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hardback HK$195.00
Chameleon Press
Paddyfield.com
More reviews by John Walsh
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Gordon Wu: The Man Who Turned The Lights On: Gordon Wu by Rosemary Sayer
Gordon Wu is the Hong Kong businessman who created Hopewell Holdings and who achieved huge success and wealth in developing the infrastructure of Hong Kong and mainland China. Inspired by his university education at Princeton in the USA, he took his engineering skills and combined them with the entrepreneurial spirit from his father, who created Hong Kong's first taxi fleet, and combined them innate drive to develop one of the most dynamic firms in East Asia.
His creations include the road from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, the first five-star hotel in China, a string of power stations and the encomium from former Philippines Premier Fidel Ramos that he was the man who turned the lights on. At its height, Hopewell was operating in more than a dozen countries around the world and Wu was emboldened enough to promise US$100 million in funding for his alma mater. He has certainly been an instrumental figure in helping to improve the economic opportunities available to millions of people and to make a profit while doing so.
Business histories and biographies are very useful and important documents in modern history but few people are able to produce versions which are both readable and credible. The problems are that most businesses rarely maintain detailed records which can be made available to a writer and, also, that the kind of person about whom biographies are mostly written tend not to be patient with the potential author or be accustomed to having his or her motives and decisions questioned. Consequently, to obtain access to the person and important contacts becomes not just of crucial importance in building credibility but also provides an incentive to see things the way the businessperson sees them.
This must be particularly true in Hong Kong which, for all its size and cosmopolitan sophistication, can also act as a small town in many ways. Gordon Wu's strongly felt family relationships also are likely to have dissuaded him from giving too much away. If this biography tends on occasions towards the respectful, therefore, this is understandable. When Wu did get in over his head, for example, this is not probed too deeply while the focus is upon the many triumphs and the occasions on which his analysis, according to his recollections, is proved gloriously right while all the consultants and other would-be opponents are vanquished in a welter of caution and lack of foresight.
This provides a slightly curious sensation when reading this book in Bangkok, which is the home of Wu's greatest disaster and where the Thai bureaucracy and political class proved itself to be world-class in its ability to avoid doing anything that did not suit them, no matter how much they may have promised otherwise. Here, he is still rather unfairly known as 'Hopeless Hopewell'. This passage indicates the kinds of problems he faced: "Things did not improve. The Thai government suddenly decided that part of the new railway that Hopewell was building should be built underground. A cabinet resolution was passed and Hopewell was informed of the change in requirements after the meeting. By Wu's calculations this would make the project at least three times as expensive." One can well imagine how he felt.
There are many glimpses of real life business in these pages, from the banquets and maotai to the dealings with individual families squatting on land which was required to build a railway and road across, although these do not quite come alive. Having come across venality in such dealings before, I would not have been surprised that Wu found himself having to make certain compromises. However, this issue is not really considered.
Readers interested in how the Hong Kong and Chinese business worlds operate will find plenty of interest in the 200 pages of this slim but readable biography. It will represent an interesting source to scholars of modern history and in a variety of other disciplines as well as stimulating the curiosity of the no doubt many people who have seen Gordon Wu only in the gossip pages or shaking his fist and shouting at his enemies on the television.
- Editor's note: Published by Chameleon Press, which is related to this publication.
John Walsh
02/07/2006
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John Walsh is Assistant Professor at Shinawatra International University, Bangkok. |
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