Hong Kong chief executive contender Woo Kwok-hing says he wants to unite divided society

I was born in Hong Kong in 1946, the fourth child of 10. We lived in Yau Ma Tei and my parents were extremely liberal. We could go out whenever we liked and do whatever we wanted as children. I’m not a street boy, but still it was very free. The important thing was that, at 6pm, you were home for dinner. If you didn’t come home, you looked out for yourself – no food would be reserved for anybody.

After dinner we would do a bit of homework and then we ran outside. The covered area of Temple Street used to be much larger than it is today and as a child I enjoyed the atmosphere. There was food, fruits, toys, clothes, shoes – anything you could think of – and there were acrobatics and kung-fu shows. I used to roam around, maybe spending a few cents eating and watching the shows. I would often see a guy dressed in a kung-fu style suit – the way Bruce Lee dressed in white – only he was in a blue costume. It had four pockets in the front and his lower pockets were filled with clanking coins. He would go around collecting about 50 cents from each store. The storekeepers would pay him but I noticed they didn’t look happy, they seemed to be under duress to pay him and, at that time – I was about 12 or 13 – I guessed it was either for the triads or for the police. I began to hate it; of course, I didn’t dare do anything about it.

My (eldest) brother was learning kung fu – not the same style as Bruce Lee learned; there were many different factions of kung fu. He was thinking about becoming a policeman. He is still a good fighter, considering his age (about five years older than Woo). I was quite impressed and I was thinking of doing something in that direction, but eventually my older brother became an articled clerk – a trainee solicitor.

When I was a little older, passing the school leaving certificate examination, I thought, “What shall I do?” I wasn’t trained to be a kung-fu fighter. I thought perhaps I’d join the law because it’s one of the ways to enforce justice, to look after the interests of the people, and I thought that was fine: I would join the bar. In those days, there was no law course in Hong Kong and so I went to England, to Birmingham University, to study law (in the mid-1960s). The air ticket cost HK$2,496. I remember every cent because it was so expensive. In those days everything was very cheap compared with now. And this ticket was one-way to London, a student fare! My parents had to find ways of managing it and fortunately they were just well off enough.