I WAS BORN IN LONDON, but my father got a job in the Hallé orchestra as a clarinettist, so we all moved up to Manchester. My childhood was spent mostly in the town of Wilmslow, Cheshire, and I went to a specialist secondary school called Chetham’s School of Music, in central Manchester. My parents were both professional classical musicians, so I had a very bohemian upbringing. People sometimes ask me where I get my discipline from. I guess it was from that school, where we had to practise for three hours a day and it was hammered into us that it would take at least 10 years to become a good player. I learned the viola and the piano.
Houng with daughter Becky in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in 1992. Photo: courtesy Jane Houng
I WAS THE OLDEST SIBLING – my parents had four of us in six years. I think my dear parents just ran out of time and energy to sit with the others. I remember my mother sitting down with me every morning for piano practice, but I was the only one. I read music at Newnham College, Cambridge University. I met Philip (Dykes, barrister and twice chairman of the Council of the Hong Kong Bar Association) in 1982. We met through my mother, funnily enough. She had gone on a Ridgway activity holiday in Scotland. She was newly retired and Philip happened to be at the same event. She invited him to visit (he also lived in Manchester at the time) and I happened to be up from London. We married in 1984.
Becky on Lantau Peak, Hong Kong, in 2016. Photo: courtesy Jane Houng
IT WAS DECEMBER 1984 when we came out to Hong Kong. Philip had got a job in the attorney general’s chambers here and it sounded wonderful. It was so exciting, this idea of going to live in Hong Kong. I auditioned for the Hong Kong Philharmonic. I didn’t get a full-time job, but I got lots of freelance work. I had two children quite quickly, Harriet in 1985 and Becky in 87. I learned Mandarin between 1989 and 1991, earning a certificate in Chinese language at the University of Hong Kong. Many of the musicians were from the mainland, so I heard a lot of Mandarin and I became interested in the language and culture. I have a great respect for many aspects of Chinese culture and if you look back to the Tang dynasty, or early Ming, it was one that valued art, philosophy and the peaceful life, living close to nature, all the kinds of ways that I like to live my life.
Houng with daughter Harriet and her grandsons. Photo: courtesy Jane Houng
AS WELL AS PLAYING in the Philharmonic, I worked for RTHK as a producer and presenter of classical music programmes for Radio 4; as a newsreader for ATV; and I taught at Hong Kong U in the music department. Harriet and Becky had a comfortable expat lifestyle and went to the Chinese International School. They were fluent in Mandarin. I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mum and in the early 90s I worked as general manager of the Hong Kong and Macau franchise of Body Shop. Margaret Tancock was about 20 years older than me. She worked with an Indian designer and had boutiques selling Western-style clothes to local women. The Body Shop was becoming popular in Britain and she saw another business opportunity. Once she got the franchise for the Body Shop here, the sales went vroom! She hired me and I worked for her for three years. In more recent years, I have enjoyed writing seven children’s books that have been published in Hong Kong.
Jane with second husband Houng Wang-leung on their wedding day. Photo: courtesy Jane Houng
AROUND 20 YEARS AGO, I married my second husband, Houng Wang-leung. He played cello in the Hong Kong Philharmonic for more than 30 years. My daughters eventually went to boarding school in Britain. In 2005, Becky graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in social anthropology. She was always interested in people, a real humanitarian. I lost Becky in December 2017. She was murdered by a taxi driver in Beirut. She worked as a programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development. It was her first posting to Lebanon, although she’d been sent to other countries, dodgy countries, such as Libya and Somalia. So, when I heard that she’d been offered a permanent posting in Lebanon, I was relieved.
A portrait of Becky outside Beirut’s National Museum during a candlelight vigil to raise awareness about violence against women, on December 23, 2017. Photo: AFP
GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IS A PROBLEM all over the world. And as a result of my loss, I’ve created this, hopefully, global movement to enhance women’s safety and build safer communities. I created the charity Becky’s Button, which distributes free safety alarms to vulnerable women. The main reason for the charity being called Becky’s Button is that within a week of losing my daughter, I had this idea: if she’d been wearing a panic button, it could have saved her life. And, of course, now I know all the ghastly details about how she lost her life. The first thing the taxi driver did was grab her handbag – she had no access to her phone. The panic button is a lo-tech device manufactured in China. With one press it emits a high-decibel sound.
Becky’s Button is a small, lightweight and clippable panic button designed to have a noise level that can deter attackers, draw attention of passers-by and give the wearer precious seconds to escape. Photo: Facebook
WE TRIALLED IT IN GREECE in 2021 at a camp for Syrian refugees. Within a month, we got proof that there was a poor woman living in a tent who was walking to the toilet and got accosted by four men. She’d had a Becky’s Button with her and the men ran away. Since then, I’ve moved on to Lebanon, which was an obvious choice. There’s tremendous support. It’s a small population of 5 million but it was such a high-profile case. I can talk to the president, I can talk to other taxi drivers. I get a really good response. What’s keeping me busy at the moment is a project called the Rebecca Dykes Changemaker Challenge. We’re working with students in Lebanon to challenge misogyny. The challenge is, when we put it out to all universities across Lebanon and to secondary schools, for young people to come up with an idea about how they could make their educational institution or other places safer for women, and how to appeal to men to get them to change their behaviour. I cry every morning about the loss of Becky.
Britain’s King Charles presents an Elizabeth Emblem award to Houng for Becky during the inaugural presentation ceremony at Windsor Castle in December 2024. Photo: Getty Images
IN DECEMBER 2024, I was presented (by Britain’s King Charles) with the new Elizabeth Emblem award for emergency workers killed on duty to honour Becky. My older daughter, Harriet, is now a judge and has two children. I’ve lived in Hong Kong for 40 years. And these days, for personal and charity reasons, it’s where I will stay. I live on Lantau and enjoy being out in nature.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
