at a time of crisis and enduring the grief of losing his mother, faced with the enormous pressures internally and externally, Fred turned around to comfort his father and motivate all distributors, and commanded the counter offensive on the market. After the company became stabilized, Fred recalled that his strength came from the “refuse to accept defeat” attitude which supported him that 109 entire time.

Fred believed that if you wanted to make the right judgment about something, the first thing you must do is to like it, then detach yourself from it, and analyze it from an objective perspective. Thus, after settling the distributors and company employees, he began to proactively find out the company’s culture and the mode of operation. Through communication with the senior cadres in the organization, he thought EASECOX, which had been growing for fourteen years, sales performance had come to a standstill because of the aging organizational structure and antiquated thinking. Therefore, he set off to transform the enterprise to improve the quality of the corporate culture in the hope of pouring innovation, vitality and life into the company.

Fred took office in June 2002 and, within three years, had interpreted the founder’s goals of “enterprise diversification, product diversification, talent specialization, and business globalization” in a more forward-looking manner.

He also demonstrated superior execution completely and brilliantly during this time.

For “enterprise diversification”, Fred was the first to introduce the “ultrapressurized oxygen beauty health instrument”, which transformed the

The Ray of Beauty

medical-grade highly-pressurized oxygen into ultra-pressurized oxygen for the purposes of beauty, spa and health. There were a total of eighteen health instruments, seven for each business center in Taipei and Taichung, and four for Kaohsiung. This strategy was the first of its kind nation-wide as well as one of a kind.

For “product diversification”, Fred, who specialized in business management, knew very well that the products were the enterprise’s best weapons. Therefore, he actively cooperated with the renowned GMP pharmaceutical factory to research and develop a series of health foods which would later win the National Biotechnology Award. Because EASECOX Group introduced this patented technology, the company received widespread coverage by major media and caused the products to become an instant hit once launched on the market.

This was EASECOX Group’s first step into the field of health foods, and Fred’s wisdom was the key to these fruitful results.

110

Furthermore, the company increased its research and development budget to look for better suppliers to develop more high-quality products that fulfill the requirements of health and beauty.

For “talent specialization,” Fred deeply felt that company management requires professional talents, so he spared no effort in talent development. His ideal company was like a school and each employee at EASECOX Group could acquire new knowledge and reap the benefits of their learning. The company would not lose any talent because everyone here is allowed the chance to grow.

Such a virtuous circle helps to create a united and pleasant working environment.

For “business globalization”, Fred led in establishing international branches one after another: Singapore in 2003; Malaysia in 2004, which served as EASECOX Group’s second base of operations in Southeast Asia; and Indonesia in 2005. Internationalization was taking place at an exponential speed.

EASECOX Group’s global performance grew by 70% in 2003 with a turnover of three billion New Taiwan dollars, which was EASECOX Group’s highest profit in 17 years since founding. In order to manage the increasingly globalized business, Fred held regular video conferences with the overseas branches; he demonstrated his ambition and boasted that “in the future, wherever there is a market, EASECOX will be there.”

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

With a series of reforms and innovations, Fred had to make better use of the EASECOX International Building in order to accommodate a number of industries in his future plans. With outstanding results, EASECOX Group has gained a big step towards the founder Ms. Amy Lin’s dreams of “Network in Asia Pacific, beauty engineering for the world”; the completion of the business expansion plan was merely a matter of time.

The twenty-year-old young man who came back to Taiwan from Canada in a rush, with a suitcase of only four books inside to attend to his mother’s funeral had within 3 years pushed EASECOX Group to its pinnacle since inception and turned it into an enterprise with an annual turnover of three billion New Taiwan dollars. He was only twenty-two years old at that time.

In 2004, Fred stood out from many competing outstanding entrepreneurs and had the honor of being picked by the Society of Business Practitioners, United Kingdom to win the inaugural “Asia’s Outstanding Business Entrepreneur” award. He did not become complacent with winning this award and rather indicated that attention should be given to the danger in times of 111 peace, and that the enterprise was in urgent need of a strategy to face the fierce competition. He believed that “survival” was the greatest mission for him.

Fred could never forget when he was studying in Canada, how he witnessed the largest local department store, a centurial store, that was unable to fight off market competition and finally closed down. He experienced the loss of his mother and deeply realized “Everyone is moving towards demise from birth”.

Being the company leader, he felt the responsibility to establish a centurial foundation for the company so that it would not face a crisis because of the loss of any one individual. Therefore, he was devoted to creating the corporate culture, institution and spirit, and made his way firmly towards the dream of sustainable management.

The Ray of Beauty

Making way towards the dream of sustainable management with a macro business strategy.

Having a macro business strategy had always been where Fred’s personal charisma was found. He believed that if people only care about their own self, all emotions would be geometrically magnified. However, people must also have a deep comprehension of everything about them and then be able to clearly understand everything about others, so that they could have the “do as you would be done by” realization. At the same time, he also believed that the meaning of life should not be about creating individual needs, but also others.

112 Like Ms. Amy Lin, he was not a person who pinched pennies all the time; what he really cared about was the distributors’ growth and their wealth, both tangible and intangible, after joining EASECOX Group.

Fred could not guarantee that all shareholders would share the same ideas as him, even if he was the chairman. If the shareholders did not regard the distributors’ interests as their first priority and only thought of their personal interests, the company would make no headway or growth and could even become obsolete as time passed. As a result, he displayed the “Genghis Khan’s daring” once again and made EASECOX Group wielding greater strength for consolidation by buying out all the shares of the other shareholders in EASECOX Hong Kong.

Within the following few years, Fred had obtained 100% control of EASECOX in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Next, he planned to set up an independent profit center system for the company of each country and create more profits for the company and distributors by applying the business philosophy of developing new income sources and minimizing existing expenditures. He further declared that “the unity of production and marketing” was the Group’s future development priority. This would create a triple win situation between consumers, distributors and the company by

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

improving product quality, lowering costs, and increasing the distributors’ points all at the same time.

EASECOX Group made “integrity” its top emphasis when it comes to company spirit; expecting to share with everyone this career opportunity for wealth creation; assisting EASECOX partners to become financially independent and owning a wonderful quality of life. Fred exerted himself in the above matters thoroughly when he served as chairman.

In order to commemorate his mother, Ms. Amy Lin, who was also the founder of EASECOX Group, Fred donated twenty million New Taiwan dollars to establish the “Amy Lin’s Social Welfare Foundation”. He took a proactive role in social welfare events and extended his mother’s spirit of “whatever you take from community, give it back to the community”.

In the 21st century where the marketing industry changes from time to time, Fred utilized business practices full of vitality and innovation to successfully lead EASECOX Group through the pain of transition and poured 113 new life into this seventeen-year-old company.

Ichikawa Danjuro, Japan’s famous founder of Edo Kabuki, once said to his disciples, “Everyone has his own strengths, so it is a great loss to imitate other people. If other people have some advantages, you can absorb them, add them into your own strengths and make them your own things.”

For Fred, being the second generation of the enterprise, it was destined that people around him would compare him with his mother. No one could possibly imagine both the tangible and intangible pressures that he shouldered all of a sudden. However, like what Ichikawa Danjuro said, “It is a great loss to imitate other people,” and at the age of twenty, Fred was able to bring EASECOX Group which was in a highly competitive market out of his own haze, not because of his mother’s remaining shades, but through the spirit of profoundly understanding his own self and wishing it to boldly move forward.

In 2002, when Fred was just twenty years old and started serving as the chairman, he expected himself to have “Emperor Kangxi’s wisdom, Emperor Yongzheng’s daring and Genghis Khan’s ambition” when coming before the distributors.

The Ray of Beauty

In 2011, Fred was thirty years old and had served as chairman for nearly a decade. He absorbed his mother’s strengths and made them his own strengths and then submitted an impressive report card!

114

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

Epilog Various roles in life interconnected to become the essence of a successful life

The founder, Ms. Amy Lin, had two sons; her eldest son, Fred, was the former chairman, and her second son, Simon, succeeded as chairman after his brother in 2012. Their father was always with a warm smile when talking about these two brothers. He described Fred as shy and bashful; even after he went to study in Canada, he would blush when faced with outgoing and passionate Western females. However, the younger brother Simon was the complete opposite from his older brother; his father described him as completely enthusiastic and has an extroverted temperament, and could “make a new friend” in five minutes”. 115 These two brothers had different personalities; one was quiet and the other was lively. Their years together comprised quarrelling and fighting. Then again, they always reached out their colorful hands and painted each other’s living and life. The current chairman, Simon, remembered his brother and said, “Even though the words “I’m sorry” were never uttered to one another whenever we quarreled or my brother rebuked me severely, we always found a way to reconcile whenever the opportunity arises by asking if the other wanted to eat something or do something.”

To the younger brother, Fred was someone he idolized from his childhood; to the father, Fred was a kind-hearted, innocent and responsible son. Simon indicated that, “The two of us brothers are tied down to one another deeply, but the tie-down was a sweet one.”

Simon used the word “brave” to describe his elder brother, the former chairman, Fred. He always demonstrated his bravery from a macroscopic perspective; he overcame panic with calmness when being called upon to take on the mission in the moment of crisis; he used his willpower to take him through at the beginning of taking over various company affairs; he dissolved

The Ray of Beauty

the tides of pressures with his sense of responsibility. In the eyes of the younger brother, such variety of performances different from the average person was considered bravery.

The fact has proven that happiness did accompany his bravery. After the business became stabilized, Fred also overcame his blind spot in personality – shy and introverted, to find his soul mate in life.

In other people’s eyes, Fred is a good man who loved his family very much.

He had publicly expressed his affection for his wife in the public more than once. After getting married, his wife served as CEO in the company and became the perfect partner on work to her husband who was the chairman at that time. Simon thought his elder brother and sister-in-law not only supported each other in their personal lives, but also worked hard to grow and learn from each other on work.

Not long after, Fred’s eldest son and second son were born and added more happiness to his sweet life. He, who loved kids when he was young, took extra 116 good care of the younger ones in the family and was imperceptibly influenced by his father’s “example is better than precept” way of education when it comes to his own children. When mentioning how his brother got along with his children, Simon, who is not yet married, indicated in disbelief that this brother was the kind of father who would accompany his children to play, read, even hold them when sleeping.

After having his own family, Fred became even more active on work and gradually unfolded his future long term plans, including the cultivation of his brother. He often unfolded his future long-term plans, including the cultivation of his brother. He often teased his brother as a way to interact with him, and he was used to sharing everything with him. Since they had common interests, there were no communication problems between them despite having different personalities, even if they had a quarrel or got angry, it would never last for more than a day. Simon indicated that his brother was quick to react and meticulous in thinking, he never forced him to learn at work and always let him experience and spontaneously participate in through self-reflection and self-discipline.

He said that his brother Fred was good at observation, including all people, matters and things, especially people’s “attitudes”. Therefore, after the current chairman Simon finished his study and returned from Canada, Fred would

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

often take him to attend a variety of events, observed his attitude through his participation in the events and thereby encouraged him to spontaneously participate in the affairs of the company.

That was Fred! A wonderful lover and husband to his wife, a ‘big play doll’ father to his sons, the brave brother to his younger brother, and a good son with a sense of responsibility and pure heart to his father.

117

The Ray of Beauty

Dedicated to the former chairman, Mr. Fred Lin

The mission of the mirror – Jorge Carrera Andrade, Ecuador poet When the night fells, all things forgot their shapes and colors, The walls curl up, When everything kneels to surrender or muddles, Only you, the shiny existence, stand with strong feet.

118

You impose your crystal will on shadows, Your mineral silence flashes in the dark.

Like pigeons suddenly rising, You send the secret message to all of creation.

Every chair stretched in the night waits for Imaginary guests to show up before the shadowy plate.

Only you, a transparent witness, Repeatedly recite the lessons of light.

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

119

Famous Quote “We are ordinary peoples and I am an ordinary people also; however, the accumulated effort of a group of ordinary people would fulfill an extraordinary career!”

Fred Lin

The Ray of Beauty

Milestones of Easecox 1988  Establishment of EASECOX International Group 1989  The AMYLINEAR Shaping Garment first appeared 1993  The nationwide marketing network was established; annual sales record of NTD 2 billion had been achieved 1994  AMYLINEAR was selected as one of the Top 10 Products

by Business Weekly 1996  Hong Kong office was opened; EASECOX won the MOEA’s “Golden Trademark Award” 1997  The brand new AMYLINEAR Tourmaline Fiber Series was developed

120

1998  EASECOX International Building completed, showing the sustainability of EASECOX business 1999  EASECOX received the “Taiwan Golden Quality Award for Best Costumer Ratification” and was verified by the Consumer Protection Commission as an excellent business 2000  ISO 9002 quality authentication completed 2001  Ms. Amy Lin was honored the Outstanding Entrepreneur Award; the AMYLINEAR superconductive series was launched 2002  Mr. Fred Lin has been appointed as the new chairman; the Malaysian market has been started up 2003  NTD 3 billion sales turnover was achieved; EASECOX Singapore was established 2004  Chairman Fred Lin has been honored as “Asia’s prominent business entrepreneur”

 EASECOX Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia was established 2006  EASECOX Penang in Malaysia was established; EASECOX Jakarta in Indonesia was established

Chapter IV: Inheritance – Fred Lin, the former chairman

2007  The launch of Superconductive Metallic Ion Series 2009  Full product series won the 9th National Quality Guarantee Golden Award; EASECOX Medan in Indonesia was established 2010  EASECOX Manila in Philippines was established 2011  The official launch of global DMS system 2012  Mr. Simon Lin has been appointed as the new chairman; EASECOX Miri in Malaysia was established

 Launch of Marvel AAP Series and Purence Series in Taiwan 2013  The introduction of brand new official website and e-trading system

 The launch of Marvel AAP Series and Purence Series in SEA 2014  Easecox Elite magazine was launched globally in 3 languages

 The launch of Marvel CC Cream 2015  Chairman Simon Lin was bestowed the title of “Dato” by the Sultan of Pahang in Malaysia

 EASECOX Bangkok in Thailand was established; EASECOX Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia was established

 The launch of Brilliant Panties/ new EaseShape Series/ Arm Shaper Long Sleeves/ Super Conductive Ag Ion Shawl

 The introduction of “Beauty Designer” mobile app 2016  The grand openings of Easecox Taichung (Taiwan), Singapore, and Jakarta (Indonesia) offices after relocation and expansion

 Easecox Surabaya in Indonesia was established 2017  EASECOX Exhibition Gallery at the Headquarters opened

 The grand opening of EASECOX Hong Kong after the relocation and expansion

121

Book:

The Ray of Beauty

Publisher:

Simon Lin

Editor:

Wei-Chi Weng

Designer:

Yi-Shang Chiang

Published by: EASECOX International Group

Address:

4/F, No 74, Sec 4, Zhongyang Rd, Tucheng, Taipei 23676, Taiwan

Product Code: A069012 201805 Edition

All right reserved.

Her insistence, his inheritance Make a group of ordinary people Fulfilling an extraordinary career Facing various challenges She began her dream at 30, he carried on her dream at 20 Both getting brilliant results The beautiful dream continues to shine forever ...

This book is about Easecox Founder Amy Lin and her son Fred Lin Dedicated to all Easecox Dreamer