Hong Kong curator Johnson Chang is looking forward to a post-Covid-19 world and what it will mean for capitalism

Hong Kong born: My father, Chimou Chang, hails from Shangyu, not too far from Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, where my mother, Paochu Chou, comes from. They both went to school in Shanghai, where my grandparents had businesses. My father studied civil engineering. After the revolution, in 1949, they came to Hong Kong where my father set up a factory producing nylon products, a new and fashionable clothing material.

I was born in 1951 and grew up in Kowloon.The factory was located in Hung Hom and as a child I often went to watch workmen operate the machines. But the magic of mechanical objects did not inspire me, drawing did. After school I would go to book­shops to browse the art section. I took traditional ink painting lessons and became interested in modern art when battling adolescent despair and confusion.

Language matters: During summer visits to my mother’s home in Shanghai I’d speak Shanghainese, then back in Hong Kong I’d convert back to Cantonese. My parents sent me, aged eight, to La Salle Primary School, where all subjects were taught in English except for Chinese literature and Chinese history. Later, I attended La Salle secondary school.

I didn’t learn Mandarin at school and was keen to speak the vernacular language of the north. So one summer during college I decided to learn Mandarin by watching Taiwan films. Of course, it took a lot more practise afterwards. During a gap year from college, I attended an evening course in Chinese classics. It was then I realised Cantonese has a close affinity with early period Chinese literary language.

Strange choices: The Cultural Revolution worried my father and in 1967 he sent me to the United States. After a year in a small prep school in Vermont, I fell in love with New England. I went to Williams College, in the Berkshires, though I had no idea what I wanted to study. I started with mathematics but ended up with a liberal arts degree.