Introduction

Go virtually anywhere in the world and you'll see them: green shipping containers with large white letters reading "EVERGREEN." The company is one of the biggest and best in the shipping world, while also having a hand in air travel and a dozen other ventures. The man who started it all was one of those rare "self-made" billionaires. Overcoming poverty and personal tragedy, he worked his way up from the “banana boats” to build his own company, starting with one small vessel in the 1960s. Today, Evergreen’s giant container ships, some as long as 400 meters, ply the seas to bring people across the planet everything from cars to toilet paper. This is the story of the remarkable 張榮發 Chang Yung-fa (Zhang Rong-fa ), 1927-2016, the founder of Evergreen Marine.