Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 5

Yes, Ten Thousand Prosperities: The Story of Ban Hin Lee Bank is ready, finally!

It's fresh off the press and I went to collect my own 10 copies directly from the printing plant in the Prai industrial zone. As far as I'm aware, the rest of the consignment hasn't been delivered to the publishing house yet and so, I'm quite thrilled at being able to have this copy in my hands to feel. And touch. And hold. 

I don't have any idea when the book will be released for sale in the country yet. It's all up to the publishers tp decide and they'll have all the arrangements to make this title available at the bookstores as well as on their own online platform.

The book's jacket design came all the way from New York. The credit goes to Daryl Yeap. She's one of the great-granddaughters of the bank's founder, Yeap Chor Ee, of which I've got a picture of him in the book. I had very little input in deciding the cover but I'm very much impressed by the effort that Daryl had put into it. Imagine all the meticulous detail that went into drawing the building. 

Trust also Yeap Chor Ee to pick a name for his original trading firm that almost defied translation. It was practically impossible to translate 萬興利 or Ban Hin Lee (in the Hokkien dialect) correctly into the English language. Ten Thousand Prosperities is the literal meaning of the bank's name that was agreed upon subsequently. This in itself may not be the most definitive too. Close enough but still not exact. Wrongly translated, all the nuances of the original Hokkien may be lost. 

For a short while, even Unlimited Prosperity, Bountiful Prosperity and Boundless Prosperity were bandied with but those names were dropped. Eventually, we decided on using Ten Thousand Prosperities because after all, that's what 萬 means: ten thousand. And that was what we, working in the bank then, were grappling with all that time.

My earlier stories on the publication of this book:
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 4
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 3
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 2
Click here for Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 1
Click here for Boundless Prosperity