Making it relevant
Te Feng is a family-owned business located in Zhushan Township, Nantou County. Company founder Li Youde, grandfather of the current general manager, started the business selling charcoal and clogs, then expanded it by renting a section of forest, cutting trees, and planting saplings. His son, Li Chengzong, kept the business going in the face of an industry-wide decline by developing new processes for drying lumber, and for making his products resistant to pests, rot, and fire. Li Youde’s grandsons have vowed to revive the lumber business and focus on environmental sustainability. Under their leadership, the company has developed innovative methods for constructing wooden buildings.
“Our way of life has been inextricably bound to wood for thousands of years,” avers Li Chengzong, who now chairs the Nantou County Yonglong Lumber Industry Association.
Li Youde went into business in 1941 selling everyday products made from wood. When inflation ate into his profits, the elder Li sought to cut his costs by sourcing raw materials from wholesalers in the mountains. He then rented a plot of forest land, and transformed his retailing enterprise into a raw materials supplier. Li formally established Te Feng Lumber Company, Ltd., in 1945.
In those days, Taiwan possessed abundant forestry resources and a booming timber industry. But timber businesses faced risks even in those heady times.
Li Chengzong shares a boyhood memory of his father hustling to sell the company’s lumber in the period before the Chinese New Year. The elder Li’s hard work had seemingly paid off: he had managed to get the logs out of the mountains, and had them stacked by the river awaiting transport by ship. But then a series of major storms washed away every one of them. It was bad enough that he’d wasted so much effort, but he also had to pay for logging rights, cutting the trees, building roads to get the trees out of the forest, and transporting the logs. The scrupulously honest Li sold his land and home to settle his debts, then returned to his hometown with his wife and child to farm.
“It never rains but it pours,” says Li Chengzong with a wry smile. “The rice plants failed to produce any grain that year. No one had seen anything like it.” It was another blow to the elder Li, who had expected to support his family by farming. Fortunately, he had a good reputation and outstanding credit, which encouraged some lumber industry peers to lend a hand: they advanced him enough money to cut some trees, which enabled him to rebuild his business. “Father always told us that honesty was a valuable intangible asset.” Li Chengzong has instilled the same principles in his own children.
Richard Lee and his younger brother Jason rebuilt their family home after it was destroyed by 1999’s Jiji Earthquake. Three stories tall and made of wood, the new house has an old-fashioned rustic charm.
