Living on the edge

Hong Kong, with its towering skyscrapers, bustling streets and scenic islands is more than just a special administrative region of China; it’s a melting pot of cultures, traditions and beliefs. In some ways Lo Ting, Hong Kong’s distinctive mythical creature, which supposedly still resides in family groups on and around the island of Lantau, is an apt emblem for the region. Being half-man, half-fish, a Lo Ting is able to straddle and survive in two environments, much like Hong Kong itself has thrived as a crossing point between the East and the West. But there is more to Lo Ting than its ability to cope in challenging conditions. I think it has much to tell us about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and the way we treat and accept others.

Jimmy Keung’s Lo Ting sculpture that was commissioned by Oscar Ho
for the 1997 exhibition at the HKAC – Photo by Ilaria

Lo Ting’s are first mentioned by a civil servant in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE). He was compiling a census of the region and gives descriptions of an amphibious species living near Lantau. By the Qing Dynasty there is an explanation as to how the Lo Ting evolved. It is claimed that initially they were warriors who fought for General Lu Xun (still a popular character in martial art films and manga), to try and overthrow the Jin Dynasty. Lu Xun led an unsuccessful rebellion in 410CE. His army was forced to flee from revenging imperial authorities – this resulted in their hiding and living “little better than beasts”, partially on land and partially at sea around the southern islands. Gradually these people became viewed as being amphibian and hence the legend of the Lo Ting began. Lo Tings lived secluded lives at the margins of society. Supposedly, in addition to relying on fishing, they became salt producers on Lantau; until, in 1197CE, the Song Emperor decided to nationalise salt production, resulting in a massacre of salt manufacturers during which most Lo Ting and significant numbers of the Tanka boat people were killed.

Linking the Lo Ting to the Tanka is significant. The Tanka still exist, a declining community, some of whom continue to live in their fishing boats on the shores of Hong Kong and neighbouring regions. For centuries they have been persecuted by those in power and the wider public. Colloquially referred to a “sea gypsies”, in the 18th century they were banned from marrying outside their community or from living onshore; the land-dwelling farmers fought them to prevent them from getting land; and more recently their fishing-based lifestyle has been impacted by stringent environmental laws and government policy.

People tend to overlook or reject those whom they see as different from themselves and whom they believe could potentially be a threat or awkward to interact with. All too often, we make assumptions. The colour of a person’s skin tells you nothing about their religious beliefs. The fact that someone is sixty does not indicate that they are ready to retire or wish to slow down. A fatter than average person is not de facto lazy. Youth does not prevent someone from being an excellent manager. Being female doesn’t make you a bad driver. Being male doesn’t make you a bad nurse. It is very easy to stereotype. We form opinions thanks to our own upbringings and experiences, but by excluding people or groups we diminish our own and our organisations’ ability to innovate and progress. So often the best ideas can come from an unexpected sources – frequently the new joiner to a company questions why things are done in a certain way and proposes a new and better approach – listen to them; an individual joining from a different industry can make suggestions that will enhance a product or way of communicating (virtual reality, initially developed for gaming, is now being used for training in medicine and industry and AI is transforming Finance and smart analysis of data is enhancing education and the outcomes for children). Rather than marginalising those who stand out as being different, we should welcome them and celebrate what they have to offer (ideas, experiences, aspirations) for the benefit of us all.

Despite their mistreatment, Hong Kong is indebted to the Tanka. Many people don’t know it, but Hong Kong gets its name from them – when the British first arrived in the 19th century they asked a group of indigenous people on fishing boats what the place was called. “Hong Kong” was the reply – Hong Kong are the Tanka words for “fragrant harbour.” Their language is now almost obsolete, their culture dwindling, but the name Hong Kong lives on.

Sinking Feeling

When my family moved to live in Hong Kong in the late 1970’s the issue of the Vietnamese Boatpeople was global headline news. By way of a reminder: In September 1978 1,200 Vietnamese had been unloaded onto an uninhabited island belonging to Indonesia and a month later another ship tried to dump 2,500 refugees on Malaysia – Malaysia denied them entry and the boat sat offshore until third counties offered them homes. Over the following years many boats made the voyage away from Vietnam; a significant number of these were attacked by pirates or sank. People spent exorbitant sums of money to secure “safe” passage on inappropriate, overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels with no guarantee of a warm welcome on a foreign shore. Thousands of people died. Current events in the Far East and the Mediterranean feel like déjà vu.

This picture, taken on May 14 2015, shows Rohingya migrants 

on a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman Sea

“What have the Boatpeople’s plight got to do with the world of work?” you might ask. Although, clearly not so desperate – work is seldom a matter of life or death – the situations present an extreme example of how humans behave, particularly when under pressure. Unscrupulous people should be avoided in any environment. If an organisation is unpleasant to work in, or management are toxic in the way they interact with employees, or there is concern over the financial stability of the business, then good employees, who are able to do, will leave. It is possible to turn the tide on a flood of valued individuals leaving a business, provided that you are honest about the issues and take action to address the problems? I was working in Professional Services when the global economic crisis hit and the firm I was with was severely impacted - it had traditionally acted as a top advisor to leading banks and financial institutions and, although our areas of expertise fell outside the area of products and approaches that people now say triggered the collapse, our clients were under severe pressure. Many customers indefinitely delayed or even ceased paying our bills, usually without prior warning. (So much for mutual respect and collaboration.)

We had to reduce headcount and restructure. We could have simply made people redundant and focused our efforts on the remaining business, but we knew that not only was that morally wrong (and in addition would cast us in a poor light in front of our clients, competitors, the media and other third parties) but also that by doing so we would damage our reputation as an employer with the people we wanted to attract and retain in the future – employees (and prospective employees) were unnerved and they needed to know that we cared and wanted to support them. We went out of our way to find opportunities to redeploy skills: internally we encouraged people to cross into new practice areas; we flew representatives from Australian and New Zealand firms (both areas where the global economic crisis had minimal impact) to London to meet with our best Antipodean-originated employees. Many of our Australian and New Zealand colleagues had stated, on joining, that they intended to return to their homelands when commencing families or to care for aging parents when the time was right. We provided them with an opportunity to return home, with a good job and security, thereby reducing the pressure on those employees who wished to remain. We supported all leavers in finding new roles, sometimes in collaboration with other businesses. I myself was subsequently provided with a fascinating employment opportunity through a colleague whom I had helped to relocate to Egypt. As a firm, we did the right things and I am proud of it. My former employer has continued to flourish (it has just opened yet another influential office in Asia) and is respected as a leader in its field. True leaders lead by example.

But, back to the Boatpeople… The reasons for migration are complex and emotionally charged – usually there are economic, social or religious causes at their roots. Some reasons for the 2015 Boatpeople are economic - farmers are committing suicide in India and Bangladesh due to crop losses caused by persistent bad weather. (Indian cotton producers have tough times ahead – last year’s harvest was abundant resulting in a slump in prices, this year’s yield will be poor, so farmers will only have a small amount to sell with deflated prices.) The thought of watching your family starve is enough to drive people to desperate acts. Oppressive governments force people to flee – all of the 900 Boatpeople who died trying to reach Europe last month were Eritrean - Eritrea is one of the world’s most repressive regimes. In Asia, the Rohingya Boatpeople from Myanmar are Moslems who face persecution and potential annihilation in their villages and hence choose to risk losing their lives in order to escape.  

Myanmar migrants crammed into the hull of a fishing boat,
as seen by Myanmar police on 23 May 2015
Photo - Myanmar Information Ministry

Governments are beginning to respond to this humanitarian crisis. About 7,000 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh have spent weeks at sea, but finally Malaysia and Indonesia have offered to provide temporary shelter (to those who manage to land on their soil) and Myanmar rescued two boats of migrants on Friday. However, I remain concerned, the root causes and some of the worst evils are being ignored. European leaders’ proposed solution to the problem in the Mediterranean is to capture and destroy the traffickers’ vessels – by sending warships into Libya’s territorial waters. To me this feels like a reaction rather than a solution – people flee countries to seek a better life elsewhere. The reason for the Boatpeople is not the availability of boats, it is the conditions they have to endure in their home countries that compel them to leave. Surely a better solution would be to tackle the root causes and hence remove the need to flee? Morally it seems wrong to trap would-be migrants in what we know are appalling conditions of persecution or hardship with no safe alternative routes to escape. If we can help these people to enjoy positive, productive existences and feel safe in their home countries, by resolving the problems there, than the need to trust their lives to unprincipled extortionists and con men and embark in unsafe boats will cease.

Migrant boat in distress in the Mediterranean
Photo: TORM A/S

People trafficking is a trade that has gone on via Thailand for years. But now, it isn’t just buying and selling bonded labour, it is a ransom trade with huge sums of money being made by evil people. Entire Thai communities are now getting involved – bought off by traffickers to prevent the hostages escaping. Holding camps exist in the bush for trafficked migrants  - originally exploited Rohindras from Myanmar were the victims, but it is now expanding with people being held from Bangladesh.  Impoverished families back in home countries are extorted into paying large sums (thousands of pounds) to release relatives. It requires political will to make this practice cease.

Rescue workers in southern Thailand inspecting a mass grave.
There are many deaths in trafficker camps in the Thai jungle.

Another aspect of the current situation that worries me is the on going issue of resettlement. Both Indonesia and Malaysia have stipulated that they will help Boatpeople, on condition that there is resettlement of these migrants into other countries within one year. This feels reminiscent of the situation I experienced in Hong Kong over two decades ago.

Between 1975 and 1995, despite the tiny size of the territory, it is only 426 square miles, Hong Kong took in more than 200,000 Vietnamese Boatpeople and the government established 40 refugee camps at different times to deal with the crisis. The last camp, Pillar Point, was closed in 2000.  The fall of Saigon (and hence the shift from capitalism to communism) was the trigger that commenced the exodus from Vietnam. In mid-1975 circa 50,000 Vietnamese (mainly former US employees and ex-government officials) left by air or sea. From late 1975 to 1977 a monthly average of 1,500 people fled, mainly in small fishing boats, these numbers rose significantly in 1978 – when syndicates from Macao, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, with links in southern Vietnam, accepted money from people wishing to escape (would be refugees paid on average ten taels of gold for each adult and five taels for each child, to be transported in abandoned freighters. A tael is 50g of gold (circa £1,251 in today’s money) and would have been significantly more than the average annual salary of a Vietnamese citizen at the time.

Vietnamese refugees scramble from a sinking boat which they beached at Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia December 1978, file photo  

From January 1979 Malaysia and Thailand stopped accepting Boatpeople, this example was swiftly followed by Indonesia and the Philippines. The situation was declared an international crisis and a conference was held in Geneva, in July 1979, to determine what to do. Unlike other locations, during this time Hong Kong did not turn people away. In the late 1970’s, when I lived in Hong Kong, my mother and I assisted as volunteers in a camp established for Boatpeople. The migrants in Hong Kong were referred to as “I.I.s” – short for ”Illegal immigrants” and were a cause of local as well as international concern. The discrepancy between local poverty and those in the camps provided with food, shelter and comfort was a problem in itself. International aid was offered – I remember a consignment of highchairs, with sturdy wooden seats and legs, being delivered. I also remember these going missing and then seeing odd-shaped chopping boards suddenly appearing in the local market (with four distinctive holes, where chair legs had once been, and other indentations for struts and backrest). Local people begrudged the money and support being given to the I.I.s when they themselves were living close to the breadline.

My comments are not intended as a criticism of Hong Kong and its people, despite the financial and social pressure, every migrant was granted temporary first asylum. No boat was ever refused. However, part of the agreement made in Geneva was that resettlement host countries were allowed to select whom they would take – this caused significant issues as many found it hard to gain opportunities overseas and those that did were usually offered menial jobs, such as civic cleaning despite their qualifications and experience. 

Demonstration against boat people in UK, 1979

Their plight was harsh, but so too was that of the many left waiting in camps in unhappy and unfulfilling existences. This latter issue is one that many of us have ignored. I was very struck by the comments in a book, The Invisible Citizens of Hong Kong by Sophia Law Suk-mun, published late last year. It is a compilation of memories of Vietnamese Boatpeople who migrated to Hong Kong and includes art and poetry. I was moved by the words of Le Huynh, an inmate in Hong Kong, who described their refugee camp as 

“This bestial prison … a thousand miles long, With its head in Vietnam and its tail in Hong Kong.” 

Vietnamese refugees in Kai Tak East camp, Hong Kong

 And I would like to leave you with words from a poem: 

Freedom… Freedom!

Those simple sweet words

For us, poor people escaping the homeland

Sailing across oceans

Trying to find happiness

That’s all we need 

…

People of the world, we looking to you

Please help us to be free

Please let the children

No longer cry

For their forgotten fates

Please, the free world

Open your arms

To rescue us

Poor people without a country.

Please Do Not Abandon Us, by Kieu Mong Thu, a former Vietnamese Boat Person who was in a camp in Hong Kong (published in Aug 1991). 

We need to break what seems to be becoming a shameful repetitive cycle.

Cartoon from Melbourne Herald, 1979

Here's Looking At You

Constructive criticism is a good thing and, even when said in jest there is often a grain of truth behind a person’s comments.  Last week the inimitable David D’Souza said that my Leading Light posts are “samey” – he was commenting on the range of topics I tend to combine together, but then, rather than encouraging me to stick to a simple subject, he challenged me to write a post using a selection of topics of his own choosing. So here goes…

Constructive criticism

Before I start, I must confess that I am useless at saying “No” to a challenge and I also would like to make David’s life a little nicer than it has been of late – not just due of the broadband problems he has suffered when moving house, but because he recently underwent an operation on his eyes and has been forced, like a Marvel comic villain, to wander the streets of London in a pair of sinister dark glasses (he reminded me slightly of Dr Octopus, minus the fused bionic arms, although, like the Doctor, he is super-smart and seems to have tentacles reaching into a lot of things).  David’s laser eye surgery has been amazing and, like any good super hero, he now has better than 20/20 vision.
  

Doc Ock - from the film Spider-Man 2 

My father also suffered from poor eyesight – he didn’t realise, until he was nearly ten, that most people can distinguish the individual leaves on trees.  Once he had been prescribed spectacles, he proved to have excellent hand to eye co-ordination and became a fine cricketer, indeed he played for the Yorkshire under-19s. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to effect a significant change – in my father’s case it was a perceptive doctor who enabled enlightenment. I suspect that one of the reasons why I find the Learning and Development side of HR particularly rewarding is because of its ability to nurture desired change, with at times remarkable results.

Leaves on the trees

Individual transformation usually requires a personal commitment to breaking ingrained habits and to doing things in a different way.  Evolution is slower. Did you know that our eyes probably originated with the jellyfish – the oldest multi-organ animal, but not necessarily creatures that many people associate with sight, or think of as ancestors?  Initially it was thought that the ability for vision must have developed in complex “higher animals” - all of which share a gene, Pax-6, which is a “master regulator” of optical development.  Jellyfish do not have Pax-6 but they do have Pax-a and Pax-b – research by Hiroshi Suga at the University of Basel has found that it is possible to encourage the development of eyes in other species by inserting jellyfish Pax genes.  This seems to indicate that the foundations of vision for us all lie within these gelatinous creatures.  Although many jellyfish have little more than light-sensitive indentations, there are some with highly elaborate eyes (for example box jellyfish that can see colours and navigate around mangrove swamps and the Root-arm Medusa, Cladonema Radiatum, which has developed eyes above each of its “arms”, which can focus light onto a retina - creatures with genuine 360-degree vision)

Root-arm Medusa with eye indicated

The origins of things are often deeper than would appear at first sight (an appropriate thought in relation to an ancient marine creature).  The eminent French philosopher (frequently referred to as the father of modern philosophy) and exceptional mathematician, René Descartes, also made a significant contribution to our understanding of sight. In his work “Discourse on Method”, published in 1637, he outlines his approach for using analysis to reduce any problem to its fundamental parts and from which to then construct solutions. In the appendix, “Dioptrics”, he utilised this methodology to assess the problem of designing optical instruments.  To do so he commenced by defining light and the workings of the human eye – in the course of the former he articulated the law of refraction – thereby observing it independently from the studies of Willebrord Snellius, the scholar most frequently credited with the discovery (known as Snell’s Law), although in fact it was first stated in a manuscript by the Persian mathematician and physicist Ibn Sahi in 984.  Descartes’ appendix proceeds to consider what methods and tools could best be used to enhance eyesight.  It was the contemplation of lens shapes that resulted in his conclusion that a hyperbolic lens is best for use in focusing light, for example in telescopes.  He proceeds to design a machine capable of making them.  It is much easier to create a spherical lens than a hyperbolic one – the shape of two objects rubbed against each other gradually becomes a sphere with a spherical hollow to match.  Many of the greatest minds of the seventeenth century occupied themselves with devising ways to create hyperbolic lenses (Sir Christopher Wren submitted a paper on the subject to the Royal Society that resulted in international debate) and to this day their production has remained complex – hence their seldom being used in anything other than specialist equipment and machines that require accuracy such as copiers.

This gives the equation for a hyperbolic surface. The focal point 

can be determined to an extremely high degree of precision

Whilst writing this I wondered how the usage of hyperbolic, to mean something that is exaggerated or enlarged beyond what is reasonable, came about – it is a contrasting concept to the accurate, light-focusing lens.  A swift search has informed me that the adjective comes from the Greek huperbolē, meaning excess - the word literally translates as “throw above”.  This definition makes sense if you imagine throwing a ball to a companion, but, instead of aiming to within their area of reach, you toss it high above their head, resulting in an excessive throw – being avid sportsmen, this is what the Greeks considered the equivalent of making over exuberant statements and exaggerated claims.  One chap good with a ball (and considered to be an almost deity by many – indeed it is his bearded face that was used by the Monty Python team as the animated depiction of God in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) was WG Grace – the West Country Victorian GP who is often described as the father of cricket. 

WG Grace as "God" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail 

There is indeed much hyperbole written about him, but as with criticism, so in excessive praise there are often grains of truth.  Jim Swanton, the most influential cricket writer of the 19^th century commented:

“There never was such a hero: not even, I think, Don Bradman. Physically so unalike, these two men at the peak of cricket fame had two qualities in common: great determination and great strength of character.”

Which brings us back to heroes, famous for their determination and great strength of character.  The last topic given to me to include in this post was “Kung Fu Spiderman movies of the 1970s”.  You might think that this is a subject beyond my experience, but I must confess to being thrilled to reacquaint myself.  In 1978 my father was appointed the Attorney General of Hong Kong and we as a family moved to live in Asia.  It was an exciting time and Hong Kong itself was on the cusp of dramatic expansion.  One of the areas of growth was the film industry; I mentioned in a previous post that Sir Run Run Shaw invited me to the premier screening of Blade Runner. Hong Kong was a rising global centre for martial arts films, with Jacky Chan as the recognised international star. Not all the films were great, many of the releases were filmed for Cantonese or Mandarin speaking audiences and then badly dubbed into English – resulting in hilarious voiceovers of fighters asking their opponents if they could handle their “tiger style”, calling each other Monkey or Crane or imploring masters to defend temples and be prepared to die for the honour of the monks. I used to watch these martial art films in episodes on TV with my little sisters – a treasured memory before I was banished back to the UK to go to boarding school miles from my family. One that stuck in my mind was “The Chinese Web”, a 2-hour special starring Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. I am pretty certain that I saw it initially in Hong Kong in 1979, before its global release by Columbia Pictures in 1980, during which it was renamed “Spider-Man: The Dragon’s Challenge”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKpOeFiLrCQ

On watching this again, I was transported right back to my childhood and the amazing sights I saw and the experiences we enjoyed when we first moved to Hong Kong.  Like good tourists, soon after arriving we went to the Jumbo Restaurant – the location where then sampans pick Spider-Man out of the water. My first proper job was in Central in a building with a view of Jardine House (the office block in the film with the circular windows – it was and is affectionately known as “The House of a Thousand Arseholes”).  Watching this was like stepping into the Tardis and arriving back in my youth – Hong Kong has changed almost beyond recognition since 1979, but to me its essence of what it is and will always be to me is captured in this film.

Poster for the 1980 Film Release of The Chinese Web, renamed The Dragon's Revenge

Dear David – I am truly grateful for the challenge you set me – I had forgotten my father’s link with cricket, until you asked me to write about W.G. Grace. I have watched your bravery post op and agonised that I have encouraged you to work on-screen for longer than has been good for your health.  Seeing you observing things clearly (IRL as well as in business) makes me smile – there is so much to amaze, amuse and wonder at around us. I have enjoyed learning more about the evolution of sight from jellyfish, through Descartes’ studies to fighting super heroes endowed with exceptional vision following a radioactive spider bites.  But for me the highlight was being reunited with “The Dragon’s Challenge”.  Unwittingly, you gave me my youth and made me see things in a different way.  Thank you! “Here’s looking at you…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW2o2aZkCyc

"I Can See For Miles" was recorded for The Who's 1967 album 'The Who Sell Out.' 
(other than the infidelity aspect, it seems and apt song to end with)