Page 22 - Sphere No.18 (Feb 2007)

“TOME, the term ‘lifetime’ requires some reflection about the road we have
travelled and the course our life has taken,” said Li Ka-shing in a speech in
September 2006, when he received the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award in Singapore. As Mr Li addressed the select audience of 400
chief executives from every corner of the corporate world, I recalled seeing
a photograph of him taken in 1944. He looked forlorn, his body emaciated
by extreme overwork, long-term sleep deprivation and hunger. He was 1.7-
metre tall but weighed only 46 kilogrammes.
He was 16 years old, and was going through the darkest period of his life.
His father’s death left him struggling to send money back to his mother and
siblings in the family’s home-town of Chiu Chow in the Shantou district of
Guangdong Province.
It was also the darkest period in Hong Kong’s history. The Japanese Oc-
cupation was a time of shortages – food, water, fuel and all daily necessities
were scarce. Life was hard: the struggling teenager had only a threadbare
blanket to keep out the winter cold at night and barely had the strength to
pull himself up to his humble bunk bed.
The shadow of death was never far away. Before his father died of tuber-
culosis, he had discovered that he suffered from similar symptoms – fever-
ish sweats and coughing up blood.
He did not have the money to see a doctor, so he improved the health of
his lungs the natural way. At dawn, he trekked up into the hills to breathe
the clear, fresh air. He also helped the cooks at the factory where he worked
write letters home in exchange for nutritious fish broth that helped build up
C O M M U N I T Y
20 SPHERE

The
The rise of Li Ka-shing epitomises
Asia’s economic miracle. Today, through the
Li Ka Shing Foundation, he is using his wealth
to help build a better society
TRUE
WEALTH
meaning of
By Xu Zhiyuan