Photo: Tess Ayano Back in 2016, Mei Lum had a choice: either go to graduate school at Columbia University and study international development or take over Wing On Wo & Co., the Chinatown business her great-great-grandfather Walter Eng founded in the 1890s. Lum’s grandmother Nancy Seid, who adopted the store in 1964 after her father had a sudden heart attack, was ready to retire, and no one else in the family wanted the responsibility.
Photo: Tess Ayano Photo: Tess Ayano Photo: Tess Ayano So at 26 years old and with zero formal training — and, frankly, zero former interest — in running a business, Lum became the fifth-generation owner of Wing On Wo & Co., which now mainly sells porcelain goods and remains the oldest-operating store in the neighborhood. When she first started, “the business was waning, and there wasn’t as much interest,” she said. “It definitely needed a boost of some online presence and marketing.
It’s this community aspect that Lum is most interested in keeping alive. Also in 2016, she founded the W.O.W. Project, a resident-led initiative with the mission of “creating space for conversations to happen across language barriers and generational gaps to actively shape the future of Chinatown.
As for its own business, Wing On Wo & Co. was forced to take most of its sales online when the city went into lockdown. Lum’s mom, Lorraine, who previously worked in fashion, now helps manage the website’s back end, processing orders, and her dad oversees shipping and handling. The store’s office has turned into something of a co-working space. “My mom’s desk is a mah-jongg table,” she said with a laugh.