- Tung Chao Yung
Infobox_Celebrity
name = TUNG Chao Yung
董浩雲/董浩云
DONG Haoyun
caption =
birth_date = 1912
birth_place =Ningbo ,Zhejiang Province ,China (currentZhoushan )
death_date = April 15, 1982
death_place =Hong Kong
occupation = Founder
Orient Overseas Container Line
alma_mater =
salary =
networth =Tung Chao Yung (zh-tp|t=董兆榮|p=Dōng Zhàoróng) better known as 董浩雲, zh-p|p=Dōng Hàoyún, born 18th of the eighth lunar month in 1912; died
April 15 ,1982 ), also known as C. Y. Tung, was a Chinese shipping magnate, the founder of the Orient Overseas Line (nowOrient Overseas Container Line or OOCL). He was the father ofTung Chee Hwa , the first Chief Executive of theHong Kong Special Administrative Region of thePeople's Republic of China .Life
C. Y. Tung was a legend in China. He built his shipping empire from virtually nothing. At the peak of his career, he owned a shipping fleet with over 150 freight ships; his fleet's cargo capacity exceeded 10 million tons. He was one of the world's top seven freight moguls; he was often called the Onassis of the Orient.
Tung believed in the importance of education. In September 1970, he bought the famous oceanliner "
RMS Queen Elizabeth " to convert it into a floating university "S.S. Seawise University " to keep theWorld Campus Afloat program alive. On January 9, 1972, the ship caught on fire during refurbishing and sank into Hong Kong's harbor. The wreckage of the ship was featured in aJames Bond movie. He did not give up the plan because of this setback. He bought a smaller oceanliner Atlantic to complete the plan. He cooperated with various Universities (e.g.University of Pittsburgh ) to run the academic sea program with the Institute of Shipboard Education entitled "Semester at Sea".Politically Tung was aligned with
Kuomintang regime of theRepublic of China onTaiwan ; indeed the company emblem of the OOCL is aplum blossom, the national flower of theRepublic of China . After his death, however, the OOCL went into financial trouble, and it was the government of thePeople's Republic of China which rescued the company from the brink. This paved the way for C.Y.Tung's son,Tung Chee Hwa , to become the Chief Executive of theHong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China in 1997.Trivia
* In the past, all ships of the OOCL had names that began with the word "Seawise", which was a pun on C. Y. Tung's initials.
* At the time of his death, C. Y. Tung was the owner of "Seawise Giant ", the largest ship ever built.External links
* [http://www.jwb.com.cn/big5/content/2002-09/16/content_127623.htm his biography in Chinese]
* [http://www.semesteratsea.com/aboutus/historyofship_70to00.html his involvement with the World Campus Afloat]
* [http://www.semesteratsea.com/ Semester at Sea]
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