John Huang was born on 1 February 1914 in Southern Vietnam. He completed his education in South Vietnam where he grew up with his older siblings.

In 1931, the family left Vietnam and moved to the Netherlands, where they set up an antique shop a few years later. In 1940s, he married a Dutch woman, and the couple had several children together.

Huang initially worked as a factory worker before being deployed as a soldier on the Western Front during the Second World War. A few months after the war, he returned to Hilversum and worked as a professional businessman. Later on, he continued to operate the family antique shop after his parents died. He retired at the end of the 1970s.

In 2021, at the age of 107, Mr. Huang moved into a retirement home a few months after his wife died. In 2024, one of his daughters reported that he was “still healthy in body and limbs.” He continued to read the newspaper every day with the assistance of a magnifying glass. He also enjoyed watching numerous sports on TV.