The Foreign Correspondents' Club sent its society profile into the stratosphere when it raised $1.9 million for the Po Leung Kuk, double last year's funds, at its second annual ball.
The billing of Mary Wilson, one of the original Supremes, attracted a cool 820 people to the club's Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre event, where the Kuk's children greeted every guest in gorgeously colourful traditional costumes.
Mary Pandora Cheung, a former Kuk pupil and one time Miss Hong Kong, presented university scholarships to six of the school's students while a grandiose lucky draw and auction of sports memorabilia kept guests on their toes. The night's main attraction was, of course, Wilson, who kept everyone on the dancefloor until 4am and still had time to mingle with CNN's Lorraine Hahn, Voice of America's Alisha Ryu and Phil Whelan of RTHK radio.
The former Supreme's onstage persona was indeed larger than life and she proved she could cut the mustard as well as she did in the Supreme's heyday 40 years ago. Looking very much like a diva in an all-white sequin dress, she greeted guests: 'I have been invited to Hong Kong to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to give you some lovin'. And, oh, are you gonna get it!'
One of Australia's richest women, iron-ore mining magnate Gina Rinehart, daughter of Lang Hancock, flew in for the night and threw down $31,000 for raffle tickets alone. Other big-name guests included Kuk chairman Jimmy Wong Chi-ho, CNN anchor Andrew Stevens and AOL Time Warner Asia Pacific boss Steve Marcopoto and his wife Amelia.
And it seems that you can take the journalist out of the newsroom, but the newsroom persona always seems to stick. While co-chair Thomas Crampton sported a crooked bow tie onstage, the line of men in the bathroom was growing as several hadn't a clue how to tie them.
