SAN FRANCISCO -- Services will be held Sunday and Monday for Sare King Wong, a businessman and civic leader who was also an adviser to the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
Wong died last Friday of heart failure at the age of 91.
He was born in Chung Shan Yuan, Guangdong province, China, and completed his college education in his homeland before emigrating to the United States in 1920.
He was the first Chinese to attend a mechanics school run by the Ford Motor Co. in Detroit and then returned to San Francisco, where he worked as a mechanic.
He then went to work with his father and grandfather at the Young China newspaper, founded by his grandfather and Chinese leader Sun Yet-Sen. He also worked at his family's bookstore, the oldest Chinese bookstore in the United States.
Wong was a delegate to the first national convention of the Kuomingtang Party of Chiang Kai-shek in Nanking, China, in 1937. He then returned to San Francisco to found a branch of the party in the United States.
When World War II cut off supplies of monosodium glutamate, an ingredient used in Chinese cooking, he began making and selling it on his own.
He also founded the Chinese Herbalists Association. As its director, he was instrumental in the court fight that gave herbalists licensed in China the right to practice in the United States.
He retired from business at age 70 to devote his time to writing Chinese poetry and collecting rare Chinese scrolls.
But he remained active in Kuomingtang affairs, even attending a meeting last month in Taiwan. During his lifetime, he refused numerous offices offered by the Taiwan government, preferring his role as an adviser.
He is survived by two sons and three daughters, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
