First Person: May Fung Mei-wah
From a humdrum government job that spanned 26 years to a happy-go-lucky, independent life as an artist, May Fung Mei-wah has never lost her passion for movies, multimedia and languages. Now, as acting principal of the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, she tells Emily Wu about her childhood and the experiences that led to her affinity for creative work.
I would say my childhood was an unforgettable one, with warmth and melancholy.
I am the eldest child with three younger brothers and sisters who didn’t understand me. I couldn’t disclose my feelings to anybody.
I remember when I was one, I didn’t understand why my younger sister would be given so much attention and had such a nice bed to sleep in, so I started to suck my finger. It was like what Sigmund Freud said. This was another way to get comfort.
I came from a poor family. My mom was a janitor and my dad [was] a quirky man who was always away from home.
He was the at-home chef for an English high-ranking government official. He was already in his 40s when I was born in 1952, inside the resplendent, big house of that Englishman on the Peak, where my mom and dad worked.
He always took me to Ying King Restaurant in Wan Chai for yum cha. I saw two tables of giant men in a big quarrel, but after my dad talked to them, a rep from each table stepped forward to shake hands. I found it inexplicable.