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HK Magazine

I am 59. I was planning to retire this year. But I can’t now because the real estate market is in critical condition. I can’t just run and leave my company behind.
Our business has dropped by half. I’ve had to downsize and I’ve laid off about 300 people so far. It’s the only way to keep the company alive.
Actually, Centaline isn’t my company anymore. I donated all my shares to a charity. Even though I don’t have a personal stake anymore, I still want the charity to keep receiving money.
Capable people achieve their goals fairly quickly. So what’s next for them? Instead of more goals, how about doing good for other people? That’s why I donated all my shares.
A person’s needs are very limited. We’re all going to die. How many of your desires can you fulfill? I have all I need for my family and myself.
I started Centaline with a friend. We both had $5,000, which was just enough to rent a desk in a sublet office.
I was destined to start my own business. People like me, who like to fight for their rights, are not suitable employees—they argue with their bosses all the time.
A real estate agent is no different from a pimp—a friend once told me that.
Find some meaning in your job—if you keep complaining about what you’re doing, you’ll never have a career. It’s pathetic if your ultimate goal is to retire, but not to achieve something in your career first.
Management is unethical; it kills free will, the origin of mankind’s happiness. A lot of the time, you’re forcing people to do something they don’t want to do.
When I was a teenager, I was a long-term leftist. I know Longhair. A friend introduced us.
Two incidents influenced me to be more receptive to communism. When I was a child, I saw a baby that had been abandoned in the street. And I once saw a man being stabbed to death by a mob. I witnessed life fading away, and there was nothing I could do about it.
My rebellious streak manifested itself in the 1950s as I questioned why the government couldn’t protect its people. White men were on top, kicking the Chinese people’s ass.
Revolutionary pamphlets and novels were something I read a lot then. And then I became a teacher in a left-wing school for workers for eight years. That’s the only other job I have ever had.
I completely lost faith in communism when I saw students being suppressed by the Communist Party at the April 5th incident. But I had already been having doubts about socialism—why did it only exist in less-developed countries?
The Communist Party is the one and only ruling party in China. I don’t see another power replacing them in the immediate future. Even if there was, it would end in chaos. It’s better to stay with the current system for the time being.
Political figures always hold their beliefs on a pedestal and disregard anyone whose beliefs differ from theirs, even slightly—this is what the Democratic Party is doing now, and it’s not democratic at all.
It costs a lot to change the world with politics. Instead, find a way to improve what we have under the ruling party rather than work against it. So I won’t take part in politics the same way I did when I was young—my family doesn’t like it. You can disobey your father but not your wife.
Don’t count on the government. We know the officials are incompetent anyway, so why should we ask them to save us?
People should pursue their own happiness. Everyone’s interpretation of happiness is different. It’s always faster to change your own fate than to wait for help from someone else.


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Centaline Chairman Shih Wing-ching

Magazines

Outspoken Centaline Property Chairman Shih Wing-ching planned to retire this year, but thanks to the global economic crisis, he can’t do it just yet. The former leftist talks to June Ng about the failures of politics and how he lost faith in communism and turned to the free market instead. 
