In this Hong Kong name, the surname is Fok. In accordance with Hong Kong custom, the Western-style name is Henry Fok and the Chinese-style name is Fok Ying-tung.
Fok was born on 10 May 1923 in Hong Kong to an ethnic Tanka family.[1] Fok's father died in a boating accident when he was just seven. He studied at Queen's College, but was not able to finish junior high due to the Japanese invasion in 1937. He worked as a labourer during that time while helping to run the family's small boat business.[citation needed]
Business
After the war, he became a successful businessman. His business interests included restaurants, real estate, casinos and petroleum. Fok reportedly made his first fortune gun-running into the mainland during the Korean War in the early 1950s, circumventing a United Nations arms embargo.[2] Fok vigorously denied weapons trafficking, but admits having violated sanctions by smuggling steel and rubber as well as other items.[2]
In the 1980s Fok organized the effort to bail out OOCL from bankruptcy shortly after its founder Tung Chao-yung died.[3]
Fok developed the Zhongshan Hot Springs Hotel, which had a golf course designed by Arnold Palmer.[4]: 58 It was one of the first golf courses built in China since the founding of the People's Republic of China.[4]: 58
In 2006, Forbes magazine listed Fok as the seventh wealthiest person in Hong Kong and the 181st in the world, with a fortune of US$3.7 billion.
Henry Fok helped Tung Chee Hwa out of a near-bankruptcy of his family's Orient Overseas Container Line in the 1980s. Because of this relationship, it was often said while Tung was the Chief Executive of Hong Kong that Fok 'intervened/advised' if times, or rather Beijing, called for it.[citation needed]
Philanthropy
Henry Fok founded the Fok Ying Tung Foundation in 1984, and it is now one of the largest philanthropic organisations in Hong Kong. Fok founded a high-technology business park in Nansha District, Guangzhou.[when?] He is said to have visited the site more than 500 times, and through the Foundation, pledged HK$800 million (US$100 million) to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2005 to support the initiative.[2][6]
Personal
Fok's wife was Elaine Lui (呂燕妮), and he had two concubines, Elaine Fung (馮堅妮) and Lam Sook-duen (林淑端), according to the Great Qing Legal Code, which remained in force for Chinese people in Hong Kong until 1971. Some forms of polygamy remained legal in Hong Kong until it was outlawed in 1971.[7] Among Fok's children, the best-known are:
Ian Fok Chun-wan – managing director, Yau Wing Co. Ltd; Director, Fok Ying Tung Foundation Ltd, a former chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, whose son was convicted of drug possession in 2005.
On 28 October 2006, Fok died at the age of 83 at the Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, where he was being treated for cancer. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 1984 and the cancer had reappeared in 2004. His body was flown back to Hong Kong for a traditional funeral in accordance with his wishes. Fok was one of the first Hong Kongers to have his casket draped in the Chinese national flag since the handover (the others being T. K. Ann and Wong Ker-lee).[8] He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Reform Pioneer.[9]
