Tributes pour in for Henry Hu, Hong Kong Shue Yan University co-founder

Hong Kong is mourning the loss of Henry Hu Hung-lick, a highly respected educator and co-founder of Shue Yan University, who has died at the age of 105. Tributes poured in on Monday from friends, university colleagues and alumni, who praised Hu for being a “pioneer of private higher education” and making “selfless contributions to the younger generations”. The university said the veteran educator died peacefully the previous day, “with his family by his side”. “Dr Hu will sadly be missed by all the university’s staff, students and alumni,” it said. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu expressed sorrow over the death and extended his deepest condolences to Hu’s family. “Dr Hu and his late wife, Dr Chung Chi-yung, established Shue Yan College to broaden the tertiary education opportunities of Hong Kong’s younger generation,” Lee said. He also hailed the couple’s educational philosophy of “cultivating virtues of benevolence; broadening horizons and knowledge”. “Dr Hu devoted substantial financial resources and personal effort to the development of Hong Kong’s post-secondary education [sector], nurturing generations of virtuous talent for Hong Kong,” Lee said. Known as the “Father of Shue Yan”, Hu dedicated himself to the university for the past half a century and served as its president until his death. Among the prominent Shue Yan alumni is the city’s No 2 official, Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki. Chan praised Hu and Chung for having devoted their lives to education. “Both of them were influential figures in the legal profession [at the time]. If they had not run a college, they could have made a lot of money,” Chan said. “But they both insisted on their ideals, lived a simple life and used their savings to donate to Shue Yan and education. This is very admirable.” The origins of Shue Yan, which in Chinese means “to cultivate people”, can be traced back to 1971 when Hu and Chung invested their life savings of HK$700,000 (US$89,170) to buy a three-storey mansion in Happy Valley and establish Shue Yan College. Their aim was to provide a liberal arts education founded on Confucian values and Chinese culture. Hu laughed off suggestions that he was a “fool” to spend so much of his own money to develop a university. “Some people said I was a fool … I am a frugal person and I live a simple life. I eat at the college, and I don’t own a car. I hope to save more money for the students,” Hu said in a video clip released by the university in memory of him. He conceded that Shue Yan’s development was not plain sailing, but he persisted and said he saw difficulties as “opportunities which Shue Yan could take advantage of to further develop and grow”. Legislator and Lingnan University vice-president Professor Lau Chi-pang, who also sits on Shue Yue University’s governing council, said: “To say Dr Hu and Dr Chung’s contribution to local education was remarkable is an understatement. We owe a lot to them.” Alumnus Lee Shu-kam, now head of the university’s department of economics and finance, remembered Hu as a “generous gentleman who wholeheartedly cared about the students”. “I was a student back in the 1980s. Some classmates were too poor to continue their studies despite their good academic performances; Dr Hu would personally sponsor them, or refer them to his business friends for sponsorship,” Lee said. A former history lecturer at the university in the early 2000s, Chan Wai-keung, now of Polytechnic University, also said: “Hu was a very nice man. His Cantonese was not very good. But he liked to chat with students and staff on campus to try to understand their needs. At meetings, he was very much willing to listen to staff’s views.” Shue Yan gained government recognition in 1976 as a private post-secondary institution. In 2006, it received accreditation to become the first private university in the city. Born in Zhejiang province in 1920, Hu graduated from the National University of Political Science in 1942, where he studied law, diplomacy and Russian. He later served as a diplomat in Tashkent in present-day Uzbekistan. He and Chung married in 1945, and the couple later moved to France, where he studied law and international affairs. They then went on to the UK, where Hu sat his Bar exams in 1954. Soon after, the couple moved to Hong Kong, where Chung pursued an academic career and Hu began his legal practice. In the legal field, Hu was best remembered for being the defence barrister in the controversial “cardboard box murder” case in 1975. The victim, a 16-year-old girl, was killed and dumped in a cardboard box in Happy Valley. Police arrested 28-year-old Au Yeung Ping-keung, a married man with a child who worked at an ice-cream shop frequented by the victim. The prosecution used only circumstantial evidence, with no witnesses or confession. Police found fibres on the corpse’s fingernails that matched those from Au Yeung’s clothes. Hu said he was convinced Au Yeung was innocent and reportedly represented him free of charge. Au Yeung was convicted of murder. Proficient in Chinese, English, French and Russian, Hu was a member of the now-defunct Urban Council and the Legislative Council. He attached great importance to improving the lives of young people in Hong Kong. His many contributions included pushing for nine years of free education in the city, advocating for the acceptance of Chinese as an official legal language and striving for housing for residents in resettlement areas. In recognition of his lifelong contributions to society and higher education, the government awarded Hu the Grand Bauhinia Medal, the city’s highest honour, in 2008. Chung, also a prominent educator, died in 2014 at the age of 93. She received the Gold Bauhinia Star in 2000 in recognition of her contribution to education. The couple had two sons together. The university said the date of Hu’s funeral and memorial activities would be announced once his family had finalised the arrangements.

Tributes pour in for Henry Hu, Hong Kong Shue Yan University co-founder

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}City leader John Lee among those paying respects to education sector ‘pioneer’, who died peacefully with ‘family by his side’

City leader John Lee among those paying respects to education sector ‘pioneer’, who died peacefully with ‘family by his side’