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| Kuok became CEO of Shangri-La hotel group last August |
"We should really revamp our public education system. Our next generation has to be much more connected to China in terms of language and culture," said Hui Kuok, chair and group chief executive of the Shangri-La luxury hotel group.
She is the daughter of Robert Kuok, founder of the hotel group and Malaysia's richest man. At one point she was the CEO and managing director of the South China Morning Post newspaper, which was owned by her father until he sold it to Alibaba in 2016.
"One way to do this could be over time to make Putonghua the main medium of instruction in schools," she said, speaking at HSBC's Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong.
"Another way could be for Hong Kong to invite some of the best public schools in China to open campuses here, just like we have done for international schools for decades."
Needless to say there was a lot of outrage over her remarks, in particular that she has a privileged background and attended international schools and has a degree in East Asian Studies at Harvard. She became CEO of Shangri-La Asia Limited last August, and is the wife of Bryan Gaw, an executive director of Kerry Properties, another Kuok company.
Many commenting online say Hongkongers should continue speaking Cantonese, Mandarin and English, and not specifically cater to China. However, for the Shangri-La hotel group, China is its greatest source of revenue, with an equity interest in 50 hotels out of 82 worldwide.
Besides, Mandarin is already taught in Hong Kong schools as a requirement. What more does Kuok want?
It's quite strange for her to speak out on a topic like this when she herself had an international education, having grown up in Hong Kong and then studied in the United States.
Some people online have called to boycott the hotel chain, and if -- a big if -- there are enough of them to make a serious financial dent in the company's bottom line, we may know why...
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