New kid on the dock Stanley Ho makes strike history
Young unionist who dreamed of excitement as a 12-year-old in hospital took on big guns, armed with dockers' true grit and mum's soup
Before March 28, few outside the shipyards of Hong Kong had heard of Stanley Ho Wai-hong. Then the dockers walked out. It was to become one of the longest strikes in the city's history, and Stanley Ho was at its helm.
The Union of Hong Kong Dockers' general secretary and organiser of the strike appeared on television and in the newspapers every day throughout the 40-day walkout.
Ho, who turns 29 next month, said he never entertained the thought of giving up. Not when he was armed with the encouragement of strangers on the streets, a flask of his mother's home-made soup, and the respect and friendship of the dockers.
He shed tears when Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing's port operator Hongkong International Terminals won an injunction to force the dockers out of their strike base inside the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals on the fifth day of the walkout.
They weren't tears of frustration, Ho said. He was simply touched by the strikers' determination not to let the injunction beat them.
"That night, after we moved the tents from inside the terminals to outside the entrance, I chatted with the dockers while we were resting," he said.