Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

Anson Chan For many people, bo th w i t h in the territory and beyond, Mrs. Anson Chan Fang On-san g has stood for values tha t have made Ho ng Kong strong . She has been an unwavering advocate of an apolitical and impartial civil service and o f the rule of law, wh i ch have been foundations of Ho ng Kong' s remarkable economic success. Mrs. Chan is w i d e ly admire d for her strength of purpose, her courage and integrity. As a public official she exemplified the traditional Confucian notion tha t it is by '德' or moral authority that administrations retain the essential trust of the people. Mrs. Chan's life helps the rest of us to understand the sources o f moral authority i n an exceptional individual. As she describes it herself, hers has been a fortunate an d fulfilled life, a balanced life. Mrs. Chan was raised by capable women. From the m she learned how to face adversity w i t h courage and resourcefulness. She was bo rn in Shanghai into an affluent family that mo v ed to Hong Kong in 1948. Her father, a successful banker and businessman, a caring man, died suddenl y i n 1950, wh en she was ten. Her mother wa s faced w i t h the task of bringing u p eight children, the youngest of w h om was two. Dauntless an d resilient, she took th e eldest boys off to England to oversee their education. The rest were left i n the hands of another strong woman, Mrs . Chan's paternal grandmother, and some uncles and aunts, w h o forme d a close and loving extended family. Her grandmother received little formal education but was a wise, resourceful and strong woma n who taught the children about duty to the family and about what wa s honourable and what was not. These were some of the values Mrs. Chan has neve r ceased to live by. Mrs. Chan's education began a t Sacred Hear t Canossian College. Here too she was taught b y strong and dedicated women. They were formed by a different tradition, but their values never seemed inconsistent w i t h those of the home. Here she discovered a fait h that wa s to be 'an emotional anchor' for the rest of her life. She also discovered her lifelong passion for reading. Wh e n she entered The University of Ho ng Kong she chose to stud y English literature, a subject that has helped her to attai n great powers of expression — to become, i n fact, one of the most precise and articulate public speakers o f the English language anywhere i n the wo r l d . A t university she met the man w h o was to become her husband, whose un f a i l i ng support has made her exceptional career possible. Mrs. Chan was fortunate to discover a vocatio n that enabled her to realize her outstandin g capacities to the full. She loved the civil servic e f r om the beginning, and joined the administrative service at a time of great esprit de corps, wh e n everyone was on first name terms. Contrar y to myth, her rise i n the service was steady bu t not rapid, and she learned to take the chancy busines s of p r omo t i on philosophically. But at some point i n mid-career, she made the discovery f r om wh i ch everything else followed. A s she herself tells it: 'I discovered who I am; who I want to be . I discovered that I must live every day as honestly as I can, caring for those for w h om I shoul d 38