LYH

Lin Yong Hua — LYH — is one of only three Chinese watchmakers admitted to the AHCI, and the most internationally visible of the current generation of Chinese independents working in the English-language press. Born in 1973 in Guangdong, he grew up in Shenzhen — the manufacturing megacity bordering Hong Kong that became the engine room of China's industrial transformation — and developed his fascination with watches as a teenager, taking apart any mechanical device he could find and attempting to put it back together, drawn by the ticking and by the question of how precision could be encoded in something so small. In 1991, at 18, he joined the production line of Shenzhen SWEDA Electronics — a quartz watch manufacturing company — and was quickly identified as technically gifted, moved from the production floor to the technical department where he focused on processing technique and was, in his own description, 'thoroughly polished on watchmaking.' His early immersion in quartz manufacturing gave him an unusually rigorous understanding of precision machinery and tolerances that many watchmakers who begin with mechanical watches never acquire; it shaped his ability to make and modify his own production tools, which he has done throughout his independent career. He spent approximately a decade in the industry before opening his own repair and restoration workshop — Bao Lai — in Shenzhen in 2001, building a clientele over the following years through increasingly complex restorations.

In 2009 he formally established his independent workshop, LYH Clock & Watch Workshop, at Room 418, Building 505, Zhen-xing Road, Futian District, Shenzhen. From that base he has produced every piece since. With the exception of springs, jewels, crystals, and straps, every component — including the cases — is designed and machined in-house by Lin himself. He first applied to the AHCI in 2012; was accepted as a candidate in 2017; and attained full membership in 2019, making him one of only three Chinese watchmakers in the organisation's history alongside Tan Zehua and the late Kiu Tai Yu.

Lin's watches are defined by a refusal to repeat himself: each reference is a new mechanical concept rather than a variation on an established format. His debut, the No. 4 Vinyl Record (2016), was the watch that secured his AHCI candidacy — the delegates who visited his Shenzhen workshop were immediately struck by its originality. Inspired by a tribute to his friends who love vinyl music and the classical music era that is slowly disappearing, the Vinyl Record places a 0.30mm thick rotating transparent sapphire disc on the dial as the minute indicator, with a miniature tonearm moving across it and a musical note-shaped bridge holding the balance wheel. A digital jumping hour window appears at 12 o'clock on the vinyl disc. The movement is manually wound with a 45-hour power reserve, developed entirely in-house; the No. 1 version in gold with baguette diamonds was the Baselworld 2017 debut piece, engraved with his signature and the occasion — a detail he describes as a 'straightforward human touch rarely seen in high-end watches.' The No. 2 Dragonfly Man was inspired by a sculpture: a dragonfly figure with a tourbillon as its head, the insect's wings forming the movement bridges, the tail the regulating organ — a watch that is simultaneously kinetic art and mechanical poetry.

The No. 3 features a wandering hours complication with transparent hour discs that revolve to indicate minutes, operating on principles related to the Audemars Piguet Jules Audemars concept but entirely original in execution. The No. 5 LYH-8 Asteroid draws on the lucky number 8 in Chinese culture with a red gold case. The No. 6 Wirepuller uses all-sapphire construction with a dual-power three-day reserve. The Sea Turtle places hour, minute, and escapement on a single pivot inside a turtle-shell diamond case with Sichuan opera face-change motifs on its cloisonné enamel dial. The LYH-6 Jumping Hour and LYH-6 Jumping Hour with Wandering Minutes showcase classical multi-bridge movement architectures inspired by vintage calibres — bridges decorated to a high finishing standard including inward angles, developed as vehicles for refined surface work as much as for the display complications they carry. A Voyager series in 2019, limited to 30 per year for a total of 520 pieces, commemorated his full AHCI membership and is the most accessible LYH reference. In 2019 a watch with a spider web chassis design resembling a time zone map earned him his broadest international recognition; Lin has described it as 'an innovation in the watchmaking industry at the time.'

Beyond his own label, Lin Yong Hua has developed three bespoke movements exclusively for the Singaporean haute horlogerie brand Celadon HH, under the direction of founder Benjamin Chee. The CH1, CH5, and CH4414 calibres are produced in LYH's Shenzhen workshop to Chee's aesthetic specifications and are the mechanical foundation of every Celadon HH watch; the CH5, named the Phoenix after the mythological Empress's bird, has bridges and cocks shaped to evoke the creature's swept tail feathers in what is one of the most conceptually integrated bridge designs in contemporary Chinese watchmaking. He also contributed the CH5 calibre to the Celadon HH Cloisonné Duo of Swallows, a collaboration with the Beijing enamel workshop of Grandmaster Xiong Songtao. LYH's workshop was featured by The New York Times in a documentary portrait of China's independent watchmaking scene, and by Goldthread in a video portrait that has reached a broad non-specialist audience. His philosophy is stated with characteristic directness on the AHCI website: 'Using his utmost effort to bring inspirations to the world of clock & watch! That's the truest dream in LYH's heart.' He estimates the rest of his working life will be spent exploring the depth of independent watchmaking — with a stated particular interest in pursuing perpetual calendar, minute repeater, and tourbillon complications in combination. His watches range from USD 10,000 to USD 80,000 depending on complication and case material.