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Jimmy Minoo Master on life as fourth generation Parsi Hongkonger
Jimmy Minoo Master went from importing Indian textiles to running a Swiss asset firm. Now he plays golf and runs a family charity
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MY PARENTS WERE married in Hong Kong in 1949. My mother, who is 98 years old, was also born in Hong Kong, in 1926. I was told by my grandfather that his wife, Tehmi Pheroz Pavri, was the first Parsi married lady to live in Hong Kong on a permanent basis. Prior to that, all married Parsi women were left in Bombay (Mumbai). For some reason, my grandfather, who was already in Hong Kong with his father, brought her out from Bombay after marriage. I think she was all of 17 or 18 years old when she came to Hong Kong, just after the first world war.
MY MATERNAL great-grandfather came from Bombay to Canton around 1880 and established a trading office. In those days all Indian and other foreign traders established an office on Shamian Island. Then they had an office in Macau and then Hong Kong. Depending on the tides and the winds, ships used to berth in one of these three ports. After the Boxer rebellion (1900), many foreign traders decided that China was no longer safe and moved en masse to Hong Kong. The Parsi merchants in particular made that decision. So, the permanent community of Parsis in Hong Kong, which was negligible before then, increased dramatically. I’m the fourth generation in Hong Kong and my grandchildren are the sixth, which is very unusual in the Parsi community.
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