This top-of-the- range chrysenthemum has a diameter of eight inches when in full bloom. Blooms from Sunlight Flowers Farm are in high demand in Japan.
MORE often than not, there is a story behind every successful business.
This holds true for a family in Kampung Baru Lembah Bertam in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, who is famous for exporting chrysanthemums for more than 20 years.
Behind the beautiful blooms in Sunlight Flowers Farm Sdn Bhd is the story of grit and perseverance and family love in the face of good and trying times.
The story begins with the life of its founder and chairman Khor Chin Chark, 71.
It was in 1956 when Heng Guan Eng and her son, Chin Chark, 10, from China, arrived in then Malaya to reunite with her husband, Khor Yen Hau, who had come earlier.
The two had survived a week-long sea journey only to find themselves in another cycle of abject poverty.
“There were only two tiny pieces of salted fish when we opened the woon kwai (meat cupboard in Cantonese),” recalled Chin Chark when StarMetro visited his farm in Kampung Baru Lembah Bertam.
Yen Hau was a grass cutter in the village and could hardly make ends meet.
Chin Chark stopped schooling when he turned 13 to help his mother plant vegetables to supplement his father’s meagre income.
She had her hands full with the arrival of another six children – four sons and two daughters.
Life revolved around the farm for the Khor family. It was a struggle and their only concern was to put food on the table.
To make more money, Chin Chark went to work in the Netherlands for 18 months between 1971 and 1972 to earn money before returning to his village.
The ever-fluctuating prices of vegetables since the 1970s led the Khor family to include flower planting in their vegetable farm.
In 1983, they went full-time into planting chrysanthemums.
“We saw other people’s success with flowers,” said Chin Chark, who together with his brothers and sisters, did the switch.
That began another chapter of the Khor family’s struggle.
With neither capital nor experience in flower planting, Chin Chark said it was perseverance that kept them going.
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