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Barclay Crawford

Irene Cheng 1904 - 2007

Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel famously linked being born into money with misfortune and sloth.  Irene Cheng, nee Irene Ho Tung,  could be considered, at the very least, a glowing repudiation of this statement.

Inherited wealth and a powerful family name were never going to lead  Cheng into a comfortable yet dull and unexceptional life.

Cheng was born in 1904 to Eurasian tycoon Sir Robert Ho Tung and his wife, Lady Clara Ho Tung.

There are few names which stand out as greater symbols of money and power in the  Hong Kong story than Ho Tung.

Sir Robert was the chief comprador of Jardine Matheson, the most powerful British trading company of the time, and bankrolled  Sun Yat-sen's revolution, which led to the establishment of the Republic of China.

Sir Robert was knighted twice, became an ardent supporter of the anti-communist Kuomintang and was an early founder of Hong Kong's philanthropic tradition when he founded a vast charitable trust in 1956.

The Ho Tungs were also the first non-white family to live on The  Peak. Cheng would often vividly recount her 11/2-hour  trip to the Diocesan Girls' School in Kowloon, which started with a rickshaw to The Peak tram, then a rickshaw to the Star Ferry and another rickshaw ride to school.

The memory highlighted that while  Cheng, one of 10  children, achieved much in  life, her biggest passion was always education and learning.

Cheng, who died of  heart failure on February 17 at her home in San Diego, aged 102, was the first Chinese woman to graduate from the University of Hong Kong and went on to become friends with anthropologist Margaret Mead and serve on the executive board of the World Federation for Mental Health.

A fiercely competitive student, she graduated in English in 1926 and completed a teaching diploma at Columbia University in New York before taking a doctorate at London University.

Cheng then became a professor at Lingnan University in Guangzhou and was a staff member of the Ministry of Education in Nanjing, eventually returning to Hong Kong in 1948, where she became the first senior education officer. She married a Beijing engineer,  Cheng Hsiang-hsien, in 1940, but he died 20 months later.

After retiring from the government in 1961, she became principal of the Confucian Tai Shing School in Wong Tai Sin.

Her decision to take on the role followed a maxim passed down from her mother: 'Gather all the learning you can from your teachers, study to serve humanity and hand over your knowledge to others.'

Cheng was certainly inspired by her mother and quoted her throughout her life.

Before the release of a biography she wrote of her mother published in 1976, Clara Ho Tung: A Hong Kong Lady, Her Family and Her Times, she  said: 'She was the ideal mother and perhaps I knew better than some of the other children because I was delicate and I got to sleep in her bed when I was sick.'

She left Hong Kong in 1967, but her dedication to education did not end there.

In San Diego she started a weekend school for Chinese families so their children could learn  Chinese and continued lecturing at the University of California San Diego, taught adult education and citizenship classes and worked with Vietnamese refugees. Even 40 years after leaving the Confucian Tai Shing School, former students would still visit her in San Diego.

'There are letters from her students which describe her as being like a mother to them,' her daughter, June Dandliker, said.

'She did so much with her life and had such passion for her students that she was an inspiration to them.'

Cheng was a citizen of the world and travelled widely throughout her life, said  Mrs Dandliker, who holds a treasure-trove of exotic pictures from around the world.

'She really enjoyed people and her personal philosophy was that you can find something in common with anyone you meet,'  Mrs Dandliker said.

'Even in the last few years, much to my own dismay, she would still open the door of her house to anyone who knocked and invite them inside.'

Cheng is survived by her daughter, sister Florence Yeo, two grandsons, and one great-grandson.

A memorial is planned for 2pm on May 12 at Kate Sessions Park in San Diego. The family has suggested donations be made to Tung Lin Kok Yuen,  a Buddhist school for girls, founded by  Cheng's mother, at 15 Shan Kwong Road, Happy Valley.



Irene Cheng, teacher and daughter of Hong Kong