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From 1932
       After his brief foray into government, Han Liang was faced with not only rebuilding his family life, but also his career. Having found himself out of his league among the inner-circle Shanghai financiers, and apparently with little appetite for further political jockeying, he now chose to focus on purely commercial matters. In doing so, he turned once again to his overseas Fukienese connections.

       According to his narrative many years later, “After retiring from government in 1932 he went back to business and became interested in the Philippines where the Chinese community holds a dominant position in the economy of the country.” The country was then under US rule and would remain so until after World War II, but beginning to transition to independence starting from about 1934. Perhaps this moment in time was where the opportunity lay.
       In the Filipino world of business, he became chairman of the board of the Philippines First Insurance Company (today controlled by the Cu Unjieng and Tanco families), and director of these companies:
  • China Banking Corporation, where he had started his career thanks to Albino Sycip,
  • Equitable Banking Corporation, founded in 1950 by Go Kim Pah as the first commercial bank licensed by the newly-formed Central Bank of the Philippines (today merged with Philippine Commercial International Bank),
  • and Northern Motors, which was a distributor of GM trucks and parts operated by the family of Cato and Louise Yu, known in the Philippines by the surname “Yutivo” (today in the IT business).

       Han Liang's children recall that during the 1940s their father would be away in the Philippines every year for up to four months at a stretch. He would delight them by returning with burlap bags full of mangoes. Mary remembers that her family enjoyed them as well.

       Among Shanghainese businesses, Han Liang served as director of these companies:
  • Chekiang Industrial Bank (浙江實業銀行 Zhejiang Shiye Yinhang), whose founder Li Ming was a prominent member of the dominant Chekiang banking group,
  • Zoong Sing Cotton Mills (崇信紡織有限公司 Chongxin Fangzhi Youxian Gongsi),
  • Tai Shan Tile & Brick Co. (上海泰山磚瓦有限公司 Shanghai Taishan Zhuan Wa Youxian Gongsi),
  • and China A.B.C. Underwear & Textile Co. Ltd.  (中國內衣紡織染廠). Founder Thomas Goon Wong (黃鴻鈞 Huang Hong Jun) had studied engineering in the US and was the first to introduce state-of-the-art looms to Shanghai. Although not cited among Shanghai's "Big Four" department stores, the company had a well known retail shop on Nanking Road, selling undergarments and shirts, if not other items as well. The children of the two 黃 families were good friends.
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Ad for ABC's Nanking Road shop, promoting a one-day 15% off sale (Shen Po, Jan 7, 1922)
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Detail of ABC stock certificate with signatures and red seal "chops" of Han Liang (far right) and other directors – our only example of his handwriting in Chinese
       Han Liang (and Han Ho) are also known to have had stock portfolios that included good-sized holdings of shares in the Shanghai Commercial Bank of KP Chen, as well presumably of other companies. 
       These were the final few years of what would come to be called the Nationalists' "Nanking Decade" (1927-1937). It was during this time that HH Kung replaced TV Soong as Minister of Finance and orchestrated a de facto coup of the major banks. Control of many companies was increasingly consolidated under Kung, Soong, his brothers, and a small coterie of bankers and businessmen with whom Han Liang was friendly.

​        One wonders where the above list of companies fit in and to what extent Han Liang and his peers were willing or reluctant collaborators in the interventionist economic policies of the Kung-Soong cabal. For example, it is known that Chekiang Industrial Bank was among a small number of top banks whose assets and profits actually declined during the mid-'30s, while most of the rest were booming.
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ABC stock certificate dated 1949
WHAT'S ALL THE FLAP ABOUT?
​        Early biographies of Han Liang cite his affiliations with the American University Club, Chinese YMCA and Tsinghua Alumni Association, but we don't know if in this later phase of his career he kept up these US-related civic ties.

      Given Han Liang's profile, it's been asked, but there is no indication that Han Liang was ever a member of “FF". Started in the US in 1910, the fraternity claimed many of the most eminent​ overseas educated Chinese among its members. Still in existence today, FF stands, comically and mysteriously, for "Flip Flap", while the Chinese name, Lan Ji Hui (蘭集會) – meaning "gathering of orchids" – suggests a high-minded brotherhood.
SOURCES
      Information about Kung, Soong and Chekiang Industrial Bank:
  • The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927-1937 (Harvard East Asian Monograph Series, 1980) by Parks M. Coble

INVALUABLE HELP     
      A special shout-out to York Lo for providing the correct English name of the ABC company and correct Chinese name for Flip Flap. Author of a book discussed on the Love-Love page of this website and many articles about the Republican period (Thomas Goon Wong also mentioned here), he has generously shared information and pointed me in the right direction many times.