THE GLEANER, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025 | www.jamaica-gleaner.com | B1 SECTION D August 1947 - October 2025 Sing Chin, CD, died on October 23, 2025. FROM CANTON TO KINGSTON Born August 22, 1947, in Tai San, Canton, China, Mr Sing Chin embodied the Jamaican spirit of perseverance and gratitude. His father, Arthur Chin, born in Highgate, St Mary, was sent to China as a child to learn the family culture – where he met his future wife. As a result, Sing and his two older siblings came to be born in China. His father returned to Jamaica the year Sing was born and sent for the rest of the family a few years later. The People’s Republic of China was established in October 1949. The country was still recovering from wartime devastation and, in 1950, Mao Zedong’s government began implementing land reforms – con scating land from landlords and redistributing it to peasants. It was against this backdrop that his mother managed to escape under cover of darkness with her young sons from the mainland to British Hong Kong. From there, they travelled by ship to Kingston and rejoined Arthur. They arrived in Jamaica in 1951 only to be greeted by Hurricane Charlie, one of the Atlantic’s deadliest hurricanes of all time. His father opened his rst business by renting a shop on Waltham Park Road after working for several years at Lion’s Bakery. Sing and his siblings would learn to work at an early age. They had shop duties after school: wrapping goods, stocking shelves, serving customers and whatever else their parents told them to do. In 1959, young Sing became a ‘KC boy.’ “I still break into a smile when I think back to my high-school days,” he recalled fondly. He vividly remembers Headmaster Douglas Forrest, Deputy Headmaster James Crick, and FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO NATIONAL HONOUR THIS KINGSTON COLLEGE OLD BOY UPLIFTED HIS ALMA MATER AND HIS COUNTRY PLEASE SEE FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO NATIONAL HONOUR, D2
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