There are several theories about success: either character determines destiny, or the times forge legends, or the ancestral graves smoke.
Fok Ying Tung's success is amazing, and it cannot be summed up in any absolute way, it seems that each statement has a little edge.
1. The ancestral grave is smoking
The first is that the ancestral grave is smoking green smoke, and the ancestor has blessed the two great difficulties not to die.
The Ancestors of the Huo Family have been people for generations, and they have been living on the sea for generations. In the summer of Fok Ying Tung's birth, Hong Kong ushered in a major typhoon, many large ships were blown over, countless small boats were destroyed, and the family was destroyed.
Only the Huo family's boat was parked in the typhoon shelter and luckily escaped the disaster. In the years that followed, Fok lived on a ship, rarely ashore, not even shoes.
One summer day when he was 7 years old, Fok Yingdong rarely went to the beach to play football. As a result, the storm suddenly came, and the Huo family's boat was instantly submerged in the sea, and the bones of the two brothers were gone. His father, who was seriously ill, could not bear the blow and soon drove the crane to the west.
Afraid of repeating the same mistakes, the mother simply took Fok Yingdong and her two daughters to move ashore and live away from the sea.
This decision changed Fok Yingdong's life.
The biggest advantage of shore is that it can provide stable learning opportunities. Fok Ying Tung thus attended a free primary school, and because of his excellent grades, he also passed the famous HuangRen College, and became an alumnus with Sun Yat-sen, Liao Zhongkai, Ho Hongshen and other bigwigs.
The biggest feature of Wong Yan College is that it is taught in pure English, and it pays special attention to sports, both of which have greatly benefited Fok Ying Tung in the future. Unfortunately, at that time, only half of the reading, Hong Kong was breached by the Japanese army and fell into a period of 3 years and 8 months of fall.
This year, Ho hung up on a $10 bill to Macau to join relatives, while Fok Ying-tung had no one to rely on and could only start a hard life of hard labor.
He worked as a coal shoveler on a steamship, learned to strike iron in a dock, worked as a baggage clerk at an airport... Because of his thin body and often hard work, Huo Yingdong could not eat at all, and was fired by the boss every time.
After several failures, Huo Yingdong finally understood that he was not suitable for part-time work, and should be the boss and eat by his mind.
With the support of his mother, Fok Yingdong borrowed money from more than a dozen relatives and opened a grocery store, mainly selling daily snacks, just like the kind that sells groceries in the wet market now.
The shop is small, but it is particularly challenging. At the same time, to deal with more than a dozen customers, one must quickly calculate the price, the speed is slow to make customers impatient; the second is to pay attention to people's sophistication, it is difficult to have repeat customers if you offend people.
Huo Yingdong's stunt is the palm scale, he gestures quickly, and he can tilt the tail of the scale upwards every time, which makes the neighbors super satisfied.
Fok Yingdong was a grocery store owner for a few years, and although he didn't make any money, he at least didn't have to go hungry. Ancestors bless you will only make you safe, if you want to be rich and noble, you must also dare to fight the character.
2. Character determines destiny
Fok Yingdong often reads the newspaper in his spare time while running a grocery store, looking for new opportunities.
One day, he suddenly saw a lot of government auction notices. At that time, Japan was defeated and surrendered, leaving a lot of materials, and the government often packed it as scrap copper and rotten iron for auction, which could be picked up. And the newspapers are all pure English, many people can't understand it, it's a good opportunity.
Soon, he found that there was news of auctioning 40 steamship machines, 90% of the new equipment, very profitable, Fok Yingdong decisively participated in the bidding.
From this, it can be seen that Huo Yingdong dares to break through and fight. Because bidding requires a lot of money, but also to find their own buyers, the risk is very large, and it will fall on their own hands if they are not good. But Huo Yingdong didn't think so much, and did it first.
In the end, he won the bid with 18,000 yuan, which is astronomical, and he has found all his relatives to raise money. Unwilling, he went around looking for friends to find a way, and after a friend saw the machine, he decided to buy the equipment for 40,000 yuan, and Huo Yingdong made a net profit of 22,000 yuan.
What is the probability of 22,000? At that time, the monthly salary in the mainland was only a dozen yuan, and hong Kong was only a few dozen yuan.
Huo Yingdong, who had eaten sweetness, began to use the information gap as a grandfather, circling various auction houses and making a lot of money.
That's where his first pot of gold came from.
The resale of materials not only allowed Fok Yingdong to make money, but also made him familiar with various sources of goods, laying a solid foundation for the "smuggling of the mainland" in the future.
In 1950, the Korean War broke out, and the Chinese volunteer army entered the DPRK to resist the United States. The angry and corrupt United States joined forces with some Western countries to impose a blockade and embargo on China, claiming that "everything that a Chinese soldier can use is not allowed to be transported to China." ”
The mainland quickly adjusted its strategy and announced that it would temporarily maintain the status quo in Hong Kong, in effect using Hong Kong as a window to break the embargo.
Some Hong Kong businessmen, taking advantage of the opportunity, began doing business with the mainland, smuggling supplies, including Fok Ying-tung.
According to Fok Ying Tung's Autobiography, he was in the shipping business at the time, and often had surplus diesel fuel to sell to the mainland. At first, you can only earn a few hundred yuan at a time, and then after getting familiar with it, you begin to transport heavy materials, such as iron sheets, hoses, hardware, etc. Later, as long as it was something needed in the mainland, he would find a way to transport it.
For this experience, Huo Yingdong mentioned very little in his autobiography, he only said that the price is very fair, never sit on the ground, and absolutely guarantee the quality, never like others to sell counterfeit drugs, expired drugs, do things that hurt nature.
In fact, this process is very dangerous, often chased by customs, and has been machine gun fire... But in front of Huo Yingdong, who dared to fight, it was nothing. It can not only help the mainland of the motherland, but also make money incidentally.
All in all, Huo Yingdong successfully dug up the second bucket of gold and began to have the capital to compete for the world.
3. The times cast legends
When a dust of the times falls, it may be a mountain that crushes a group of people, or it may become a stepping stone for a group of people.
After the end of the Korean War, Fok Ying-tung, who successfully landed, began to transform into other businesses.
At that time, because of the war, Hong Kong's population poured in, soaring from 500,000 residents to 1.5 million in just a few years. With many people and few houses and rapid demand for housing, Huo Yingdong plunged headlong into the real estate industry.
Now it seems that real estate only makes money and does not lose money, but it was not easy to do at the time. Because only a very small number of people can afford to buy a house, most of them are the whole building to buy and rent, the news is not well informed, the circulation of the house is very poor, and it will take several years to sell out and return the cost.
Fok Ying Tung thought hard for a long time and came up with two innovative initiatives, which not only made him a top rich man in Hong Kong, but also changed the entire Chinese real estate industry.
The first is to issue sales brochures.
Detailed description of the environment, materials, prices, ordering methods, and even floor plans, floor plans, etc., so that people can see at a glance and know the roots.
The second is the invention of "selling house flowers", that is, installment payment.
Pay a part of the purchase fee first, and then guaranteed by the bank, and the balance will be settled in several installments, which greatly alleviates the pressure to buy a house.
Fok Yingdong's two tricks immediately detonated the Hong Kong real estate market, and buyers flocked to it.
Often the real estate has not yet started, the money for building a house has been recovered, Huo Yingdong only needs to advance a little money to buy land, greatly increasing the circulation of funds, there is no interest on the loan, it is simply a costless business.
In just one year, Fok Yingdong built more than 100 buildings on Sifang Street, all of which were sold out. At the same time, many buildings were also built, and even the tallest building in Hong Kong that year, the Toad Palace Building, was built. What is earned is full of pots and pots, and the rich is full of oil.
Other merchants quickly imitated, and all followed suit to make a fortune. Later, it spread to the mainland, giving birth to the first batch of real estate upstarts, Pan Shiyi was an empty glove white wolf, relying on the foot of the Great Wall to sell buildings and flowers to make a fortune.
Throughout the mid-to-late 1950s and 1960s, Fok Yingdong was a leading figure in Hong Kong's real estate industry, and if he had not been squeezed out by the British government in Hong Kong, his assets would have doubled several times.
However, due to the misfortune, the loss of the mall became an opportunity for him to turn to sports and achieve higher achievements.
4, helpless to devote themselves to sports
When Fok Ying Tung delivered supplies to the mainland, he became a thorn in the side of the British government in Hong Kong, and it was once rumored that he was deported (many people had been deported at that time), but only because of insufficient evidence, he did not act.
Later, as the deputy head of the delegation, Fok Yingdong went north to participate in the 15th anniversary of the National Day, which was considered to have a close relationship with the mainland, and he wanted to get rid of it quickly.
However, there was no reason to do so, so he had to constantly hit him commercially.
In 1965, the British government of Hong Kong openly bid for a piece of gold land, and Fok Yingdong won the bid at a high price, but the government blatantly defaulted, temporarily canceled the auction, and recovered the site. Its dark intentions are clear at a glance.
A few years later, another building in Fok Yingdong, Xingguangxing, was built and most of it was leased to the "China Arts Company", which had a Chinese-funded background, which made the British particularly unhappy and suppressed again.
First, it was announced that Starlight's tenants could not buy, sell and use American goods, which deterred most tenants. Unconvinced, Huo Yingdong gritted his teeth and rented at an ultra-low price, which attracted a group of tenants, and as a result, the telephone company announced that it would not install telephone lines for them. Doing business without a phone, no one dares to rent it from now on.
Huo Yingdong was furious and planned to buy it solely, preferring to abandon it. But one shareholder disagreed and had to sell it to foreigners. Fok Yingdong retreated to the second place, saying that he would lend money to other shareholders and not sell it to foreigners, but no one dared to oppose the government.
Eventually, Starlight sold to British-owned Land. Hongkong Land's parent company, Jardine Matheson & Co., used to start its career selling opium in China.
After these two events, Fok Yingdong was discouraged and gradually faded out of the Hong Kong business community.
Fok Yingdong loved football when he was a student at Wong Yan College, and after fading out of the business world, he simply set up a football team and often played football himself. Because of his outstanding status, he was also elected president of the Hong Kong Football Association and later became the vice president of the Asian Football Association.
With this position, Fok Yingdong often leads the team to participate in competitions outside. However, he slowly discovered that in almost all international competitions at that time, there was no Chinese seat.
It is simply unreasonable for a big country to have no place to stand. Since then, Fok Has worked to restore China's legal seat in sports.
In 1974, Iran hosted the Asian Games, originally did not invite China to participate, under the strong mediation of Fok Yingdong, painstakingly voted three times in a day, the process was thrilling, and finally squeezed out the Taiwan region and successfully joined the Asian Football Federation.
This move is like a mouthpiece, setting a precedent for China's future accession to the Olympic Committee, from impossible to infinite possibility.
It can be said that Chinese sports can shine in the world, not only the prosperity and strength of the country, but also inseparable from Fok Yingdong's appeal, he should be the first credit.
Since Fok Ying Tung, three generations of the Huo family have continued to shine for Chinese sports, and this dedication is really admirable.
epilogue:
Huo Yingdong's several transformations are both the surging of fate and the active choice of following the heart.
Although he was a businessman, he always kept the national righteousness at heart, as he said to himself: "I have never failed anyone in my life." "This kind of heart and temperament makes people revered and fascinated.