It was 1976, the last Fire Dragon year, when the then 20-year-old Liverpudlian Ruth Mitchell took three months off work, bound for east Asia to see her boyfriend and have an adventure. Little did she know the short break would turn into a 40-plus-year love affair with Hong Kong, changing her life forever, to say nothing of countless others throughout Asia and as far afield as Rwanda.
Ruth is one of the 'founding mothers' of Hong Kong women's rugby and her decades of commitment to the game were recognised with the prestigious IRB Women's Personality of the Year Award at a star-studded ceremony last October.
Held since 2001, the IRB awards are the Oscars of rugby. Graham Henry has won Coach of the Year five times since 2005, and Richie McCaw has won Player of the Year three times since 2006. Ruth shared the stage with them and the Player of the Year, France captain Thierry Dusautoir and other luminaries.
Among her many roles Ruth is the chair of both the Women's Rugby Committee and the Hong Kong Sevens Women's Organising Committee, as well as being a trustee of the HKRFU Charitable Trust - 'The Trust helps put kids through education, and those kids in turn give back through the game,' she says.
For the past three years, while she's been flat out with women's rugby at the Sevens, she has also been organising mountains of rugby kit to be donated from Hong Kong to Rwanda. 'We took two hotel rooms for this purpose and filled them to the roof with pre-loved and new rugby kit from Hong Kong people,' says Ruth. 'Last year, we also took a lot of kit to Laos.' Another mission has been to organise Pink Rugby Day to support Breast Cancer charities.
Yet Ruth's tale of devotion might never have happened were it not for a trip to the Hong Kong Sevens.