The A.SK Founders: Shu Kai and Angela Chan

Shu Kai Chan was born on September 16, 1919, son of an owner of a large estate in the Chinese province of Guangdong, where he lived with his parents and two brothers. In 1935 he traveled by ship to Germany accompanied by his mother. At the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität he began to learn German and study economic history and political science. Between 1937 and 1939 his studies brought him to universities in Leipzig and Vienna, as well as to Frankfurt am Main and Marburg. In 1939 Shu Kai returned to China where he worked as a lecturer at Chungking University. In this period of time Chan began work on his study “Social Capitalism.” In 1941 he married Angela, the daughter of a business family from Hong Kong. Angela Chan was active as manager in the family business through the mid-1990s.

From Hong Kong Shu Kai cultivated a number of business contacts with the United States (in the steel industry among others). From 1953 to 1969 he lived and worked with his family in Sao Paulo where he, together with his wife Angela, ran a textile factory. Shu Kai authored China’s Historical Monuments and Cultural Heritage, a book about Chinese antiquities and culture. In addition, he took over the direction of the wax figure cabinet in Beijing and worked as a producer of television films about Chinese cultural history. In the 1990s Shu Kai and his wife moved to Costa Rica, where they operated a plantation.

In 2002 Shu Kai Chan published his book Social Capitalism addressing the economic and social implications of the post-industrial revolution.

On December 30th, 2020, Shu Kai Chan died at the age of 101. His obituary can be found here.