In due time, he made a fortune investing in retail, shipping, opium, sugar and coffee plantations, eventually becoming the first Chinese millionaire on Hawaii.

[1][note 1] He was of the Chinese Cantonese community which held a longstanding dispute with the Hakka peoples; the latter conflict spilled into the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars from 1855 to 1868.

They became the co-owners of Afong & Achuck, a chain of stores selling Oriental novelties including brocades and silks to Chinese residents and the upper echelon of Honolulu society.

The union connected him to the ruling Hawaiian elite class including the future king, Kalākaua, who owed his 1874 election as monarch in part to Afong's financial support.

[17][18] He was appointed commercial agent (shangdong) for China by the Chinese Minister to the United States in Washington, DC, Chen Lanbin, on August 13, 1879.

[20] Ultimately, the Aki opium scandal (in which his son Chun Lung, called Alung, was involved) became one of the corruption charges leading to the July 1887 coup of the king by his opponents.

[23][24] After his eldest son Alung died in August 1889, he sold or reorganized most of his business holdings in Hawaii and invested in the Douglas Steamship Company in Hong Kong.

[26][27] In his hometown, the Meixi Memorial Archways, combining Chinese and European architectural elements, were built by order in 1886 and 1891 to commemorate the charitable deeds of Chun Afong and his father in their home village.

He was also made a mandarin of the first rank by imperial edict and was awarded with four tablets bearing the words: "Generous, Charitable, Selfless and Kindhearted".

London's highly embellished story of Afong depicts him as a "crafty coolie" who spites the white capitalist establishment through his own business success.

[9][36][37] In 1997, Kailua-based freelance writer and historian Bob Dye (1928–2010) wrote Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: Afong and the Chinese in Hawaiʻi.

The book was dedicated to his wife ballet dancer Tessa Gay Magoon Dye (1946–2002), a great-great-granddaughter of Chun Afong, who assisted her husband with her personal research into her family history.

The couple visited the site of Afong's old family compound in Meixi and were consulted by the local Chinese authorities when they were transforming it into a museum and tourist attraction.

Dye's book was praised for its meticulous research and detailed account of the experiences Afong and of the Chinese immigrant community in Hawaii.

In a way, what emerges is a cautionary tale of the dangers of a single-crop economy and weak political leadership, the human cost of diplomatic maneuvers, and the difficulties of creating a multicultural society free from exploitation.