Long-distance call
'Ask an English person to name a famous Asian woman and all they can think of is Lucy Liu or Michelle Yeoh,' says Betty Yao MBE, a founding member of the Pan Asian Women's Association, a new organisation that aims to provide a platform for Asian women - Iranian to Japanese - in Britain.
As a leading figure in the world of Asian culture and business, Yao has the connections that matter.
'T.T. Tsui, who died recently, was my boss. We started CNE, the first genuine television station for the Chinese community in Europe. We went live in 1992 and broadcast in 25 countries from our Fulham [London] studio.'
Heading a television station was a rare achievement for a woman back then. 'I have only met one other woman [who was] doing that in the 1990s, and she was on Discovery Channel.'
The station was sold in 2000 and since then, Yao has been project director for Asia House, a non-profit organisation that promotes Asian culture. Recent projects include curating an exhibition of 19th-century photographs of China by John Thomson, which toured the mainland last year and is now in Liverpool, northern England.
'He was the first professional photographer. His work was very Victorian but the photographs were humane and, unusually, featured a lot of women.'
Yao is now working on an exhibition about tigers in Asian art.
Yao's parents met at Peking University. Her mother was the renowned essayist He Baoshan, her father, from Shanghai, was a Swire trainee in Hong Kong as the second world war approached. He had to return to the mainland but, says Yao, 'they got out later - with great difficulty. I was very lucky; if they had not left I would have been a child of the Cultural Revolution.'
Yao was attending Maryknoll Convent School in Kowloon when her parents moved to Hong Kong Island.
'I insisted on staying at the school, although there was a sister school on the island. The chauffeur would take me down to the Star Ferry every day and I would get the No7 bus to Kowloon Tong. I am horrified my parents let me do that.'
At 14, Yao was sent to study in Switzerland.
'It was a wonderful experience and unusual for someone of my age at that time to travel the world - but I think travelling opens your mind and my interest to learn stems from that.'
In 1975, Yao and her first husband moved to London, where she founded Opera Now magazine with a group of friends, before selling it in the 90s.
Despite 35 years in London, 'I have never planned to not return to Hong Kong. Maybe my second husband and I will spend more time there now.'
