Yaung LLC, Owners of Building Characters, Your Source for Chinese Symbol Shirts

Founder's mother practicing Chinese character writing

Yaung LLC ("au" pronounced similar to "au" in audio, taught, saunter, etc.), owns and operates Building Characters. Founded in 2004 as an independently owned and operated Asian-American small business, headquartered in McLean, VA (Washington DC metro area, USA), our team consists of Chinese consultants with a combined 125 years total experience, from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

The popularity of Chinese character writing (calligraphy) is apparent and is growing, as evidenced in paintings, as prints, as tattoos (in the latter case, many done incorrectly). You do not have to know Chinese to appreciate its art, and Building Characters leverages our experience and expertise, to bring you quality shirts featuring customizable and personalized Chinese characters.

About Our Founder

J.T. Yaung, Founder of Yaung LLC and Building Characters

My name is J.T. Yaung. I was born, raised, and still live in the Washington DC metro area. Since my name is not "Tommy Hilfiger," I have to tell you a little bit about myself and my company so that you can:

be confident about what we are offering you
check me out even more thoroughly, if you'd like
understand why we are making our shirts available to you

Let's face it. The web is so anonymous that anyone can pretend to be anything and get away with it. But you have not come here for vague, hyped up claims. No, if you've clicked to this page, it means that you are interested in our shirts, and want proof that I am real, that our shirts are real, proof you can double check for yourself.

So let's get started...

Background Highlights

I graduated from McLean High School (telephone 703.714.5700) with a 3.6 GPA, and completed my Virginia Tech (telephone 540.231.6000) undergraduate work with a 3.6 GPA in Finance, and 3.5 GPA in Decision Support Systems.

After school, I began my career in the information technology field, holding a diverse set of positions over time, from programmer, to project manager, to consultant, to sales executive, with companies such as Fannie Mae (telephone 202.752.7000), Cisco (telephone 408.526.4000), and Avaya (telephone 866.462.8292).

After the economic downturn of...

... the early 2000's, I decided I needed to find a better way to control my destiny, and subsequently formed Yaung LLC, owners and operators of Building Characters...

Proud of my Asian-American heritage (Chinese to be specific), I knew I wanted to incorporate that cultural element in some way. Ultimately I developed what you see here within these pages and dedicated it to my parents, both immigrants from Taiwan who took a chance and struggled early on to make in the States, oftentimes saving their loose change in order to "have a nice dinner out at McDonald's" every once in a while. All those years my parents sent me to weekend Chinese school have started to pay off; how about that?

Which leads me to...

Why Offer You Chinese Character Shirts?

I looked around and saw cheap screen-printed Chinese character t-shirts left and right, some done incorrectly, and some just downright ugly. None captured the aesthetics and "coolness" factor I felt the Chinese characters and the people wearing them deserved, until we experimented with embroidery.

I came to understand why...

... you only see budget print-transferred Chinese character shirts everywhere, and almost zero quality embroidered ones... it's hard work! Chinese characters require a certain stroke order, which most Westerners are unfamiliar with. The stitching should reflect this stroke order and balance it with what is aesthetically pleasing from an embroidery perspective. With screen prints, all of this is unnecessary!

After all, embroidery is an art form, calligraphy is an art form, and Chinese writing is an art form. Combine the three, and you've got one serious craft to master... By performing all the translations, digitizing (process to convert Chinese character images into a stitchable format), and stitching in-house, you can be sure you are getting your customizable Chinese character shirts from a credible source.

Lastly, We Are Members in Good Standing with...

... the Better Business Bureau, an internationally respected, non-profit consumer protection organization. Please call them at 202.393.8000, and ask about our company (Building Characters / Yaung LLC, quote them Member ID number 205415219) -- you'll see that our record is spotless.

J.T. Yaung
Founder

P.S.	For those double-checking my info, my legal last name is Yaung (also Yang... which is the Hanyu Pinyin spelling, but PRONOUNCED the same).

Founder's signature in English text and Chinese characters (Japanese kanji, Korean hanja)

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