Life.Culture.Discovery.

‘Time once made Lee Kuan Yew cry’: a former editor looks back

Zoher Abdoolcarim, the former Asia editor of Time magazine, talks about why being a true Hongkonger is not all about being Chinese, and the leader who left the biggest impression

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Zoher Abdoolcarim, former Asia editor of TIME magazine, in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, on January 20. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

Published: 4:00pm, 27 Jan 2025Updated: 11:53am, 28 Jan 2025

My paternal great-grandfather came to Hong Kong around 1885, from a small town in Gujarat, India (before independence). He must have wanted a better life, so as a young man he ventured first to Aden (in present-day Yemen), which was then also a British territory – and he apparently didn’t like it. He went back to India, where he must have heard about Hong Kong.

Fabric of high society

Zoher Abdoolcarim’s first birthday party in 1958. Photo: Courtesy of the Abdoolcarim family

With his business partners he set up a retail fabrics business here. At first they might have gone door to door selling cloth. Eventually the business became established, reached its peak in the early 1980s and counted the British ruling elite among its customers. Interestingly, neither my great-grandfather nor grandfather stayed long in Hong Kong. My father came as a child in the 1930s, and studied at St Joseph’s. He lived through the Japanese occupation, and decided to make a permanent move here. I would have loved to have known my great-grandfather because he was a pioneer. For him to come out of a small Indian town – to take that leap and come to Hong Kong, without even the language – was a bold move. He certainly would not have had Cantonese, and I wonder how much English he had.

From Bombay with love

Zoher Abdoolcarim’s family at Alexandra Dock in Mumbai in 1956, about to board the S.S. Victoria for the long Bombay-Colombo-Singapore-Hong Kong sea journey. Photo: Courtesy of the Abdoolcarim family

In 1956, when my father brought my mother and siblings over, their journey was from the docks in Mumbai – Bombay then. From Bombay they sailed to Colombo, in Sri Lanka, to Singapore, to Hong Kong. It was a difficult journey for my mother not least because she was pregnant with me. So I was conceived in India, but born in Hong Kong.

Tongue-tied

We all went to Catholic schools. I went to St Joseph’s, my brother went to Raimondi and my sister went to St Paul’s Convent. My great regret is that I did not learn to read Chinese – but we are products of our time. Chinese was offered at St Joseph’s, but so were French and Portuguese. We could not conceive of the importance of Chinese language and literature, of knowing Chinese history and culture, at that time. You could get a higher mark much more easily in French, so even ethnic Chinese students would opt to take French.

Zoher Abdoolcarim’s father, Fakhruddin Goolamally Abdoolcarim, is in the second row, fifth from the left in this St Joseph’s class picture in the 1930s. Photo: Courtesy of the Abdoolcarim family

Esper-Canto

My Cantonese became better after I retired, when I was spending more time interacting with Hong Kong people. Now Cantonese is my default language in Hong Kong. I use it as my first language in communicating with people – even if those people are absolutely able to speak in English. So I go into the bank and speak Cantonese; I get onto an English service hotline and speak Cantonese. Somehow my mind now, at this later age, works in Cantonese.

The hand of fate

My wife and I met in the Asiaweek office (where Abdoolcarim worked at the time). Shih-ying was born in Taipei; the family is from Shanghai. She was an anchorwoman in Los Angeles for a Chinese-language network and, later, an editor for a United States-based Chinese-language newspaper. Asiaweek brought her to Hong Kong – not to take up a position here but as a China correspondent in Beijing. She had all her paperwork ready. But she came in the summer of 1989.

Zoher Abdoolcarim and Shih-ying with their marriage certificate in 1991. Photo: Courtesy of Zoher Abdoolcarim and Tan Shih-ying

After Tiananmen happened, Chinese authorities blocked all new incoming journalists. Shih-ying was only supposed to pass through Hong Kong, but she was stuck here indefinitely. The events in China that year reinforced her desire to be a correspondent in mainland China – which she’d first visited in 1983 and again the following year as part of the press corps accompanying US president Ronald Reagan. So, professionally, she was not happy. But it meant that we were in the same office. It was fate.

Good old times

Time Warner not only owned Time when I worked there, it owned a whole bunch of other titles and companies, and it owned CNN. We occupied 12 floors at Oxford House in Taikoo Place. I had a nice office overlooking the harbour – huge glass windows. And because I spent so many hours at work – even on Sundays – I turned it almost into a nice comfortable living room. I took naps on its sofa. It was a good work environment; a great team, constantly learning.

Zoher Abdoolcarim’s office from 2008 to 2017 as the Asia editor of Time magazine. Photo: Courtesy of Zoher Abdoolcarim

Nearly everyone is no longer with Time, but they’ve gone on to good things. A lot of the journalists have gone on to good positions at mainstream American media like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal – as well as AFP, Reuters and the Financial Times – so everyone landed on their feet. Those were good years – the salad days. We did a tremendous amount of journalism. We spent a lot of money on reporting – no regrets.

But when I retired (in 2017), the company was already beginning to break up. Time was bought by a multibillionaire, Marc Benioff of (software company) Salesforce, and the word is that he is now shopping Time. He’s had enough playing with it.

Epic interview

Singaporean Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in New Delhi in December 2009. Photo: AFP

If I had to mention one leader (Abdoolcarim interviewed for Time) who left the biggest impression, it would be Lee Kuan Yew. In 2005, when Lee was about 82 years old and held an emeritus position as minister mentor, we approached his people about an open-ended interview, no holds barred. Lee agreed to it. The interview (jointly conducted by Abdoolcarim, Michael Elliott and Simon Elegant) turned into nearly five hours over two days, and it was fantastic, because he did touch on everything – even the Lee family dynasty thing. He was in very good form. During one session, it reached 7pm and he had a dinner engagement. His aides came and whispered in his ear, and he waved them off.

A well examined life

Emotion is not a quality you would associate with Lee, but he became quite emotional talking about personal stuff – about his family, the serious cancer (his son) Lee Hsien Loong had. He was 82 and facing his own mortality – and he became emotional about people that he came up with in the political ranks, lifelong colleagues, and their deaths. He said because they had faith and religion – that gave them peace. He seemed concerned, because he had no religion, about whether he would have that same peace and strength in his final moments. A couple of times he teared up. When Lee died at the age of 91, I was the one who wrote his obituary, which became a cover story. My opening line was, “Time once made Lee Kuan Yew cry.”

“We’re all brown”

The ethnic Indians and other minorities are very much part of the fabric and complexion of Hong Kong. Obviously, the biggest contributor to the city’s development is the hard work and enterprise of the ethnic Chinese, but that is not to negate the minorities. Growing up, and even as a professional, everyone thought that ethnic Indians came in the security service, as part of the police force or the British garrison. There’s nothing wrong with that, but they are also doctors, lawyers, judges, and finance and tech executives. You don’t want to make assumptions. You want to see people as individuals. The South Asian community is diverse. People are divided by the amount of time they have been in Hong Kong; by national background, language, religion, socio-economic class, education. But we’re lumped together because we’re all brown. Much less so now, but I think there was a lot of ignorance; there was prejudice; micro-aggressions. Does some of it still take place? It still takes place.

Graduating to gratitude

Zoher Abdoolcarim, Shih-ying and their son Sean at an American football game in California, in 2022. Photo: Courtesy of Zoher Abdoolcarim, Tan Shih-ying and Sean Carim

It would be nice if more Hong Kong Chinese people knew about the contributions of the minorities. When Hong Kong University students are attending class, if they pass the old Main Building, they’ll see the small bust of a man wearing a tallish hat. That is the man who gave the government the initial money for the founding of HKU. Hormusjee Naorojee Mody came from Mumbai, made money here and then contributed to the founding of HKU. So you have students passing that bust with probably no idea that if not for this man, they would not be attending this institution.

You don’t need to be ethnic Chinese to be a Hongkonger.

Zoher Abdoolcarim

Spirits of Hong Kong

Ruttonjee Hospital in Wan Chai – there is a huge portrait of the founder of what was a TB sanatorium, now a full-fledged hospital. People are going in for treatment; if not for the Ruttonjee family, which came in the 1880s, also from India – Parsis – they would not be. Paul Chater, of Armenian descent, came from Calcutta (now Kolkata) – not ethnic Indian, but from India. The harbour, Hong Kong Land, Hongkong Electric – he had a role in them all. You don’t need to be ethnic Chinese to be a Hongkonger.

Happy place

If you go to Happy Valley, you’ll find eight religions coexisting in life and death. You have the Protestant cemetery, the Catholic cemetery, the Muslim cemetery, the Hindu temple, the Parsi cemetery, the Jewish cemetery; you have right next to the Jewish cemetery, a Buddhist school and monastery, founded by Lady Ho Tung. And you’ve got the Sikh temple right around the corner. Happy Valley, where my family lived for years, reflects the historical diversity of Hong Kong.

Open house

As we become much more integrated with mainland China, the catchword for Hong Kong should be openness. Openness is good for business, it’s good for tourism, it’s good for culture, it’s good for innovation, it’s good for diversity. People from outside do benefit Hong Kong. Being more connected to the rest of the world helps Hong Kong and it helps mainland China.