Insurance Agent Tsufa Lee (#155; Topic B)

At the beach last few days, I brought with me some dated issues of magazines to go through. With so much ground to cover, I could find time to read only selected stories; rarely would I stop to read an advertisement. However, last night, I was stopped by an a full-page celebrating 100 years of Occidental Life Insurance Company, established in 1906, and acquired by Transamerica in 1930. Included in the ad are three photographs: one, the company's organizer (Karl Kennedy); the other, the company's first office building -- both are to be expected. But the third one, a passport-format photo of Tsufa Lee, is a surprise. Back in 1906, with people of Chinese ancestry unwelcome (the Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 18 years later, in 1924), I could not imagine that Lee would play any role in founding the insurance company. And he did not. The story says that, at one time, Lee was the company's general agent in Shanghai, where the company had an office since 1933. In 1941, the Shanghai office was closed. "To protect the financial well-being of policy holders, ... Lee buried thousands of policies. After the war, Lee dug up the documents ... For several years, he tracked down beneficiaries of policy holders who had died during the conflict so Occidental Life could honor the claims and obligations..." Great story. No mention was made whether Lee was following specific orders from the home office (and no other agents were named in the ad), so, presumably, Lee acted on his own volition. This judgment was not only sound, it is worthy of celebration 65 years later. Chalk another score for a great mind influenced by Confucian teachings.