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Linda Yeung

IT was as a racing driver and a sailor that Prince Paolo Borghese was known to most of his Hong Kong friends. Despite his title, few knew that blue blood flowed through his veins. He could trace his lineage back to 16th-century Italian royalty, but he rarely spoke of his heritage.

 After his unexpected death from a heart attack in Italy in June, at the age of 66, his wife Nike has journeyed back to Hong Kong in an emotion-filled pilgrimage to attend a special mass in his memory and to relive what she calls their blissful years here.

 As a young man, Borghese worked in Australia and Thailand before slipping into Hong Kong in 1967 when the city was mired in riots. The political turmoil did not weaken his resolve to live a different life in an exotic culture.

 In the years that followed, the trained engineer oversaw projects essential to Hong Kong's transition to a modern city, such as the installation of electricity transmission towers on Hong Kong Island and re-cabling Hong Kong Island's power system in a joint project with Hong Kong Electric Company.

 In the late 1970s, he built the cable-car system for Ocean Park.

 A stunned and saddened Mrs Borghese was reminiscing about their happy times here at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club last month.

 'We enjoyed being here, that's why we came back from time to time after we returned to Italy in 1984, we never really left Hong Kong,' she said. 'We enjoyed walking and sailing, either on our boat, Tolo, or our friends' boats.'  After returning to Italy to run the family property outside Rome in 1984, Borghese managed to keep his engineering business in Hong Kong ticking with frequent visits.

 Mrs Borghese is not revealing her plans for the company, but she says business has been quiet over the past few years, with her husband easing into semi-retirement.

 She explained the special place Hong Kong held in their hearts - it was in this city that Mrs Borghese was reunited with her 'prince charming': they had not seen each other for 15 years.

 The French-born Mrs Borghese, whose parentage is Italian and Australian, says she first met the prince - whose family has produced a pope, several cardinals and provincial governors - when she was in her teens. That was in Sydney, and she says she was immediately smitten.

 'I came [to Hong Kong] to find him,' said Mrs Borghese, now 50. 'I came particularly to see him after learning that he was working here. He was my childhood love.'  That was in the mid-1970s. They were engaged shortly after they resumed contact here, and married at the Catholic Cathedral in Caine Road in 1977.

 Reeling from the shock of his sudden death, Mrs Borghese is understandably disoriented, but her journey has been made easier by the presence of their daughter, Flavia, a film student at Bologna University.

 'A special part of my life was spent here,' Mrs Borghese said. 'His work was exciting to me. He enjoyed working and he worked well. He seldom complained about the working life here. I used to make drawings of construction work undertaken by him.

 'He also mapped out some of the roads on the Peak to make way for the transport of equipment for the transmission towers. We used to do a lot of walking in those areas, around Black's Link.

 'That road should have been named after him,' said Mrs Borghese, a painter in her own right.

 What she saw at her husband's work sites so interested her that electricity transmission towers, cable cars and the ubiquitous bamboo scaffolding are common features in her paintings.

 Mrs Borghese and her daughter, who is now acting as her assistant, are currently in Tokyo for an exhibition of her paintings there, followed by shows in Britain and Australia during the next two years.

 Flavia is the most important person to her now, but Mrs Borghese can also draw support from another close member of the family who is not an Italian. This is 37-year-old Chan Oi-nor, who accompanied her during and after last month's memorial service.

 A former orphan at Po Leung Kuk, Ms Chan has been a member of the Borghese family since the 1970s. 'I saw her in a painting class I gave to a school in Happy Valley,' said Mrs Borghese. 'Someone later told me she was an orphan and I decided to privately adopt her to give her the love and care needed by any child. She was 13 at the time.

 'We did not change her name. Prince Borghese was happy to have her as a daughter, he had a lot of love for people. '  Mrs Borghese smiled: 'I am a grandmother now. Oi-nor used to come to our home at weekends and we brought her to Italy many times. We have always been in contact with each other. Now she has two children of her own.'  Other long-term relationships the couple developed here included friendships with members of the Kadoorie family, sailing fans at the yacht club, and racing enthusiasts in Hong Kong and Macau.

 A member of the Motor Sports Club, the prince once came second in the Macau Grand Prix. The same knack for driving was in the blood of his great uncle, Prince Scipione Borghese, who won the historic London to Beijing Motor Challenge in 1907. It took him 60 days to complete the journey, beating other rivals from Europe by almost three weeks.

 'It was my husband's dream to re-do the race again but no one sponsored him. He liked racing, he would have enjoyed it a lot,' said his wife.

 To many, the prince was a down-to-earth person deeply enchanted by the East and who treasured his extensive ties in the community. His 'royal' background mattered little in his contacts with people here.

 'He was a quiet man, never told anyone about his family unless people asked,' Mrs Borghese recalled. 'He said when he told people he was Prince Borghese, people would say 'Hi, Prince' the next time they saw him and did not understand his real name was Paolo.'  He would have been glad to know that many remember him for the good works he did for Hong Kong as well as his cheerful, honest character. Mrs Borghese cannot agree more, saying: 'His father always said to him: 'It's what you do in life that counts, not your name'.' 



Hong Kong's ties with princely power