Every Family should have a motto, a brand, or better yet, create your own crest. My family’s crest had ours made this way.

In the fading twilight of the nineteenth century, when the great merchant fleets still ruled the oceans and the map of the world was stitched together by trade winds, empire, and ambition, my family’s name travelled quietly across continents long before it was ever written into heraldic tradition.

From the bustling harbours of Hong Kong, my great-grandfather built an enterprise that became indispensable to the old trading powers of Europe. His ships and agents moved tobacco across dangerous waters and uncertain borders, supplying vast quantities to the Dutch East India Company during a time when international commerce was burdened by restrictions, inspections, tariffs, and political rivalries between colonial powers.

Yet commerce in those days was not merely business — it was survival against storms, piracy, bureaucracy, and the fragile diplomacy of empires. Every shipment that crossed from Asia into Europe carried not only cargo, but reputation, influence, and risk.

It was during this era, in the late 1890s, that a Belgian emissary, acting at the behest of interests connected to the Dutch East India Company, formally presented my family with a Coat of Arms. More than a symbol of prestige, it served as a mark of protection and recognition — a declaration that our vessels, goods, and representatives travelled under distinguished patronage and trusted standing.

The Coat of Arms became both shield and story.

Its presence upon documents, crates, correspondence, and seals was intended to ease passage through ports and customs houses where others faced obstruction. In a world governed by ceremonial authority and imperial networks, such insignia carried extraordinary weight. It announced that the bearer was not an ordinary trader, but a family woven into the commercial fabric of East and West.

There is something deeply romantic about that forgotten age — the lantern-lit docks of Hong Kong, the scent of tobacco and sea salt in the air, steamships departing beneath monsoon skies, and men in wool coats and polished boots negotiating fortunes by candlelight in distant European chambers.

Our Coat of Arms was born from that world.

Not from conquest, nor inherited nobility, but from endurance, commerce, diplomacy, and the courage to navigate oceans that connected civilizations long before globalization became a modern phrase. It stands today as a quiet reminder of an era when honour travelled beside enterprise, and when a family from Asia earned recognition among the great trading powers of the age.