Pushing boundaries
From SIA stewardess to stockbroker to entrepreneur struggling with foreign worker quotas, Jun Low's career has mirrored key events in Singapore's history
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IN 2006, when Jun Low wanted to open a Chinese dim sum restaurant in Vivocity called hei she hui (secret society in Chinese), the Criminal Investigation Department of the Singapore Police Force came knocking. "They were worried that the name would cause problems," recalls the food and beverage entrepreneur, whose holding company is called JC Global Concepts, with a laugh. "I brought my concept presentation to them. The first thing I told them was indeed Singapore used to have triads, but the police force was so efficient that it swept them clean. . .
"Second, I said where Singapore was opening up its tourism industry, and marketing itself overseas as an entertainment hub with the integrated resorts and casinos, so why do we want to enclose ourselves in a box? We should be more innovative and adventurous. Hei she hui is not a nightclub or disco but just a restaurant with a black colour theme. It would not pose the social problems affiliated with nightspots," she says. "Eventually they told me: 'We like your concept, but we have instructions to try to convince you to change the name'," Ms Low says.
She stuck to her guns. Till this day, the restaurant's Chinese name still stands together with its chic, triad-themed black decor and its more innocuous English name, Black Society.
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