[Big read] Not just money: Gold carries the weight of memories

“Gold stores used to be like busy market scenes,” 70-year-old Ho Nai Chuen, second-generation successor of On Cheong Jewellery, a time-honoured Singaporean heritage brand, told me excitedly in Mandarin. It is difficult to imagine what that might have looked like, especially since I was sitting comfortably in On Cheong’s air-conditioned office, interviewing the founder’s son. Even On Cheong’s retail space downstairs looked nothing like one. 

Yet, that was what On Cheong looked like during the gold rush in the 1980s to the 1990s. Gold flew off the shelves from Monday to Saturday and employees had to come in on Sundays to do inventory work, which involved weighing the gold pieces and pricing them manually. Business was booming even when On Cheong only had a limited product range with simple factory-made designs.

Perhaps Ho’s “busy market” analogy stemmed from his many visits to the market with his mother when he was young. Ho’s mother possessed adept people skills and was lovingly known to people as Qishen (七婶, or “seventh aunt”), because her husband was the seventh child in the family. She not only taught her son how to haggle with stall owners but also cooked up a storm for On Cheong’s employees when their chef no longer worked for them. 

On Cheong used to provide two meals for its 20-odd employees back in the day — breakfast and dinner. Two to three round tables sitting ten people each would be set up, and everyone ate together, forging great camaraderie. Most of the old employees were uneducated and only spoke Cantonese. They had come to On Cheong via word of mouth, and On Cheong not only gave them a job, but also a home. This was the environment Ho grew up in.

On Cheong (安昌) was founded by Ho’s father, Ho Yew Ping, on Christmas Day in 1936. The company’s name is derived from the phrase pingan changsheng (平安昌盛, meaning peace and prosperity), which was what the elder Ho had always wished for, having come to Nanyang from his hometown in China in the early days. 

On Cheong started out as a humble goldsmith on 454 North Bridge Road; not their current address on 251 South Bridge Road. Ho’s father had worked as a goldsmith apprentice in both Penang and Ipoh, and only came to Singapore because he was fired from his workplace. But when he passed away in 1965, Ho’s mother, uncle and two cousins had to take over. 

Ho’s mother was an extraordinary woman, far more visionary than most others of her time. Ho learnt much from his mother, and spoke with great admiration for his mother’s courage, foresight and interpersonal skills. Ho was not the typical second-generation successor of a family business. He was not even in the business initially. 

He was an accountant by training and was only in his twenties when he joined the company in 1983. Earlier in 1982, he had told his mother, who had already fallen sick by then, that he wanted to further his studies in the UK. When he graduated a year later and returned to Singapore, his mother passed away just 40 days later. Ho had no choice but to join the family business.

But Ho soon learnt that running a family business is much different than being an accountant. It was all about interpersonal relationships, which had “no system to follow”. He started from the bottom, and worked for five years as a retail assistant, learning the ropes from colleagues much older than him — colleagues who treated him differently as “the boss’s son”. 

With absolutely zero experience in the gold business, he humbled himself, diligently taking night classes to learn gemstone authentication and design. He learnt how to get along with his colleagues and watched as they expertly handled customer relations. He also learnt how to use the abacus — not because calculators were not available, but to “hide the calculations from customers”. He even learnt the system of Suzhou numerals, a secret code only he and his colleagues knew.

But above all, Ho learnt the most important business principle from his mother. “If we want to do business, we must have our own property,” his mother always said. It was her business principle, and one that would become Ho’s own. 

When On Cheong relocated from its original location on 454 North Bridge Road to its current address on 251 South Bridge Road in 1941, his father had only rented the premises to do business. In 1966, a year after Ho’s father passed away, 251 South Bridge Road was put up for open auction. Ho’s mother decisively went for the auction, accompanied by Ho’s uncle and the company’s accountant. The starting bid was around S$40,000, and it increased all the way to S$78,000. At this time, Ho’s mother raised her hand, and called, “S$80,000.” 

This business principle stayed with Ho and he has since acquired other properties of his own, including the property next door, 253 South Bridge Road, which was originally Maybank’s (Malayan Banking Berhad) first branch in Singapore.

A special corner in On Cheong’s retail space exhibits pieces of history carefully preserved through the years. A particular piece — a vest specially designed to hold gold bars — stood out to me.

Back in those days, gold was something as precious as one’s lifeblood. After World War II, people saw how quickly paper money could turn into waste paper, crushing their confidence in currency and forcing them to turn to gold, which they believed was valuable and kept its worth.

People from the older generation knew this from experience, so much so that Ho’s mother had hand-sewn a vest with multiple pockets for her husband, so that he could keep all his gold bars safely on him while he was on the run during WWII. Gold was valuable — it could be exchanged for what they needed, be it food or other necessities.

“Gold is money,” asserted 40-year-old Jenny Grace Johnson, a senior jewellery designer at On Cheong, who is concurrently senior marketing executive (digital marketing). “And of course a medium I use to create my work.” The fact that she can do different things — jewellery design and digital marketing — is part of the reason why she loves her job, and has stayed on for over a decade. 

But she was not always in the jewellery design industry, despite her long stint at On Cheong and training in jewellery design at LASALLE College of the Arts. She had spent seven years in arts education before coming to On Cheong at a friend’s recommendation. After coming to On Cheong, she found the jeweller to be “very different”. “At On Cheong, it is not about selling a product, but selling a story,” she explained.

So what is On Cheong’s story? “Ren qing wei (人情味),” she replied. 

Ren qing wei refers to the flavour of humanity — that human touch that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. “Long-time customers can just swing by to have a chat with the older employees, without needing to buy anything, much like a neighbourhood mama shop. It is rare to see elsewhere,” she said with a glimmer in her eyes.

On Cheong has a team of four designers and two craftsmen. Designers start with a theme and draw inspiration from their everyday life before moving on to sketching and research. The design is then carefully developed, and materials are chosen before sending them over to be vetted by the management team. Next, technical drawings are done before mock-ups can be made, and the design is further refined before they finally get to production. This whole process, if smooth, can be completed within the year, considering that designers have around six months at the maximum to come up with a few sets of designs before clearance with the management. 

Johnson’s favourite kind of jewellery to design are elaborate and whimsical pieces. She showed me a collection named “Regalia”, bearing motifs of birds and flowers, bringing to mind an enchanted garden. Her favourite piece from the collection by far is the sapphire- and diamond-encrusted bangle, with a diamond-encrusted bird perched on top. 

Her niche is in interchangeable pieces, allowing customers to be able to wear the pieces in multiple ways or to attach them to other pieces in their collection. “When I design, I can be my own customer as well. In other words, is this something that I, my parents or my friends will buy?” Johnson explained.

Her designs may be bling, but she in fact does not like anything too shiny. I found that to be rather peculiar, and she replied, “I find more joy when others enjoy my designs instead of wearing them myself.” It is the people she designs for that makes her happy. 

“Initially, I just wanted to draw whatever pops into my head. It was more about creating artwork than designing. Art is more about self-expression, about me and my ideas. But design is for the people. When my design resonates with my customer’s life, I find great satisfaction. I believe that’s what design is — it has to be easily accessible to the people.”

Johnson often talked about the “people” and “customers” during our interview. “Our customers normally tell us what designs they hope we carry,” she shared. And On Cheong has also received many customer requests over the years, asking staff to redesign heirloom pieces so they can continue carrying a part of their loved ones with them, or to recreate jewellery they have lost, allowing them to relive cherished memories once again. These sharings make me realise that the weight of a piece of jewellery lies in the memories they hold, not in the numerical material weight.

Beyond On Cheong’s heritage and rich history, change is also needed to survive. “The brand may be 100-years-old, but so what? The long heritage belongs to the business and has nothing to do with the customers,” Ho asserted, explaining why he never takes the brand’s rich history for granted. Instead, he has committed himself to transformation and finding a niche that his competitors cannot copy — one that has high barriers to entry: jade. “When people think of buying jade, I would like them to think of On Cheong being their first choice,” Ho said.

Apart from being an incredibly expensive precious stone, jade was almost no one else’s niche in the industry, as Ho discovered. He prioritises offering unique designs, and keeps his pieces limited, so it is not only tougher for competitors to copy them, but also more appealing for customers who value some form of exclusivity in the jewellery pieces they own. “Because our competitors are chains, they have to focus on quantity, which means fewer designs, or too many of the same things,” he added.

The brand’s transformation did not stop there. In fact, the brand had undergone two rebrandings so far. The first was in 2006, coinciding with the brand’s 70th anniversary. It was a major one, involving a name change from On Cheong Goldsmith to On Cheong Jewellery in English, and 安昌金铺 to 安昌 in Chinese — a move that family members vehemently objected. How could the founder’s son change the brand name; the very thing his father left behind? But Ho persisted. 

Ho asserted that the move was necessary for the survival of the business. He countered that the Chinese characters 安昌 are still in gold, rooted in their humble beginnings as a goldsmith that his father had opened. The Chinese characters are also still in the calligraphic font — albeit digitalised — of the original calligraphy, which had been written by a scholar from the Qing dynasty. In this way, the positioning of the brand shifted from being a traditional goldsmith to a jewellery brand focused on design and storytelling.

In 2017, On Cheong underwent another transformation, closer to a brand refresh. The green colour of the logo was added, signifying an “evergreen” concept, positioning itself as a brand rooted in tradition but soldiering on towards the future. 

On Cheong’s efforts at transformation are not only for survival, but also to stay competitive. “I already faced competition back when there were over 20 goldsmiths congregating on South Bridge Road alone,” Ho quipped. But now? Only On Cheong and one or two others remain. 

“Change is the most important thing,” he reiterated. “You can’t survive on brand name alone; youngsters don’t even look at brand names now. They only care about what you can offer them. You cannot relish in the era when business was booming and continue to operate in that manner.”

But even as one of the last gold jewellers standing on South Bridge Road, this does not mean that competition is over. With the influx of gold jewellers from China, On Cheong, or any other gold jeweller for that matter, has to continually refresh itself to stay relevant and not be washed away.

Chow Tai Fook Jewellery was founded in Guangzhou in 1929, boasting a rich history founded on exquisite craftsmanship. It entered the Singapore market about 15 years ago, and operates seven stores in Singapore as of the end of November 2025. “Singapore is a gateway to Southeast Asia and beyond, connecting diverse markets and cultures across the region,” Gabriela Ferreira, Chow Tai Fook’s international general manager, said in a written interview. The brand also opened its first image store in Southeast Asia at Jewel Changi Airport last year, and has plans to expand its presence into new markets, including the Middle East.

While gold jewellery is popular in Southeast Asian countries, and there is a shared appreciation for cultural values and tastes between Singapore and China, differences remain in the gold business landscapes of both countries. Ferreira explained, “In China and within the Chinese community in Singapore, buying gold is often deeply rooted in cultural heritage and is associated with important life events, reflecting a sense of tradition and national pride. Yet, the broader Singaporean place greater emphasis on the artistry and design of each piece, regarding gold jewellery as an extension of individual identity and taste.” The jeweller is therefore planning to refine their product range by integrating culturally relevant motifs and symbols unique to each region to cater to different needs.

Notably, Chow Tai Fook is the first Chinese jewellery brand to appoint a creative director, Nicholas Lieou, for its high jewellery line, highlighting its commitment to elevating design and storytelling through its jewellery. He designed the Chow Tai Fook Rouge Collection, which fuses innovation with heritage inspired by the auspicious symbol for good fortune, “福”. The collection was a commercial success and generated approximately HK$4 billion (US$512 million) in sales in FY2025 (April 2024 to March 2025).

Despite its successes and chain stores in various countries, the brand also recognises the crucial need to keep pace with the times and attract new and younger customers. They did this instrumentally through IP collaborations, recognising the younger generation’s “pursuit of emotional connection and personal expression”, Ferreira explained. 

The collaboration with China’s first domestic 3A game, Black Myth: Wukong, for instance, significantly enhanced brand desirability among male customers seeking self-expression rather than purchasing gifts, with the proportion of male purchases increasing from 20% to 40% in six months since its launch.

But Chow Tai Fook is not the only jeweller positioning itself as a high-end, luxury brand. Notwithstanding its relatively young age compared to other heritage Chinese jewellery brands, Laopu Gold, established in Beijing in 2009, has also taken on a distinct, high-end position by marketing its gold as a cultural artefact rather than a commodity. 

Tanja Sadow, founder and dean of the Jewellery Design & Management International School in Singapore, observed, “They are adopting the luxury brand model and differentiating themselves by doubling down on traditional Chinese designs as a signal of prestige.”

Laopu Gold, also touted as China’s “Hermes of gold”, opened its first overseas boutique at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore last year. Founded by Xu Gaoming, a former government fisheries clerk, in 2009, Laopu Gold was officially established as a brand in 2016. It aims to create a sense of exclusivity, modelled after the playbook of Western competitors, with just 37 stores in China, Hong Kong and Macau, and the first international store in Singapore. 

To further amplify its “cultural artefact” storytelling, they introduced the concept of “heritage gold (古法黄金) jewellery”, using techniques such as “filigree inlay” (花丝镶嵌) and “gold and silver inlay” (金银错), both recognised as national-level intangible cultural heritage. They thus adopt a premium fixed-price model reflecting “the intensive labour and historical significance of the craftsmanship”, marking a shift from the traditional process of pricing by material weight, noted Sadow, who is also a Gemmological Institute of America-trained jewellery designer with over 30 years of experience in Singapore’s jewellery industry. 

This notably differs from other jewellery brands, including Chow Tai Fook and On Cheong, whose items are still mostly sold by weight. But one thing is certain: as gold continues to evolve beyond its origins as a store of value and commodity to be bought, each of the three jewellers has shaped this transformation through distinct design strategies. 

This is particularly pronounced in their storytelling, which Sadow summed up perfectly: “[On Cheong’s] less traditional pieces maintain a connection to their Chinese roots and have now become sought-after and more closely associated with ‘Singapore’ gold design as opposed to ‘Chinese’ gold design… I believe that On Cheong’s success lies in transforming traditional cultural storytelling into jewellery that feels absolutely relevant and desirable in Singapore today.”

Meanwhile, Chow Tai Fook “bridges centuries of Chinese craftsmanship with a general globalised modern elegance, elevating cultural narratives into the more general luxury arena that most consumers will engage with”, while Laopu Gold “represents a significant market shift to selling gold as an exclusive status symbol defined by artistry”.

While gold is indeed a store of value — gold prices have skyrocketed to a record high above US$5,100 an ounce for the first time in January — it is but a commodity. Having experienced the Covid-19 pandemic and a climate of global volatility, people are looking for something that gives them some sort of spiritual sustenance, and some have found it in gold. 

Yet, as they hold their uncertain hearts and step into a gold store looking for some sort of certainty that will anchor them in an increasingly unpredictable world, they often leave feeling a little more comforted than they were before by the human relationships they formed with the very people who, like them, are also navigating those constant changes. 

Gold stores are filled with ordinary people spending time and effort talking to customers about the pieces of jewellery their shop offers, blanketed by an air thick with excitement as customers eagerly anticipate holding a tangible piece of gold in their hands, be it to celebrate an important milestone or to form part of their investment portfolio. 

Perhaps this is what On Cheong’s Ho meant when he said that gold stores used to be like markets, or as what On Cheong’s Johnson had also described, mama shops — the familiar faces beaming at you, always willing to teach you a trick or two about whatever questions you had, and not being too bothered even if you walked away without buying anything.

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I was in the midst of wedding preparations when I wrote this article, so gold was especially relevant to me. Traditionally, the groom’s family gifts the bride Si Dian Jin (四点金) as a symbol of commitment and goodwill. It consists of four pieces of gold jewellery: a necklace, a pair of earrings, a bangle or bracelet and a ring. I saw so many pretty and intricate pieces of gold jewellery, as well as the more modern and minimalist ones that looked suitable for everyday wear. But because I saw gold as more of an investment than jewellery, I requested to exchange my Si Dian Jin for a gold bar.

When I received the gold bar, I smiled not because I am now a proud owner of some gold, but because that piece of gold is tied to my marriage and the love and sincerity of my groom. Indeed, gold is tangible and has weight. But they also carry the weight of memories, don’t they?

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