When I lived in Hong Kong in the 1950’s and 60’s my
Chinese friends were often reluctant to speak about their difficult pasts and
why they had to flea China. Students, too, were quite hesitant to get very
autobiographical. But when I was in Hong Kong recently this had changed. I was
surprised by how candid my former students were as they spoke of their youth.
More than once they recalled the extreme poverty they experienced growing up.
Especially when a group of us had finished dinner one night in Macau the group
shared stories of their challenging background. I want to relate just a few of
those stories here. I have changed all names and may have altered a few details
to protect some identities.
Matthew started the conversation. ”We were all very
poor,” he stated, “and I think I was among the poorest.” He recalled that his
father had been killed on Christmas Day 1941 when he served in the British
forces protecting Hong Kong and the Japanese invaded and just demolished them.
So at about 5 years of age he and his 3-year-old brother were raised by his
widowed mother. She found a few dollars to enroll him in Concordia Middle
School But soon she came to the Dean and announced “I have to take Matthew out
of school. I cannot pay both his tuition and still have money for his food.”
The Dean said, ”We will help with tuition and he can just eat with me. At lunch
time let him come to me and I will share my rice with him”. Incidentally the
monthly salary of that dean was US$30.00 a month. Matthew studied and did very
well. A few years later the Dean informed me that Matthew’s mother could now
not even pay the reduced school fees. So he and another colleague had
asked her to iron their shirts and they would help with his tuition (and I
found money to make up the balance of his school fees.) He graduated with
highest honors-one of the top 5 in the entire colony of Hong Kong. Soon the
Lutheran Church chose him to study at a Lutheran College in the USA. There he
was supported by faithful Lutherans from a congregation in the small town of
Walburg, Texas. Matthew served the Lutheran Church in Hong Kong then went into
business as a major exec for an international conglomerate and ended up as a
most senior officer in what is now the largest international insurance company
in China. He never forgot God or the people who helped him, is a stalwart in
the Lutheran Church and the community and was a primary host and benefactor for
my visit.
Mary was an excellent student in Concordia Middle School-excelling
especially in English. I even used her as an interpreter when my Cantonese was
inadequate. She was also a person with a very disturbing past. She was a very
young girl when Mao’s officials came to the farm where she lived with her
extended family in South China. These officials came to take away her
grandfather’s land and keep it for the Communists. It got worse. The officials
tied up her grandfather with his arms ties behind his back. They took him
outside and brought the entire family including little Mary and made her watch
as they shot and killed him. That vision stayed in her head. Eventually she
escaped to Hong Kong but carried with her the fear of what might happen to her
when Hong Kong was to “return” to China in 1997.She badly wanted a USA passport
as a safety net. Our son David sponsored her as an immigrant to the USA. She
worked in the dress fur business and then in banking. She returned to Hong Kong
as a successful businesswoman and teacher and supported her son through his
graduation from Oxford University. She is forever grateful to those who
assisted her and was the person most active in making all the arrangements and
paying for my 90th birthday in Hong Kong.
Mark was the best
athlete at Concordia excelling especially in basketball and swimming. He studied
very hard to excel is his academics. Unfortunately he was also very poor and
lived in a tiny study and sleeping area-which also had poor ventilation. As a
result he had barely finished his high school when he was struck down with
tuberculosis-an all too common experience in Hong Kong in the late 1950”s.
Fortunately space for recuperation was found for him at The Haven of Hope
Sanitarium partially funded by The Wheat Ridge Foundation.
While there the
gentleman in the bed next to him told the sad story of his young son. “He is very
bright and talented,” said the father” but he is on the streets as I cannot
afford to pay any school tuition because I lie here helpless in this bed.”:
Mark suggested Concordia and said he would speak to his church friends to see
if financial aid could be found. That worked especially also interested in
making slide projections of Bible stories for use in Sunday School. Today that
student is in Beijing after producing Mission Impossible II in the USA and is
known world-wide as Andy Woo. And Mark, the person who got him started, was a successful
teacher and stock manager and the person who paid for my son Tim’s airfare and for
all our hotel bills (plus) while we were in Hong Kong.
Martha was living
in a squatter hut which the terrible Shek Kip Mei fires of the early 1950’s suddenly
made tens of thousands of refugees homeless once again. Her parents found
another very minimal place to live and she found her way to Concordia, getting
up at 5:00 each morning to grab the public busses which got her there. After
graduation she was blessed to get married into an old-time Hong Kong family
which had the resources to have one of her children get a PhD and become a
cancer research specialist. Another is a medical doctor with major
responsibility. A third is an attorney in England. She hosted us wonderfully, provided
all our Hong Kong and Macau transportation and made generous contributions for all
the events.
John’s family was
also made homeless by the fires mentioned above. His mother was relentless in
getting a teaching position and pushed and advocated for her children. John was
an outstanding student, studied at Concordia Chicago, ended up returning to HK
and headed up the multi-multi million dollars a year Lutheran Social Services
of Hong Kong and was able to secure funding from multiple sources including
HK’s Jockey Club. His sister is a widely admired surgeon in HK and his brother
owns a business in England. He was co-chair of the committee that planned all
the events and was most generous.
When I knew these
kids they had to launder their school uniforms as soon as they got home from
school so they could wear them again the next day because they could afford
only one set of clothes.
The list goes on:
Paul was the head Chinese for introducing MacDonald’s into China. Timothy, a
top professor at Hong Kong Chinese University, got his PhD at Yale and headed a
major world-wide evangelistic education agency. Ron heads a Cancer Research
Institute. And the list goes on and on.
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