Chui Tak Kei: the man who made Tung Sin Tong Macau's civic conscience

Longtime chairman of Tung Sin Tong, the century-old Chinese charitable society. A construction-and-property businessman who also served as Vice-President of the Legislative Assembly and on the municipal executive, he placed charity at the centre of a civic life that bridged business and public affairs — and founded the Chui family's public lineage.

In Macau, the act of "doing good" has a concrete name — Chui Tak Kei. Through a century-old charitable hall, he stitched merchants, officials, and ordinary residents into a single social safety net.

Chui Tak Kei was chairman of Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society, a construction-and-property businessman, and Vice-President of the Legislative Assembly. With charity at the centre of his life, he linked business, public affairs, and social relief — and was the founding generation of the Chui family's entry into public life.

Profile

• Chinese Name: 崔德祺
• English Name: Chui Tak Kei
• Born: 1912
• Region: Macao (ancestral home Xinhui, Guangdong)
• Domains: Charity · Business · Civic life
• Industry: Construction-property · Charity
• Subject type: Philanthropist · Construction-property businessman

Background

Chui Tak Kei was born in 1912, with ancestral roots in Shuangshui, Xinhui, Guangdong. He studied at St. Joseph's Seminary in Macau, then graduated from the Sino-German School of Construction Engineering and a Guangdong first-aid and dispensary school — a dual training in building and in relief work that prefigured a life spent moving between the construction trade and charitable service.

Career

I. Tung Sin Tong and wartime relief

During the Second World War, Chui Tak Kei led Tung Sin Tong in large-scale relief for refugees who fled to Macau. He then served for decades as chairman of its values board, growing the society — founded in 1892 — into one of Macau's most trusted networks for free education, free medicine, and relief. Stewarding Tung Sin Tong became the launch point of his public career.

II. Construction-property and the chamber

In business he ran Yau Wo Construction & Real Estate Co., and served as Perpetual Honorary President of the Macau Construction & Real Estate Chamber and Vice-President of the Macau Chinese Chamber of Commerce — a central figure in postwar urban construction and Chinese-capital business.

III. Into the institutions

He served as Vice-President of the Legislative Assembly and as Vice-President and Acting President of the municipal executive, and in the late 1980s joined the committees drafting and consulting on the Macau Basic Law, helping lay the institutional groundwork for the handover.