Survive adversity. This is the advice of Fong Yun-wah. While the reason seems to be simple enough, that only people who have survived can carry on to achieve their goals, it's yet often easier said than done. People who know Fong as the philanthropist and chairman of Hip Shing Hong would agree he has lived up to this and certainly more.

Fong was born in Heyuan, Guangdong, to a family originally from Dongguan before World War II. As a boy of six, he moved to Hong Kong with his family. Passionately fond of knowledge, the fact that he had to abandon schooling during the war is something he is still tussling with.

Pursuit of knowledge

Feeling burnt by the loss in schooling, he decided to invest in education. His company now owns more than 1.5 million square feet of rental space - from office and retail to warehouse - and has become one of the most successful family businesses in Hong Kong.

"It's my personal interest... I was fortunate to have studied the traditional Chinese way." Fong speaks of knowledge, especially ancient Chinese wisdom.

"I studied English in secondary school and got in touch with Western culture. It's not surprising to see merits and defects in both - Eastern and Western cultures - when they are compared with each other."

He was about 18 or 19 - he cannot remember exactly which year - when he had to stop schooling to help his father, Fong Shu-chuen, whose company - a small one in his own words - ran into trouble after the war erupted and forced banks to freeze loans and warehouses to shut down.

Fong is frank that the wartime experience has made him more conservative and careful, especially when it comes to doing business.

Wisdom is important, he says. To polish his sensitivity, he reads books - including many written by ancient and modern Chinese strategists and historians. He trusts that the wisdom in the writing can be useful in doing business.

But he also knows wisdom alone isn't sufficient. Timing is important for he has noticed in the case of many great people, a great idea was conceived in a moment. "The key is that we are able to grip the opportunity. A right decision must be made at the right time."

Key to success

To stress this point, the philanthropist cited a minor but significant incident his long-time friend Li Ka-shing, now chairman of the Cheung Kong Holdings, came across half a century ago. Had Li missed it, the outcome could have been different.

Half a century ago, many Hong Kong industrialists, including Li, were engaged in making plastic flowers. Each time, the worker was required to press manually a machine to make the flower. The inherent problems with the manual process were inconsistency in quality for workers would get tired in long hours and low productivity.

"One day when he read a magazine, he noticed an advertisement promoting an automated machine. Here was the moment. After securing a loan from a bank, Li flew to Germany to place an order for the machine. Buyers from the US were eager to sign up with him because his flowers were consistent in quality and could be produced in large numbers. Later, he became "king" of the plastic flower industry.

"Had he missed the magazine, he would have missed the advertisement and the outcome could have been different. Had he failed to turn that into an opportunity, the result could also have been different."

Fong has also learned from the competition between computer making giant International Business Machines (IBM) and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corporation. "Over ten years ago, IBM was focused in making huge machines each costing 10 million dollars or more. Bill Gates aimed at the family market and anyone who could pay thousands of dollars might own a set. The results are there for everybody to see now."

In his view, success is more than incidental. Li has stated that knowledge changes a person's destiny and Fong says he wants to add to it "experience, connection and opportunity" - for while knowledge is basic, experience helps one become a good manager and connection helps one secure the necessary resources to materialize an opportunity.

"If you don't have a connection, the banks would not help you. Without their assistance, you'll have to let the opportunity slip away."

Fong learns not only from stories of success but also failure, saying learning from others' failure is like vaccinating oneself against similar mistakes. "As Mao Zedong has said, do not wage a war you're not confident about. The same applies to doing business. It's easy for one to commit mistakes when one's mind is not clear."

He admits there has to be a certain risk involved in doing business but the key is for one to know how far he can bear with it.

In 2003, when Hong Kong was still reeling from SARS and the US was about to wage a war against Iraq, his company decided to buy its current headquarters in Central. His guess was that the effects of both crises would not be long lasting. "I've told myself, in case I was wrong, we could treat it as a long-term investment so long as we could cope with it." He knew the risk inherent with the deal was within what his company could deal with.

"I've always told my children and grandchildren not to set out for making a victory. It's more important to protect the capital and stabilize the base first. They must learn from others' failures as in doing business, we count every word said. We must think carefully before making an offer."

Condensed wisdom

He says Chinese phrases are inspiring and in between one may learn the wisdom and use it in daily living.

"Take the noun guo jia. Its English equivalent is 'country' or 'nation'. But the English equivalent only reflected the meaning of guo. The meaning of jia, or 'families', isn't there. From guo jia, we know a country is formed by thousands of families. A country prospers when the families live in harmony.

"Similarly in cuo shi, the English equivalent is 'wrong' or 'mistake'. This, however, only reflects the meaning of cuo without the meaning of shi, or 'loss'. In Chinese, we know that doing something wrong will result in a loss.

"There is another example in wei ji. This is 'crisis' in English. Again, the word crisis reflects wei only without ji, or 'opportunity'. In every crisis, we know that if we can handle it well, there's always the opportunity to find... The country's late statesman Deng Xiaoping had shown an impressive wisdom; he had turned many crises into opportunities for China.

"To understand this, we have to study history. This is especially true for business people. By learning history, we'd know if the course we're following is correct."

But what would he say to youngsters? It's still the same advice: "Survive the adversity." Having survived the adversity, one would become stronger.

(HK Edition 07/25/2005 page4)