'In February I attended a conference at my old alma mater, Hong Kong University [HKU]. It was on astronomy and the origins of life. After the war I became a research chemist and academic, and these subjects have always fascinated me. I'm now 86. For years I lectured at the University of Illinois in Chicago. I now live in Massachusetts, close to my daughter, but I am still an emeritus professor in Chicago.
In Hong Kong my daughter and I stayed up at the university, at Robert Black College. We breakfasted at the college and went on to the conference. In the evening some special event was organised. Nothing too late though, my nights are fairly early these days.
I come from a long-established Eurasian family. My grandfather [on my mother's side], Richard von Braun, was with the Chinese Maritime Customs in China and later became the harbourmaster of Amoy [known today as Xiamen]. He died there in 1908 - his grave in Amoy has been lost; it was probably destroyed along with other foreign graves. When I went back there in the 1990s we were unable to find it. He met my grandmother in China. Her name was Annabelle Lam Ho-tsoi. She is buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery in Happy Valley and my father, Thomas Matthews, is buried in the Colonial Cemetery, next door.
[My mother's] family came to Hong Kong in 1908 so my mother, Anna, could attend the Diocesan Girl's School [DGS] in Kowloon, where most of the Eurasian girls went at that time. In our day Eurasians were looked down on in Hong Kong, by both the Chinese and Europeans. I remember as a child being taken up to the Matilda Hospital on The Peak with a minor health problem and being turned away. This was the only time I ever saw my mother in tears. The Matilda at that time was not permitted, by the terms of the will that endowed the hospital, to take Chinese, Portuguese or Eurasians as patients. My mother's boss [she was the secretary of a prominent American resident named Lambert Dunbar] was furious with this and intervened. As a result we went back and I was treated. But that was how it was in those days.
Dunbar had a firm that imported flour into China. His wife, Elsie, set up the Hong Kong International Women's Club in the 1930s, to encourage women's involvement in community life and help combat racism. The club was housed on the third floor of the Gloucester Hotel [where the Landmark is today] - one of Hong Kong's best hotels at that time. My mother ran this club as well.
She also worked part time for Sir William Hornell, who was vice-chancellor of HKU. He was a bachelor and my mother used to help organise his social functions and so on. All of my mother's duties drew on her rich bicultural background. We were invited to use Sir William's mat shed [beach hut] out at Repulse Bay in the summer. Dunbar had given us one as well at 11 Mile Beach, out towards Castle Peak, and we used it regularly in the hot weather.
I started school at Diocesan Girl's School [DGS] - little boys went there first - and moved on to the Diocesan Boy's School [DBS], in Kowloon. That was a tremendously rich experience. My headmaster there was Christopher Sargent, who became bishop of Fukien. In spite of the difference in our ages we became friends. He used to broadcast opera for ZBW, that was what Radio Television Hong Kong [RTHK] used to be called. I learned a lot from him.