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Polly Hui

Since her teenage years, Nora Sun has wanted to be identified as just Nora Sun, not as the granddaughter of the 'father of modern China', Sun Yat-sen.
That was possibly why Ms Sun thrived after she arrived in Hong Kong in 1948 at the age of 11.
She left her home in Shanghai and a China engulfed in  civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. She was accompanied  by an elderly, illiterate maid, who gave her all the freedom and independence a teenage girl could  dream of.
The young Ms Sun enrolled as a Form One student at King George V that year and rose quickly to the top of her class with little effort.
She liked the 'anonymity' and enjoyed making friends with classmates of different nationalities. Every day after school, she went to Star Movie, a cinema on the corner of Hankow and Peking roads in Tsim Sha Tsui, to watch a foreign movie, spending 70 cents for the second-cheapest  ticket. Soon, her mother described her as 'that western girl'.
'It was the first time I could walk around and do things on my own. I wasn't allowed to do that in Shanghai because I was kidnapped once. I had been watched very closely,' said Ms Sun, who is in town this week for a King George V Alumni Reunion.
She said she had tried her best to attend the reunions, which were usually organised every five years at different places, because she could see old friends and make new ones.
She still vividly recalls the kidnap in Shanghai in 1946: The family received a phone call to send her to meet her mother at a restaurant. The instruction was for their youngest maid to accompany her.
When she got out of the car, a man sent the maid back with a package, which turned out to contain a ransom letter.
The eight-year-old  was then taken by the man and his friend to a hotel room.
'The two men were walking very fast,' she said. 'I remember my two little legs were following very fast after them. They said [my mum] told them to hide me because there were bad people looking for me.'
On the fourth day, one of the men took her to see an Abbot and Costello movie.
When she found herself  alone in the dress circle of the cinema, she ran downstairs - only to find her mum and uncle waiting for her in a car. She said her mother had paid US$100,000 to get her back.
After two years in Hong Kong, she was sent to Taiwan for another couple of years before  returning to King George V.
She said she resented her teenage years on the mainland and in Taiwan, where people viewed her as an oddity. 'I just wanted to be like everybody else. I've always liked Hong Kong more ... because of the British influence. Who I was didn't make a difference there.'
A former colleague once told her: 'I just found out who you are. You should be proud, you shouldn't be hiding it.'
'He didn't understand it,' Ms Sun said. 'I was not trying to hide it. Of course I was proud of who my grandfather was. But that's not the reason I exist. I want to be identified as me, not as so and so's granddaughter.'
Having said that, she appreciates  being a member of one of China's most prominent families.  'In China, it's an advantage, because I can get to  meet people that you can't.'
The granddaughter may not be as influential as the grandfather, but Ms Sun's life is colourful in its  own way. Her career has taken  her to countries like the United States, Japan, Thailand and France.
She has always acted  as a bridge, teaching foreigners how to do business with the Chinese  and vice versa. In the mid-1990s, she set up  a business consultancy  in Hong Kong.
'I was teaching Chinese government officials how to do business. I was teaching them about market economy. It was very interesting,' she said.
'China now and China then is like - you can't recognise it. One day I am going to sit down and write about all the experiences that I have had in China as it  developed.'



Granddaughter of modern China just plain Nora Sun