Unlike a lot of people who came to Hong Kong from Shanghai in those days, my father [Francis Tien Yuan-hon] arrived with nothing more than a good education. My grandparents weren't rich and my father had to work his way through college and university in China. When he graduated, he decided to go to Manchester, England, as a graduate student in mechanical engineering. At the time he was already quite old, having been born in 1916. While he was in England, the communists took over China. I was born in Shanghai in 1947. My mum [Grace Tien Yung Chia-weng] took me to Taiwan and from there she brought me to Hong Kong in 1949. My dad joined us here and my brother, Michael [Tien Puk-sun], was born in Hong Kong in 1950. I was born on January 8, on the same day as Elvis Presley.
In those days few Chinese had the opportunity to go to school in England, speak good English and know the English way of life. That was really a big benefit. My dad worked for Jardines and then for China Engineers before he decided to go into business. He had a friend in Manhattan who was importing trousers. My father started as his partner in Hong Kong, securing the exports. My father's partner in New York got a huge order they couldn't believe.So they went to the bank, borrowed some money, bought machines and rented factory space. My mother was every part of the success story. She was the factory manager, knew how to sew and had lots of ideas. Our first factory was in Wing Hong Street, Cheung Sha Wan. My mother worked there, and my father bought the machines and did all the purchasing.
They went from zero employees to several hundred workers in seven months. It was easy to get workers. They worked seven days a week, 10 hours a day and no one complained. My mother did the same thing. And they all got lousy pay. My parents weren't making that much; the managers weren't making that much, nor were the workers.
Then, of course, things changed, and rightly so. Workers started having Sundays and Saturday afternoons off.
I went to Good Hope School for my primary schooling, then La Salle and Diocesan Boys School. Michael was in form four at DBS the time of the 1967 riots, so my parents sent him to finish his high school in the United States. I was already there, finishing my senior year at the University of Illinois studying chemical engineering.
I came back in 1971 and joined the family business, and Michael, now the chief executive of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corp, returned in the mid-1970s after graduating in electrical engineering.
