Li Ka-shing's back: Buddha hidden when high, vertical and horizontal at low tide, depression is home

Depression is home.

One

On August 11, 95-year-old Li Ka-shing visited Tsz Shan Temple in Hong Kong and said in his speech, "Everything can be done like a dream."

The summer breeze is practiced, the sound of Zen is faint, the distant city is like a mirage, and the past is like a white horse passing through the gap.

Spread out that gap and the viewer will be thrilled: he has spanned two centuries, traveled through countless declines, Hong Kong's richest man has not changed hands since he reached the top, and bought almost half of Britain in his twilight years.

He has a unique philosophy, Buddha hidden when high, vertical and horizontal when low, and home in depression.

For the first time in his life, he was in depression. In the winter of 1940, he crossed the mountains with his family to escape the Japanese army and fled into Hong Kong at night.

At the age of 12, he left his hometown, interrupted his studies, and slept every night in the narrow aisles of the clock shop.

Soon after, Hong Kong fell, and his mother returned to Teochew with his siblings, and he and his father were trapped in Hong Kong. Two years later, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving behind his last words: It is better to ask for others than to ask for yourself.

14-year-old Li Ka-shing buried his father in a makeshift cairn, leaving the city alone. Soon, he also contracted tuberculosis.

At this point in his life, he did everything he could to save himself. With no money to see a doctor, he climbed the mountain early in the morning, breathed fresh air, wrote a home letter for the cook, exchanged it for fish soup, the only nutritional supplement he knew, and in the end, miraculously healed himself.

After that, at the age of 15, he wandered to Hong Kong, running in a tea house, working as a boy in a watch shop, working as a worker in a hardware factory, and spent his free time studying.

Reading was his reserve at a low ebb, and his only weapon:

Others are self-taught, I am rushing to learn, rushing time to learn by myself. An old dictionary, a teacher's version of the textbook, study by yourself.

He never reads novels, thinks they are useless, and more often likes to simulate teacher-student conversations alone and ask and answer questions. This became his habit for many years, and whenever he was alone, he would be silent.

Reading eventually comes into play. The owner of the hardware factory found someone to write a letter, and the workers unanimously recommended Li Ka-shing. Because of the smooth speech, the boss looked at him differently and arranged for him to be the treasurer manager.

Li Ka-shing said it was that position that gave him access to the price of goods in and out and understood the rudiments of business.

Later, he switched from warehouse management to sales, but the iron barrel could not sell the plastic barrel, so he simply jumped to the plastic factory. He worked 16 hours a day, and two years later, he was number one in sales, seven times as good as the second place.

He is quiet, lonely, does not drink, does not travel, the only advantage is diligence, he wants to surpass pedestrians when he sees pedestrians on the street, and he walks faster than others.

Strengthening his body to survive hardships, reading to fill his soul, and diligent to make up for deficiencies, he completed everything that ordinary people can do in the face of depression, just waiting for the general trend to come.

In 1950, when the chaotic times dispersed and the curtain of Hong Kong's manufacturing industry opened, Li Ka-shing had insisted on subscribing to the English magazine "Contemporary Plastics" for several years, and he keenly judged that the world would usher in a new round of recovery and plastics would lead the times.

In the summer of that year, 22-year-old Li Ka-shing rented a dilapidated factory in Shau Kei Wan, the northeast corner of Hong Kong Island, and listed the "Changjiang Plastics Factory". The Yangtze River means that no trickle is chosen, gathering a hundred rivers.

Shau Kei Wan, commonly known as the Bay of the Hungry, is said to be stranded here by Korean merchant ships and could not find food after landing. Hong Kong people popular joke: the hero is trapped in Shau Kei Wan, ask Jun when to go to Central?

It took Li Ka-shing only six years to break out of Shau Kei Wan. He successfully developed his own new machine, leading his peers, and then found a business opportunity in plastic flowers, and coincidentally became the exclusive supplier of famous American enterprises.

When his peers flocked to make plastic flowers, he felt that things would turn against him, and when everyone made toys, he decided to build a factory building for rent.

In the turbulent years, Hong Kong once again hit the low tide and sold properties everywhere. Li Ka-shing invited the mainland brigade to Hong Kong to have dinner and listen to the wind. Zhishu said that he only heard that Hong Kong is a window to the outside world to protect.

Based on this, Li Ka-shing began to buy a large number of Hong Kong properties. Hong Kong media frequently photographed him raising his right hand in the auction hall, titled Optimus One Finger.

In fact, he is far less spirited. He said that he saw too many investors out of control because of their anger, and he kept pressing his right hand with his left hand.

Two

In 1971, Li Ka-shing changed Changjiang Industry to Changjiang Real Estate, and the following year it was changed to Changjiang Industrial, listed on the Hong Kong stock market under the code 0001.

Under the help of the ship king Bao Yugang, Li Ka-shing met the executive chairman of HSBC and entered Central.

In 1976, HSBC rebuilt the Chinese Bank Building, Li Ka-shing won the bid, and four years later, the building was completed and the headquarters of Cheung Kong Group moved into it.

It was a 22-storey building with a dark green glass curtain wall, where Li Ka-shing spent 20 years in Central.

In the year of moving in, times were changing, China and Britain began handover negotiations, British capital withdrew, and Li Ka-shing took over, becoming the first Chinese class in Hong Kong. Taipan is derived from Cantonese, that is, the person in charge of a foreign bank.

Liu Shiping, a former Xinhua News Agency correspondent in Hong Kong, said:

"Li Ka-shing seized the historical opportunity by using his personal characteristics at a time when British capital and Chinese capital were alternating in Hong Kong."

In 1979, 51-year-old Li Ka-shing bought Hutchison Whampoa at a very low price, and the next day the Hong Kong Kowloon newspaper headline was "Snake Swallows Elephant".

Since then, Li Ka-shing's business has spanned retail, real estate, terminals and electricity, and soon became one of the world's top 10 richest people.

In July 1981, on the cover of the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine, Li Ka-shing was painted as Superman. Wearing his signature black-framed glasses, he flies over Harbor Kow, and Superman nickname is everywhere.

That year, Hong Kong TV was broadcasting "Under the Lion Rock", and Hong Kong people liked Li Ka-shing's self-made business, as if everyone could soar as long as they struggled and turned around the alley.

In the year of the acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa, Li Ka-shing was invited to the National Day ceremony and set foot in Beijing for the first time in his life. After observing the ceremony, he traveled by train with Hong Kong businessmen through the mainland, visiting Xi'an, Chengdu, Wuhan and Guangdong along the way.

After returning to Hong Kong, Li Ka-shing immediately decided to donate 14 mass apartments in Chaozhou and asked the media in his hometown not to do any publicity.

The following year, he accompanied more than a dozen Hong Kong tycoons including Fok Yingdong and was invited to visit Shekou, Shenzhen, at a time when the Pearl River Delta was already in full swing.

Yuan Geng, the head of investment promotion at the time, was deeply impressed by Li Ka-shing: he had to take away the leftovers, but he donated to the university generously.

At the beginning of that year, Li Ka-shing spent 1.8 billion yuan to establish Shantou University, and he poached famous teachers from Canada and Hong Kong to serve as deans of various colleges, and used his contacts to invite celebrities to give lectures. The painful past of being out of school as a teenager made him pour out his heart:

"Even if Shantou University is destroyed overnight, I will rebuild it!"

In the nineties, he became the largest Hong Kong businessman in the mainland, and when he visited Tiananmen Square on National Day in 1999, 1,200 meters to the right, it was already his Oriental Square.

His only low tide in the 90s was the kidnapping of his son Li Zeju in 1996.

At dusk on May 23 of that year, Li Zeju got off work, walked out of the Chinese pedestrian building, and was hijacked into a van. Zhang Ziqiang single-handedly went to Li Mansion to ask for 2 billion in cash.

Li Ka-shing said that there is only 1 billion in cash, and if he can, he can withdraw it at the bank.

Zhang Ziqiang was surprised by his calm, and Li Ka-shing said that this time he was wrong.

We are so well-known in Hong Kong, but we are not guarded at all, for example, I go to play ball, drive to the New Territories by myself at five o'clock in the morning, and on the road, a few cars can surround me, and I am not guarded at all, I have to review it carefully.

Reflecting on one's own body at a low ebb, suffering is just a test question.

After the turmoil, he spent 1 billion yuan to rebuild security, and has lived in seclusion ever since.

Three

Two months ago, Li Ka-shing toured West Lake and visited Lingyin, the drizzle was cloudy, and Lingyin hosted the red carpet to greet him.

He worships religiously in front of the lotus throne, he worships the gods and Buddhas, why is he not on the altar?

In 1999, he moved his office from the Chinese Pedestrian Bank to the newly completed Cheung Kong Group Center, with a total of 70 floors, the top floor of which belongs to him.

He got up at six o'clock, played the first shot of golf before seven o'clock, arrived at the group building at ten o'clock on time, swiped his code card accompanied by security, and took the exclusive elevator to the 70th floor.

On his desk was a list of the day's global news, only the headline, and when he chose to read the article, his subordinates would translate it for him to peruse.

Along with Chinese newspapers, he reads passages critical of him and records them in the margins with a highlighter.

In addition, there are two computers on the desk showing the group's news, and six telephones so that he can directly contact the core people. For a long time, he relied on it to control his trillion-dollar business dynasty across 52 countries.

Next to the phone, there were two small glasses with his own written words, one of which was:

It is better to seek the glory of Pepsi than to avoid the humiliation of one thing; It is better to invite a thousand people to rejoice, than to release the grievances of one person.

Behind the desk, outside the huge floor-to-ceiling glass window, Victoria Harbour has an unobstructed view, neon flashing at night, and behind every neon is him.

It was the "Li family's city" in the elementary school student's essay, where the shops belonged to him, the buildings belonged to him, the docks belonged to him, and electricity and telecommunications belonged to him.

In the end, even the typhoon belonged to him, and the workers ridiculed that Hong Kong had a Lee's force field, and "the typhoon was all for the sake of Boss Li, and specially picked the time to rest."

Director of "Under the Lion Rock", filmed the unit drama "Our Sky" in 2014, behind the stubborn social diseases are the shadow of monopoly capital.

In the same year, Li Ka-shing's Lanshan project opened, with some residences only 8 square meters in size, which was called a single prison by Hong Kong people.

His reputation has been declining, and he is no longer a self-made Li Chaoren, but a monopoly capitalist above the clouds. When the dockers went on strike, his picture was painted with devil's horns and fangs, and the underneath it read "Insatiable."

He responded that the tree was a big move, repeatedly explaining that it was only Hong Kong that appeared to be a monopoly, and said that his foundation was in Hong Kong and would never be re-registered, but two years later, the new Changhe and Changdi that carried the Lee family's inheritance was registered in the Cayman Islands.

The same controversy has occurred in the mainland. In 2014, the Li Ka-shing family sold off mainland projects and cashed out more than HK$70 billion in just over a year. Public opinion was in an uproar, and the media wrote an article "Don't let Li Ka-shing run."

Li Ka-shing responded that buying and selling is a normal business practice, and said that the criticism of the article, "The tone is chilling, and I deeply regret it." ”

In 2015, Li Ka-shing bought Europe, Europe's water, electricity, gas, transportation, and began to label Li family.

At its peak, 7% of the UK's water supply market, 25% of the electricity distribution market, 30% of the gas supply market and more than 40% of the telecommunications market belonged to Li Ka-shing.

However, since 2020, Li Ka-shing has begun to sell European assets, and in March 2022, Li Ka-shing sold assets in the UK with a total value of nearly 200 billion yuan.

In the eyes of the British, he became a foreign marauder, and hatred spread to Britain, and a similar story repeated.

After his return, people who questioned his running had mixed feelings, and someone turned to Lee Kuan Yew's 2011 assessment:

Does Li Ka-shing have any products that sell well all over the world? No, he just bought real estate, ports, retail, telecommunications companies.

It's all business after all. Of course, he also had business ideals.

In 2004, he gave a lecture at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, comparing two of the most successful businessmen in history. One is Fan Li, who retired to the lake and mountain under the rich world, and the other is Franklin, who built the country.

"Fan Li changed himself to accommodate society, and Franklin promoted social change, and their life coordinates were completely different. While Fan Li only wanted to live his own life, Franklin used his wisdom, ability, and dedication to build the society of the future. ”

However, he failed to think of Fan Li or Franklin, and as he grew old, he said:

I'm a businessman, and I hope you don't put any hats on me, whether it's tall or short, I don't want to have it. I'm just a businessman.

Only when he thundered the shot, people remembered that since its establishment in 1950, Changjiang Group has not lost a year, his personal assets have not been less than the year before, he always shot when there was a depression, and he can always surpass the cycle again and again.

On August 13, Li Ka-shing sold his house in Hong Kong at a seven-fold discount, and 10,000 people in Hung Hom snapped it up.

The manager of Changjiang responded that buying a house at a discount is to recover funds and take more land, if the industry can lower prices, reawaken consumer enthusiasm, and restart the cycle, the industry can prosper.

95-year-old Li Ka-shing has only left his back. However, when the waves are crashing on the shore, his movements may be calming.

On the wall of Li Ka-shing's office, there is Zheng Banqiao's "Bamboo Rain Xiao Xiao", on the side is Zuo Zongtang's couplet, and the lower link is:

Choose a high place, find a flat place to live, and walk wide.

The high places are cold, and he prefers to swim at low tides, looking for wide places, and depression is the home field.