The Midas Touch

HK Magazine: Why did you come to Hong Kong?
Lam Sai-Wing: Life was tough in China when I was small. We had literally nothing to eat and nowhere to call home, so I decided to look for a job in Hong Kong. I came as an illegal immigrant. There was the Touch Base Policy then, so as long as we illegal immigrants could make it across the border without getting caught, and could prove ourselves to be useful to society, we’d be allowed to stay in Hong Kong.

HK: Where’d you get the idea for a gold shop?
LSW: The possession of gold was banned in China – you could be jailed for it. That’s why I was so flabbergasted when I found the abundance of gold along Shanghai Street. It was just all over the place! So I thought of learning to be a goldsmith, which isn’t too far from my family business. I am the third-generation successor to my family’s jewelry business. Three months later, I became a goldsmith and then opened my own gold jewelry shop. Mine was the first gold jewelry shop in China.

HK: Why are you infatuated with gold?
LSW: Socialism prevailed in those years. No one had to work and yet everyone would still get fed. It bred laziness. Since no one farmed, there was a drop in the harvest and people starved to death. Around that time, my dad passed away. My mother sold her gold wedding ring and made enough money to feed us for a whole year. That gold ring saved my life.

HK: What inspired you to make the gold toilet?
LSW: Gold is the best way to store money in a widespread financial crisis. Making the gold toilet was one way to “save” my money, like in a bank account. I think I am a socialist, or more precisely, a Marxist, in that to me, gold is communal. Lenin once said that if Socialism prevailed, he’d build public toilets out of gold in the world’s biggest cities. Building a gold toilet on Chinese soil is a celebration of socialism’s triumph over capitalism, if you like. It’s also to honor the success of One Country, Two Systems.

HK: What is the next thing you want to make out of gold?
LSW: Nothing. I only made the Swisshorn gold palace to glorify the Chinese fable, Keeping Ah-Jiao in a Gold House, whose moral is to cherish and respect one’s wife. If there is respect, fidelity is achievable, and there’ll be harmony and happiness in the family. It then leads to social stability and economic prosperity. It’s a chain effect. But unfortunately, the name of the Chinese fable has come to mean hiding a mistress. But it wasn’t like that originally!

HK: Are there ever hard times in the gold business?
LSW: During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the value of gold escalated and no one was buying. My business suffered and hundreds of my employees didn’t get paid, so I switched from selling gold to silver, which opened up the European and American markets to me.