Stephen Gan Fock Wai

Biography

Stephen Gan Fock Wai was born in 1961 in Hong Kong into the prominent Gan family. He was educated in Hong Kong before traveling to the United Kingdom in 1978, where he earned a degree in food engineering from Loughborough University in 1984. After returning to Hong Kong, he worked at Tai Cheung Hang before joining the management of the family business, and currently serves as an executive director of Gan Fock Wai International Limited. In addition to his role at the company, Gan is a singer known as the "Balsam Prince". He began his music career in 1986 by forming the band "Chuan Ming" and released his first album in 1987. In 2004, he began appearing in television advertisements for the company, singing the jingles himself, which brought him wider recognition. His 2006 song "Dream of You" gained popularity on Hong Kong online forums. In 2007, he entered the Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards chart for the first time with the song "Love for Eighty Years". He held a concert at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in October 2007, where he publicly came out as homosexual. In 2008, he was convicted of two counts of indecent assault and sentenced to 180 hours of community service.