IN THE FOND MEMORY OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II | 2022 OCTOBER

By coincidence, at that time my family was driven out from China by the communist regime. We ended up living in Hong Kong, the British colony, in 1958. Due to the lack of any life experience at my young age and wasn’t fully aware of how my parents were treated in their last years in China, I was quite reluctant to live in Hong Kong, especially after I had to leave Shanghai from the house in the French Concession with the little garden. Where we lived, there were sycamore trees on both sides of the street. In Hong Kong, I found that we were living in an apartment for the first time with the four walls around us. I thought by then I could have felt more at home if we were in an independent country, even if it was a foreign country, as the sense of belongingness and security was something I was craving for.

I even began to pick up some mockeries for my living in Hong Kong, such as: “living on borrowed land, spending borrowed time there, and even working with borrowed working capital.”  

I felt that the place was like an air terminal where I was on transit and waiting for departure soon. And the fact was we had seen people continuously migrating to countries like the United States, Canada and Australia, mostly English-speaking countries. Hong Kong was taken as the springboard to the free world.

Our family continued to live there, where I received my education, started my business, married my wife and raised my family there. But in the back of my mind I realized we would leave one day before the handover from the British to Chinese in 1997. I vowed to remember what my parents told me when we first landed in Hong Kong. I was told to leave one day and do not look back.

Without knowing, I spent fifty-four years in Hong Kong, and I left because of the promise I made to my parents. In fact, before the handover in July 1997, I sent my wife and our youngest daughter to the United States. I avoided the “once bitten twice shy” situation and believed that I made the right decision.

But many friends of mine during my days in Hong Kong, I learned from what they had observed Hong Kong, the crown colony of Great Britain, with first-hand knowledge. Most of them were born after the Second World War and at the time people were poor everywhere you look. The refugees from China started to pour in during 1949, and it never stopped. Very quickly, from a place of a few hundred thousand inhabitant after WWII, it became 2.3 million in 1954. All of a sudden the scarcity of housing, education, medical facility and all the supporting elements exploded. Low-cost housing schemes were built around the city and they were rented out in a very affordable manner. Factory buildings, which coincided with the low-cost developments, were built around the housing plans so jobs could be created. Again, because of the low rental cost, they were taken up easily.

Many of them noticed that their forefathers received the allocation of factory units and they used them wisely for light industrial manufacturing, such as the woodwork and metalwork.

Very quickly it created desirable living condition for the refugees who arrived with skills and, most important, with their can-do attitude. Opportunities were available for the new migrants with honesty and hardworking.

Hong Kong, the colony, was ruled by the governor and appointed by the Queen Her Majesty Elizabeth II, and together with the government officials, they started to rule Hong Kong. It was clever not to send any of the politicians from the two major political parties in the United Kingdom—the Labor and the Conservative Party. Instead, the appointees would directly report to the Queen.

Life became easy. Money was easy to make and wealth was able to build because everyone was given a free hand and, as long as one would stay within the law, you could basically do almost everything. The colony was enjoying the lowest tax rate in the region—16.5% both for our profit tax and for our personal income tax—which attracted many foreigners to start their business in Hong Kong. And due to the Common Law, which is easy to understand and put in practice, every business leader found their successful stories. Democracy was never needed to be promoted, and we had newspapers and television stations that were free to express themselves.

For a very long time we were known as the Pearl of the Orient.

I recalled that from the 1960s to 1980s, everything was in great harmony. We never looked for more autonomy as it was never our need. The people were able to hold our respect and dignity as long as they were all law-abiding. All the policy was meant for the people of Hong Kong, and there were no harassment, discrimination, unfairness, abuse of any kind, nor any inequality. Everyone under the Common Law was able to lead a very good life.

If you look back at the time when the migrants’ families were raised up, all their children went to the public school funded by the government. The school fee was only a fraction of the cost. Such education today would have cost a fortune. Then the hospitals and medical system were meant for the public; the system and the training were set up according to the most stringent standards from Britain.

Queen Elizabeth II visited Hong Kong on several occasions, and she was found to be a very people-oriented royal highness. You couldn’t feel any bit of it as coming from the political aspect. You could feel she was showing her true face and not posing herself in front of the cameras.