‘He was our hero’: Late ‘mayor of Hong Kong’ Hilton Cheong-Leen inspired children to serve, care for less privileged
- Flora Cheong-Leen recalls debates with her father, the first Chinese chairman of former Urban Council, and describes him as a believer in gender and race equality
- Documents, photos from man dubbed ‘unofficial mayor’ of Hong Kong to go on display at Chinese University
Hong Kong ballerina-turned-fashion designer Flora Cheong-Leen thinks back to her younger years and says her father never took her to glitzy parties.
Flora Cheong-Leen said she remembered visits to poor people living in houses made of tin sheets, to hospitals that needed to raise funds for the sick, and to countless villages where her father would speak to the residents about their lives and what they needed.
“My father had a philosophy – you have to serve the people in this world,” his daughter, now 64, said. “He passed that to his offspring. Dad was our hero.”
Hilton Cheong-Leen, the first Chinese chairman of Hong Kong’s former Urban Council, died in January last year, aged 99, leaving Flora, another daughter and two sons, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
