They are not like the Chinese post grads I knew 40-50 years ago.
When I was an undergrad at Imperial College in 1968-71, we had three ethnic Chinese in our class. One from Singapore and two from Hong Kong. One of the two from Hong Kong always wore a rather tired looking grey suit and a soiled tie. He was not very good at English. I was a bit surprised as to how he got to enter this rather selective institution. He often arrived late. he always sat at the back row. He often looked tired. I felt sorry for him. I assumed he was working late at some Chinese restaurant to pay for his studies. Only much later did I realise the truth.
He was the oldest brother. The one who got kidnapped. The ransom was reputed to be $80m – a lot of money in 1997.
