The story of Wei’s Western Wear doesn’t start with investors and spreadsheets. It starts with a husband and wife who refused to quit. It’s easy to look at the two storefronts today and think it came easy, but it was anything but. Wei and Moon Mah weren’t chasing profit. They were chasing a better life for their kids.
Before Wei’s Western Wear became a family business, it was a long-distance love story.
When Wei Mah first came to Canada, he came alone. Back home in China, he had a wife (Moon) and a family he couldn’t bring with him. The laws of the time made it nearly impossible. In the 1950s, Canada forced Chinese immigrants to pay a fee just to reunite with their families. For Wei, that meant saving $500, the equivalent of tens of thousands today.
He lived simply, sent every extra dollar home, and worked in silence for years. Each night, he wrote letters to his wife across the ocean, promising her that one day they’d be together again.
Ten years passed.
Finally, Wei had saved enough. He paid the fee, made the journey back to China by ship, a month-long voyage, and brought Moon home to Canada. After a decade apart, they were finally reunited.
That reunion didn’t just change his life. It changed the course of the business.
With Moon by his side, the boot repair shop grew. She balanced the books, served customers, and helped shape the business into what it would become. It was her idea to start selling jeans and shirts alongside the boots Wei repaired. A small risk that turned their family trade into a full-fledged western wear store.
Before Wei’s became a destination for generations of Albertans, it was built on that kind of love, the kind that endures years apart, long nights, and relentless work.
Family wasn’t just something Wei loved. It was the reason he worked. The reason he sacrificed. And the reason we’re here today.
Wei’s Western Wear was built on love, loyalty, and grit — the kind of values that never go out of style.
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