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July 21, 2005
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Stanley Ho and 36 Girls
An article in today's SCMP relates the story of how Stanley Ho as a 20-year old sheltered from the Japanese invasion in December 1941 in his great-uncle Ho Kom-Tong's residence. Apparently he and a young man from Indonesia sheltered there in the basement - with 36 girls. Said Ho: Every time we heard the sounds of bombing, the girls would all scream and flock towards the two of us and hold us very tightly. We never took advantage of them, though. It disappoints me whenever I think about it again - none of the girls were pretty.Stanley Ho of course did alright on the ladies' front, being, amongst many other things, an accomplished dancer, and had four wives. His uncle Ho Kom-Tong, though, outdid him - he had 12 wives, and more than 30 children, most of whom lived with him in the 9,000 square foot house on Caine Road he had built for himself in 1914. Ho's remarks were made at a ceremony yesterday dedicating the building as a Museum to Sun Yat-Sen. How fitting is it, though, that a Museum dedicated to the Father of Modern China be housed in a luxurious residence built by a compradore of Jardine Matheson, the firm that arguably started the Opium War and started the era of Western Imperialism in China? It is perhaps even more fitting that Kom Tong Hall, the home of an arch-polygamist, was sold to the Mormons in 1960! It had been used as a torture chamber during the Japanese Occupation in WWII, and aparently over 1,000 people died in there, leading Chinese to shun the building as haunted. The Church of Latter-Day Saints used it as their base until 2002, when the Mormons tried to knock it down. If you're interested in why Hong Kong has such a hard time preserving its buildings, you may want to visit my latest blog entry on the subject of Hong Kong's Cycles of Creative Destruction: Why must we Hong Kongers endure the incessant sound of the jackhammer, almost Pavlovian in conditioning us to accept change as a fact of life? The answer - ownership is limited, forcing this city of immigrants to try to maximize their returns on this valuable asset as quickly and efficiently as possible.posted by HK Dave on 07.21.05 at 04:10 PM in the
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Comments:
Tough war for some. Haven't the Mormons moved to that gleaming new faux-colonial building on Gloucester Rd? posted by: Simon on 07.21.05 at 06:10 PM [permalink]You got it right: Elder Kuen Tony Ling, Asia Area Authority 70, revealed, ¡¥The Church¡¦s growth in Hong Kong and throughout Asia meant that a larger facility was needed. At the present time, a 13 story building, due for completion in 2005, is being constructed on Gloucester Road, Wan Chai, near Central Plaza. There were approximately 1,700 members of the Church in the Hong Kong area in 1960, and today there are over 22,000. posted by: Carl Parkes on 07.22.05 at 08:24 AM [permalink]Yes Stanley Ho was indeed very fortunate during the war. It is said he later fled to Macau with only $10 in his pocket. But while there, the dashing young man got married to Clementina Leitao a member of a leading Macau family. This connection later enabled him obtain the gambling monopoly in the early 1960s. He was also asked by the Macau government to negotiate with the Japanese during the war for basic foodstuffs like rice, which he was obliged to do. The man has had a very interesting life. And yes, I think the Mormon Temple-cum-office building in the middle of the heaving, throbbing Wanchai district (actually near a bunch of bathroom fixture stores). They had 'given up the ghost' on the old location after they realized they needed more space. But they actually also own a number of other temples all around the city. I guess real estate becomes second nature to anyone that lives here long enough.:) posted by: David on 07.22.05 at 08:25 AM [permalink]You can see another of their temples from the Airport Express train. From memory it is near Tsing Ye station. It's a small, non-descript building stuck on a hill side besides a freeway. posted by: Simon on 07.22.05 at 11:58 AM [permalink] |
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