He was just a teenager when his family gathered what little they had and sent him across the ocean. One ticket. One way. One shot at a better life.
In 1949, China was in turmoil. The Communist Party had taken over. Land was being seized. Families were forced to make impossible choices. Wei’s family had seven mouths to feed and only enough to send one child away to build something better. They chose Wei.
He left everything behind, his parents, his brothers and sisters, the only life he’d ever known, and boarded a ship to a country he couldn’t even picture. No English. No money. No one waiting for him on the other side. Only a promise that he wouldn’t waste the chance they gave him.
He started like many new immigrants did: in the back of a restaurant. Long days over a hot stove. Long nights cleaning and saving every penny. When the burns and the grease finally caught up with him, he walked away. Not from hard work, but from someone else’s dream.
He moved north to Penhold, Alberta, a small town with a big RCMP presence. That’s where everything changed. With borrowed tools and a makeshift bench, he set up his first boot repair stand. Just a shed, a stool, and a belief that if you did good work, people would notice.
And they did. The Mounties came by for repairs. Then they came back. Word spread. The man who had arrived with nothing was quietly building a name for himself, one pair of boots at a time.
That little repair stand became the foundation for everything that followed — the business, the family, the legacy. It was proof that starting small doesn’t mean thinking small. Wei didn’t have much, but he had pride in his craft and the courage to keep showing up.
He wasn’t building a business yet. He was building trust.
From a farm in China to a one-man repair stand in Alberta, Wei’s Western Wear was built on sacrifice and the belief that every big story begins with a single step forward.
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