Fok Yingdong
Many people know Mr. Fok Ying Tung in Hong Kong and know that he is a patriotic businessman, but do you think it was easy to be patriotic in those days? The challenges are something that ordinary people can't do!
In the early 1950s, when the international embargo was imposed on the East, our country contacted patriotic businessmen in Hong Kong for support, and Fok Yingdong, who owned the fleet at that time, personally commanded the fleet to the mainland border every night after purchasing strategic materials. Huo Lao was not only responsible for the transportation of materials in Hong Kong and Macao, but also organized a sophisticated reconnaissance team to closely monitor the movements of the anti-smuggling boats of the British government in Hong Kong at that time. Every day in the middle of the night, his fleet quietly bypassed the British warships and sailed to the high seas. In order to get rid of the surveillance at that time, he even changed three different locations in one day as the headquarters of the entire transportation system.
Starlight Row
Huo Lao provided a large amount of strategic materials to the mainland, but his doing so attracted the dissatisfaction of the American and British governments at that time, and he was suppressed by the Hong Kong and British governments. In 1962, Fok Lao built Starlight Company in Tsim Sha Tsui, and when Starlight Company was completed for lease, Lao Mei's consul in Hong Kong at that time blacklisted Starlight Walk. It was announced that all tenants of Starlight Hong could not buy or sell American goods, even when the tenants of Starlight Company applied for telephone lines from the Hong Kong Telephone Company at the time, they were also troubled! The possibility of getting Starlite tenants to apply for a phone line is far away, and as a result, most tenants leave without even depositing. In the end, Huo Lao was forced to sell Starlight to Jardine Matheson Land Company when no one dared to rent.
Kwai Chong Pier
In the late 1960s, the Hong Kong government launched the Kwai Chong 1, 2, 3 and 4 container terminal projects, and Huo Lao independently invested in the largest container terminal: Pier 1, but the British government in Hong Kong arbitrarily demanded that Huo Lao guarantee that at least 200,000 containers must berth at the terminal every year. At that time, the total number of containers in Hong Kong was not 200,000! Huo Lao was forced to abandon Pier 1, which was eventually undertaken by the British-funded Swire Pacific Group.
White Swan Hotel
Humen Bridge
Although he has been suppressed in Hong Kong for many years, it has not changed Fok Yingdong's heart of loving the motherland! Huo Lao was the first patriotic businessman to return to the motherland to develop tourism and build a hotel. In 1983, his White Swan Hotel officially opened in Guangzhou, which became a model for reform and opening up, and caused a sensation in the early days of opening. In addition, Huo Lao also invested heavily in the construction of his hometown Nansha, which was ridiculed as Panyu's Siberia at the time, but Huo Lao invested nearly 10 billion yuan to develop the Nansha Economic and Technological Development Zone, and donated with a number of consortiums to build the Humen Bridge, shortening the distance from Jiangmen to the east by nearly 100 kilometers, without the need to detour through Guangzhou. Later, a passenger terminal was built, making the journey from Hong Kong to Nansha only 1 hour and 15 minutes.
In our current peacetime, it is natural to look at patriotism and building the motherland, but in fact, in the 50s and 60s, patriotism in Hong Kong was to bear huge social pressure and even huge economic losses, and businessmen who were good at calculation were unwilling to do so, which is why Hong Kong suddenly had a lot more patriotic businessmen before and after the handover in 97, but only Mr. Huo Lao was really valued by the country and praised by the people! In 2006, Fok Yingdong passed away at the age of 83, he completed his mission, deserved to enjoy a state funeral, when the five-star red flag is covered with the coffin, we must remember that there was such a person who contributed his life's energy to China's development.