Uke History: How Chinese-led Companies in Honolulu Helped Meet the Growing Demand for Ukuleles on the Mainland in the Early 20th Century
BY JIM TRANQUADA | FROM THE SPRING 2025 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE
Kamaka. Kumalae. Mossman. These are some of the iconic names of the second generation of Hawaiian ukulele makers that emerged in Honolulu between 1900 and 1910. Far less familiar are such names as C.Q. Yee Hop, Goo Tai Chong, or Chu Gem. Yet these were among the men behind such major second-generation makers as the Aloha Ukulele Manufacturing Co. and the Hawaiian Mahogany Co.—firms that once were among the largest ukulele makers in the Islands, producers of thousands of instruments for the tourist trade and for retailers all over the world.
Rather than musicians or woodworkers, Yee Hop and Gem were entrepreneurs—part of a generation of rags-to-riches immigrants from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong who began their careers in extremely modest circumstances, rose to prominence in groceries and dry goods, and then diversified into a wide range of fields, including ukulele manufacture. Another immigrant, Johnny Lai, was a musician-turned-music retailer who entered into a partnership with Samuel Kamaka.
The Cantonese also produced craftsmen such as Goo Tai Chong (better known as Akai), Ah Tau Kam, and Sam Chang, who in some cases started out at Chinese-owned ukulele firms but later set up shop on their own. Kam and Chang produced instruments for local retailers who sold them under such labels as Moana and Royal Hawaiian, as well as ukulele and guitars sold under their own names.
Today, even though these makers are not as well known as some, there is a steady demand for their instruments in the vintage market. “I have been so impressed with these Chinese makers, which show up on the market pretty regularly,” says Shawn Yacavone of Ukulele Friend, a Honolulu-based ukulele dealer. “They are among the best-playing vintage ukulele you can find. Akai’s quality is so consistent, and some of the higher-end Sam Chang instruments were seemingly inspired by the design and tone of a classic Martin ukulele.”
Yee Hop, Gem, and the rest were among the more than 45,000 Chinese—many of them from Guangdong—who were brought to Hawaii as contract plantation workers between 1852 and 1900. When their contracts were up, many went into business for themselves—so much so that by 1889, Chinese held almost two-thirds of all retail licenses in Hawaii.
By the time the mainland ukulele market boomed in 1915, Yee Hop and Gem had become some of the most successful and influential businessmen in the Islands. While ukulele production in Hawaii expanded dramatically, it still couldn’t keep pace. “Unfortunately, the demand for this little instrument has been so great throughout the States that the concerns in the Islands have been unable to supply the market fast enough,” Thrum’s Hawaiian Almanac said in a 1917 overview of Hawaiian music. As canny entrepreneurs, Gem, Yee Hop, and their partners recognized a good business opportunity when they saw it.
Aloha Ukulele Manufacturing Co.
Aloha was one of at least seven Hawaiian ukulele firms that entered the market in 1917–1918, a group that included Kamaka. Many quickly fell by the wayside, including the Hawaiian Ukulele Company, Paradise Ukulele and Guitar Works, and Singers Ukulele Co. But Aloha—not to be confused with the Aloha Ukulele Co. that briefly operated out of the Provident Building in Chicago in 1916—had more staying power.
Organized in November 1917 with an initial investment of $10,000, the Aloha Ukulele Manufacturing Co., Ltd., “Manufacturers of Quality Ukuleles, Stringed Instruments, Calabashes, Trays, and Novelties in Hawaiian Woods,” was headed by Chu Gem (1850–1925) and an administrative staff made up entirely of Chinese colleagues.
Gem, who immigrated to Hawaii in 1885, first became manager of a general merchandise store in Honolulu’s Chinatown. By the time of his death, he had expanded into lumber, contracting, rice milling, and insurance, having served as president of the United Chinese Society and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce—both highly prestigious positions. “It was to Chu Gem that haoles went to transact business or for almost any other purpose,” the Honolulu Advertiser noted after his passing.
Aloha’s treasurer, Goo Kim Fook, was equally successful. He arrived in Honolulu eight years before Gem and was also active in rice farming, the United Chinese Society, and the Chamber; his impressive 1924 funeral procession included the acting governor, a Supreme Court justice, and the Royal Hawaiian Band.
By 1920, Aloha was selling eight different models, from the Tom Boy priced at $2.75 to the special F Grade at $15, as well as koa guitars. Its sales pitch to tourists was to cut out the middleman, as reflected in its motto, “From factory to you,” and a promise to customers that they could save up to $4 per instrument. The following year, Aloha was inviting visitors to tour its Beretania Street factory. (Uninvited were the burglars who broke into the premises that summer.) The Depression took a fatal toll on the company, whose assets—which included an inventory of ukulele, guitars, koa napkin rings, bookends, miniature surfboards, ash trays, paper knives, two desks, and a swivel chair—were sold at a sheriff’s auction in February 1933.
Hawaiian Mahogany Co.
The son and grandson of Guangdong rice farmers, Chun Quan Yee Hop (1867–1954) arrived in Hawaii in 1885 with no formal education. He opened his first business two years later with partner Lum Hop, the tiny Yee Hop Meat Market at the corner of Maunakea and Queen streets in Honolulu. The market eventually grew into one of Hawaii’s first multi-department, multi-service supermarkets and landed lucrative contracts supplying the Army and Navy as well as hotels and steamship lines. Yee Hop expanded into a dizzying array of enterprises, including owning a restaurant, brewing, cattle ranching, canning, banking, furniture-making, and real estate development. He co-founded the forerunner of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and financed the operation of three Chinese language newspapers.
When he invested in a 22,500-acre cattle ranch in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, Yee Hop’s goal was to provide himself with a steady supply of beef. But the realization that the koa and ohia trees on the property were a valuable resource persuaded him to go into the lumber business. In 1921, he and his partners bought the Papa Koa Lumber Mill in South Kona and incorporated the Hawaiian Mahogany Co. (HMC). A new planing mill and furniture factory at the corner of Ward and Queen streets in Honolulu opened in 1923, and by October 1925 the company was advertising for a “first-class ukulele maker” and had salesmen on the mainland pitching koa furniture, ohia flooring, and ukuleles.
Production ramped up quickly: in 1926, the company claimed to have sold 13,000 ukuleles. A short article in the Music Trade Review provides a tantalizing glimpse of HMC’s 1928 catalog, which featured “six styles of ukulele, four styles of tenor ukulele, and two of guitars . . . The more expensive styles include such new features as extended fingerboards and pearl position dots.” In a 1929 ad in the Advertiser, the company offered a mother-of-pearl ukulele (presumably inlaid) for $15 and a koa guitar for $25.
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Hawaiian Mahogany’s best-known model was its Echo Uke, which had two thin metal prongs mounted beneath its bridge, allegedly designed to resonate when the instrument was played, thereby increasing its volume (they didn’t). According to ukulele historian Tom Walsh, Echo ukuleles were sold under different names in different locations: in Hawaii they were sometimes branded as Pele; San Francisco wholesaler Jules M. Sahlein sold them under his trademarked Y’Ke’Ke brand name; while Schireson Brothers in Los Angeles offered them as Mai Kai ukuleles.
In its own short-lived ukulele shop on Bethel Street, opened in 1928 opposite the Hawaii Theater, HMC sold Royal Hawaiian–branded ukulele at prices ranging from $3 to $10, as well as curios and souvenirs. (The shop was closed a year later.) Regardless of branding, it appears that HMC ukuleles were sold around the world: one prominent collector owns an HMC concert ukulele with the label of T.E. Bevan & Co. of Calcutta, India.
During the Depression, when HMC operated first under the name C.Q. Yee Hop & Co. and then Hawaiian Hardwood Co., Ltd., ukulele sales dropped precipitously and the firm appears to have focused on the production of flooring and carved bowls, trays, boxes, and the like. During World War II, the firm produced ohia keel blocks for Navy ships, but Hawaiian Hardwood was still advertising ukuleles in Honolulu as late as 1946.
Akai
For the first 15 years of his professional career, Goo Tai Chong, aka Akai (1880–1968), worked in the banking industry as a clerk and teller. Born in Honolulu and the son of Cantonese immigrants, in 1918 he was named treasurer/manager of the newly formed Aloha Ukulele Manufacturing Co. It’s not clear how the bank teller-turned-shop manager became a luthier—a man of many talents, in 1928 he was named manager of United Chinese News and elected to the board of the Chung-shan Chinese school)—but in the spring of 1922 a series of distinctive Honolulu newspaper ads made his presence known.
Akai, his ads claimed, was “a maker who considers his work an art . . . There are several grades, but each instrument is the choicest to be had in its class.” His marketing was aimed squarely at tourists. “Hawaii lives in the hearts of countless persons as the land of ukuleles, bewitching moonlight, and fair maidens garbed in grass skirts,” his July 15, 1922 ad said. “The Chamber of Commerce combats the grass skirt idea. The Tourist Bureau tries to make the world forget the grass skirt idea . . . And meanwhile, Akai, maker of ukuleles, sits in his shop at 1511 Beretania St. and makes his little Hawaiian instruments for those who refuse to let go of the grass skirt picture in their hearts.”
Made of red koa and marked with his signature and the TABU stamp of the Honolulu Advertising Club, some of Akai’s ukuleles featured a unique curved, asymmetrical headstock. “Akai will make an ukulele or guitar to your order if you can find nothing in his shop to suit your fancy,” he advised his customers. Like other ukulele makers, he consigned some of his instruments to local retailers and also produced curios—cigarette boxes, trays, jewel cases, humidors, ash trays, smoking stands, walking sticks, book ends—made of wood deemed unsuitable for instruments.
The exact nature of the relationship of the Akai brand with Aloha is not entirely clear. Chong continued as Aloha’s manager throughout the 1920s, but advertised his Akai ukuleles separately, even though they shared the same street address. Shortly after he went public with Akai, he advised in an April 15, 1922 ad that “the signature ‘Akai’ appearing below [the TABU stamp] is the signature of the maker of what have heretofore been known as Aloha ukuleles.” He clearly was not a one-man show, referring to his staff in his Akai ads, urging customers to visit his factory, and, in 1926, advertising for an experienced ukulele polisher.
Chong was a major player in the ukulele community. In 1927, when Aloha, Kumalae, Hawaiian Mahogany, Mossman, and Kamaka formed the Ukulele Manufacturing Association of Hawaii in an apparently unsuccessful effort to boost production, Chong was named secretary. He served as manager of Aloha until 1932, when new management was brought in, possibly as a result of the sale of the company. He bounced back, however, opening Akai Ukulele & Curio Co. near his old shop on Beretania. He apparently sold the business in 1946, when Howard H.K. Tom and Harry W.K. Chong of Honolulu entered into a partnership under the name of Akai Ukulele and Curio Co., to manufacture wholesale and retail curios and woodwork.
Sam Chang
Sam Fat Chang (1899–1970) was another alumnus of Aloha Ukulele, where he is listed as working in 1918. Born in Koloa, Kauai, one of six sons of immigrants from Guangdong, he had only a third-grade education. He also worked for Jonah Kumalae from 1922 to 1923 before leaving to branch out on his own in his workshop at his Kaulia Street home, where he made his own instruments for almost 25 years.
Chang is perhaps best known as one of the ukulele makers for Paul Summers. Summers (1895–1985), a West Virginia native, certified pharmacist, and former Chautauqua musician, arrived in Honolulu in 1921 and opened a music studio downtown at Fort and King streets. He subsequently opened a second studio in the Moana Hotel and, in 1927, at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, with a money-back guarantee to teach his clients the ukulele in six easy lessons for $10.
Chang’s daughter, Clarice, told ukulele historian John King that her father used to bicycle down to Waikiki to make his deliveries to Summers, who claimed that his Moana brand ukuleles were made under his direct supervision. Summers clearly took pride in the instruments he sold for $7.50 or more. His ukuleles, he proclaimed in advertisements, were “different from the ordinary souvenir ukulele—these instruments are really made to play on.”
Chang continued to make ukuleles from home after World War II; Larry’s Music in Kaimuki advertised his instruments, together with Ka-Lae monkeypod ukuleles. Chang retired in 1957; his youngest son Norman took over the business, initially as Sam Chang’s Ukulele but later changing the name to Tabu Ukulele before closing the business around 1965.
Ah Tau Kam
Ah Tau Kam (1892–1972), who made ukuleles in Honolulu for more than 40 years, is perhaps best known for the fact that so little is known about him. Like his contemporary Akai, Kam was born in Honolulu, the son of immigrants. He is listed as working for M. Nunes & Sons in 1917; the following year he joined the Army, serving for a year before his discharge. (His brother Samuel also joined the Army at the same time, and worked as a salesman for C.Q. Yee Hop for 55 years).
Listed as cabinetmakers in the Honolulu directory in the 1920s and ’30s, Kam and fellow luthier Kaniela Makini were friends of Samuel Kamaka Sr. “I remember stopping by there with [my father],” the late Sam Kamaka Jr. said in a 1993 oral history. “They had their own trademarks—Makini Ukulele and Kam Ukulele. And they also made ukuleles for other people, you know, music stores. Special order things.” It’s possible that Kam is one of the luthiers who made instruments for Paul Summers. He worked first from his home on Olu Street, where he built a workshop in 1924, and after 1930 from his home on Sixth Avenue, where he and his wife, Helen, lived for the rest of their lives.
Kam is identified as a curio maker in the 1940 census, and it seems likely that he, like other ukulele makers, made tourist souvenirs to supplement his income as a luthier. He continued to make ukuleles until 1965 or 1966, when he finally retired.
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Johnny Lai
As a one-time oboe player for the Honolulu Symphony, John Ying Git Lai (1910–1980) seems like an unlikely ukulele maker. The precocious musician played cornet and clarinet, and organized his first dance orchestra while a senior at McKinley High School. After graduating from McKinley in 1931, the ambitious young immigrant joined the music faculty at his alma mater and in 1932 opened Metronome Music Store on Bethel Street.
While Lai’s original focus was providing music lessons, he quickly expanded into retail sales, promoting instrumental music programs in local schools, managing a string of local bands and musical groups, and sponsoring radio programs and concerts. By 1947 he owned a local department store and had branched out into real estate development.
As part of his expanding musical empire, in 1939 he formed a partnership with Samuel Kamaka Sr. and created a new firm—Ka-Lai String Instrument Manufacturers, using Kamaka’s existing factory on South King Street. “He and my dad went in, for a little bit, on a joint venture and they made Ka-Lai ukulele,” said Sam Kamaka Jr. “I remember they almost doubled the number of employees at the shop. For a few years it was Ka-Lai instead of Kamakas. I guess that was an experiment for my dad, but it didn’t last too long. At least two years for sure.”
There were more than 30 Ka-Lai models to choose from, both pineapples and conventional shapes, made of Philippine mahogany and koa, ranging in price from $4.50 to $12.50.
The “rich mellow tone quality—extra loud sound volume—unusual light picking—beauty of appearance” of Ka-Lai instruments brought endorsements by well-known musicians such as Ray Kinney, Harry Owens, and Johnny Almeida, as well as Bill Tapia, who is credited as the author of the Ka-Lai method book offered free with every instrument. Ka-Lai also advertised pineapple guitars and even its own electric guitar.
Although launched with a splash, with lots of newspaper advertising and sponsorship of the Ka-Lai Melody Hour on Honolulu radio station KGU, Ka-Lai was a short-lived venture. By 1943, the Kamaka Ukulele Factory was back to advertising its own sales and repairs. That same year Lai formed Ka-Lae “for the purpose of conducting a general manufacturing and merchandise business.” Ka-Lae continued to make ukuleles out of monkeypod, with one-piece back and sides, as well as a variety of curios, including salad bowls, leaf trays, nut dishes, fish-shaped salt-and-pepper shakers, and miniature outrigger canoes. Ka-Lae was out of business by 1953.
SUSTAINING THE LEGACY
Although they could not have known it at the time, this group of first- and second-generation Chinese entrepreneurs played a key role in defining the Hawaiian-made ukulele. At a time when many mainland makes were criticized as “false in tone, flimsy in construction, and made in a cheap, shoddy way,” Yee Hop, Gem, and their colleagues helped maintain the reputation of Hawaiian-made ukuleles as the best available. As one Philadelphia retailer put it, “You’ll never regret buying a genuine.”
