Two Studies Cut Short by War — Eileen Chang and Stanley Ho at HKU (1939–1942)

This is a dual profile from the "University of Hong Kong (HKU) Database" series, covering two well-known figures who both studied at HKU and whose studies were both cut short by the war in 1941: the writer Eileen Chang and the businessman Stanley Ho. In this archive's 00–12 reference section, we record real names as documented, without trust-level badges. For a broader portrait of alumni, see notable-alumni.md; for profiles of founding figures and University leadership, see faculty-and-leaders.md; for the wartime closure of the University, see ../00-overview/history.md.

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# I. Eileen Chang: The Faculty of Arts in 1939

• According to official HKU archival exhibition materials^※, Eileen Chang enrolled at HKU in August 1939 as a student of the Faculty of Arts.
• According to the same official materials^※, her subjects included English, History, Chinese (literature and translation), Logic and Psychology, with particularly strong results in English and History.
• According to the same materials^※, her academic record shows near-perfect attendance, though she took little part in extracurricular activities — the picture of a quiet, diligent student buried in her books.
• As for family background: Chang's grandmother, Li Juhu (李菊耦), was a daughter of the late-Qing statesman Li Hongzhang, making Eileen Chang his great-granddaughter^※; but by her father's generation the family had already fallen from its former glory. This backdrop of a declining mandarin household dovetails with the circumstances of her time at HKU, where she relied on scholarships to fund her studies.

# One Semester Short: The Fall of Hong Kong

• According to official HKU archival exhibition materials^※, from December 1941, Hong Kong fell and HKU's courses were suspended because of the war (the full story of the wartime closure is in ../00-overview/history.md).
• According to the same materials^※, she was caught by the war one semester short of graduation, and finally left the University in May 1942 without earning a degree.

Background note: On 25 December 1941, Hong Kong surrendered to Japan — "Black Christmas" — and the city ground to a halt; HKU closed its doors. Chang's studies stopped dead in their tracks. Hers is one story among countless Hong Kong people whose lives were reshaped by the three years and eight months of Japanese occupation. She eventually made her way back to Shanghai, where her most important creative period began.

# Hong Kong as a "Literary Starting Point"

The experience of HKU and wartime Hong Kong left a deep mark on Chang's later writing.

• According to official HKU archival exhibition materials^※, the exhibition — curated by Professor Nicole Huang — drew on previously unpublished HKU archives and other public and private collections, telling the story of "the beginnings of an extraordinary literary career", positioning the University as the starting point of her literary journey.
• According to the same materials^※, Chang herself said the wartime experience affected her profoundly, "cutting to the bone and changing me in a thoroughgoing way" (paraphrased from the original).
• This Hong Kong experience is widely regarded as having nourished her most famous works set in wartime Hong Kong (such as Love in a Fallen City and similar "romances of troubled times"), interweaving personal upheaval with the fate of the city. (Literary assessment belongs to public cultural discourse; this article reports plainly from official and press sources, and makes no literary judgments.)

For a student, the 1941 closure was undoubtedly a blow — scholarship, degree, the whole planned trajectory of a life, all dissolving in the flames of war. But for a future writer, that very "interruption" became raw material for her art. A besieged and occupied city; a youth spent amid gunfire and cancelled classes; the visceral experience that "civilisation could collapse at any moment" — all of this she would transmute into her work, a recurring undertone of her literary world. The official HKU exhibition's decision to call this period the "starting point of a literary career" captures precisely this insight: what HKU gave her was not so much the diploma she never received as an irreplaceable experience of "turbulent times" that would nourish a lifetime of writing. In this sense, HKU was never for Eileen Chang "a university she failed to finish", but rather "the site where literature happened".

# Faces on Campus: Norman France, Xu Dishan and Chen Yinke

Chang's three years at HKU were more than a list of subjects on a timetable; there were also particular faces.

• According to an account of her student years^※, her history teacher was the British professor Norman Hoole France; she lived in the women's hostel at 8 Pau Shan Lane, off campus, and would often go to the Fung Ping Shan Building — at the time the only Chinese-language library at HKU — to consult thread-bound classical volumes.
• France later became a recurring character archetype in Chang's writing. According to scholarly collations, he was the model for "Professor Anches" in Little Reunion, and the history professor in her essay "From the Ashes" who was "shot dead by his own side" during the Battle of Hong Kong. She wrote: "We received the news that Professor France, the history professor, had been shot — killed by his own men." Behind that sentence stands the absurdity and desperation shared by an entire generation of HKU students: in the days before the fall of Hong Kong, Chang and a large group of classmates signed up at the Air Raid Precautions headquarters and received their badges — the war was over before they had even worked out what an air-raid warden was supposed to do^※.
• Her Chinese teacher was Xu Dishan — appointed in 1935, on Hu Shih's recommendation, as HKU's first Chair Professor of Chinese^※, who restructured the curriculum around the four pillars of literature, history, philosophy and translation (for more on him, see lin-yutang-and-early-arts-faculty.md). Xu's scholarship paid close attention to daily life and material culture; later scholars have suggested that his essay "Chinese Women's Dress of the Last Three Hundred Years" had some influence on the way Chang wrote costume details (an academic observation — this archive makes no literary judgment); however, we have found no documentable record of direct teacher–student interaction between the two, so the claim that she "studied under" him is an inference, not something we state as fact.
• Teaching at HKU in the same period was the historian Chen Yinke, who briefly served in the Chinese Department — in September 1941, he took over as Chair Professor (acting) after Xu Dishan's death, lecturing on Sui and Tang history, but his tenure lasted less than four months before the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941 cut it short^※. The same war, in the same winter, simultaneously broke off the lectern of this great historian and the studies of a Faculty of Arts student — the professor and the undergraduate shared one HKU memory severed by the same gunfire.

# The Ho Fook Scholarship: A Hidden Link to the Other Protagonist

• According to publicly collated reports, Chang's results at HKU were excellent, and she received awards including the "Ho Fook Scholarship"^※.
• The scholarship's namesake, Ho Fook, was the grandfather of the other protagonist of this article — Stanley Ho — and the younger brother of Sir Robert Hotung. In other words, the scholarship that supported Eileen Chang's studies at HKU came from the same family as Stanley Ho himself. The two studies cut short by war were, from the very beginning, quietly intertwined through this scholarship. The official HKU exhibition does not single out this detail; we record it plainly from the available reports for readers' reference.

# 1952: Two Months of Re-enrolment and a Row over a Grant

• The story between Chang and HKU did not end with the war. According to an account of her life^※, in 1952 she applied to leave Shanghai on the grounds of "returning to HKU to resume her studies", and was granted permission to go to Hong Kong; with the help of a friend of her mother's, then a lecturer at HKU, she completed the re-enrolment formalities and received a grant^※.
• But after only about two months of classes, she left in November 1952 for Tokyo to visit her close friend Fatima Mohideen, and never returned to HKU's lecture halls^※. According to the same source, HKU subsequently asked her to return the grant already paid out; after negotiation, she agreed to repay it in nine instalments.
• This account differs from another version in circulation, that her 1952 application to resume studies was rejected by the University (see "Unverified / To Be Checked" at the end). We follow the version with the more detailed verifiable record — that her re-enrolment was approved, that she studied briefly and then withdrew of her own accord — and set it alongside the alternative for readers to compare. Either way, the outcome is the same: Eileen Chang never formally obtained a degree from HKU.

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# II. Stanley Ho: A Science Student in the Same Years

• According to his honorary degree citation in the HKU Honorary Graduates database^※, Stanley Ho entered the University on a government scholarship to read science.
• According to the same citation^※, "but in his third year, before he could graduate, the Japanese came" — with the outbreak of the Battle of Hong Kong in late 1941, HKU closed and his studies were interrupted.

# Background: A Branch of the Ho Tung Family, and a Reversal of Fortune

• According to collated accounts of his family lineage^※, Stanley Ho came from the prominent Ho Tung family of Hong Kong. His grandfather Ho Fook was the younger brother of Sir Robert Hotung, making Stanley Ho a grand-nephew of Sir Robert and a member of the third generation of the family — one branch of the same extended clan as Sir Robert's daughters Ho Oi-ling and Eva Hotung (the two protagonists of the University's first female students; see first-female-students-1921.md).
• According to the same source^※, Ho's father lost his business in 1934, and the family's fortunes declined. This is one reason he went on to attend Queen's College and then HKU on a government scholarship — rather than family money. He did not walk into HKU with a silver spoon; he won his place on his own academic merit, in a household whose name still carried weight but whose wealth had already dwindled.

# Wartime: Air-Raid Warden and the Macau Years

• According to his HKU honorary degree citation^※, during the hostilities in Hong Kong he served as an air-raid warden;
• according to the same citation^※, he then went to neutral Macau; according to collated accounts of his life^※, he first joined a Sino-Portuguese-Japanese joint venture, the Cia. de Macau (Luen Chong) Ltd, working his way up through shipping-related business. The training of an HKU science student and the trading opportunities of wartime Macau together formed the first foundation stone of his later business empire.

# Post-War: Back to Hong Kong and the Macau Gambling Concession (1947–1962)

• According to his HKU honorary degree citation^※, he returned to Hong Kong in 1947, going on to build a vast business network across property, shipping, hotels and many other fields.
• According to collated materials on STDM^※, in 1961 Ho formed a consortium with Yip Hon, Henry Fok and Stanley Yip Tak-lei to bid for the Macau gambling monopoly; in October 1962 the consortium won the concession with a bid of HK$3.167 million — just HK$17,000 more than the incumbent franchise holder^※. The new consortium immediately established the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM), and Ho took up the post of managing director as shareholder representative and license holder^※, presiding over Macau's gambling industry for more than four decades.
• His business career — especially the detailed running and evaluation of the Macau gambling industry — belongs to the realm of biography and business history. Following this archive's fact-based conventions, we record only his connections to and donations for HKU, together with the family and entrepreneurial background mentioned in the University's official citation, without venturing into commercial controversies.

# Return to HKU: Honorary Doctorate and Sports Facilities

• According to his HKU honorary degree citation^※, HKU conferred on him an honorary Doctor of Social Sciences (honoris causa) at the 130th Congregation in 1987.
• According to the same citation^※, his donations to the University included educational and sporting facilities such as the Stanley Ho Sports Centre at Sha Wan and the Flora Ho Sports Centre. (For venue details, see ../07-student-life/sports-venues-and-namesakes.md).
• According to HKU's memorial announcement^※, the University called him "a distinguished & loyal alumnus".

Full circle: a science student who could not graduate in 1941 because of the war returned to the HKU podium in 1987 as an honorary doctor, and left his name on campus by donating sports facilities. "The degree never earned" and "the venue that bears his name" form a telling contrast at the heart of his relationship with the University.

This contrast reflects something common in the relationship between HKU and Hong Kong's entire "wartime generation". These students enrolled in the late 1930s, had their studies forcibly interrupted in 1941, and after the war built careers in business, the professions and public service; once established and secure, they gave back to their alma mater through donations, Council membership and scholarships. Stanley Ho is simply one clearly documented example — between his "unfinished degree" and his later "substantial donations" lay a war and decades of struggle. For HKU, the value of such alumni lies not only in the money itself, but in the way they give concrete, personal form to the memory that "this University stood with Hong Kong through its darkest years". When later generations exercise at the Stanley Ho Sports Centre, the ground beneath their feet is, in a sense, a wartime HKU student's lifelong repayment — a look back at his alma mater.

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# III. The Ho Fook Scholarship: A Barely Visible Thread Between Two Lives

In one sentence: the Ho Fook Scholarship that supported Eileen Chang at HKU was named after Stanley Ho's grandfather — the two protagonists' HKU years were not merely "same university, same era, both cut short by war", but were also quietly joined by this scholarship.

• Ho Fook was the younger brother of Sir Robert Hotung^※. In the first half of the 20th century, the Ho Tung family were both enormously wealthy and keen patrons of education — the early development of Chinese studies in HKU's Faculty of Arts (the building of the Tang Chi Ngong Building and the Fung Ping Shan Library; see lin-yutang-and-early-arts-faculty.md), and the education of Sir Robert's two daughters among HKU's first female students (see first-female-students-1921.md), are both connected to this family. The Ho Fook Scholarship was part of this tradition of family-funded philanthropy.
• Eileen Chang financed part of her studies through this scholarship^※, while its namesake's grandson, Stanley Ho, was at that very moment a third-year science student at the same university. The two may never have met, but both sat within the same pre-war network of HKU patronage — woven together from prominent Hong Kong families, church girls' schools and government scholarships.
• This thread is a reminder that the "individual stories" in HKU profiles are rarely isolated: the same donors and the same families recur across different alumni's records, forming a denser web of relationships than any surface narrative suggests.

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# IV. Two Lives Compared

This table is a reminder: the same war, the same university, and almost the same cohort of young people — and yet after the flames, each went down an entirely different path in life. HKU remembers the two in different ways, too — one through scholarly curatorship and literary-historical narrative, the other through an honorary degree and the ceremonial giving of bricks and mortar. But the underlying story is the same: "the studies were interrupted by war, but the lives were not."

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# Unverified / To Be Checked

• The specific year and amount of Eileen Chang's Ho Fook Scholarship: the official HKU archival exhibition materials do not mention this scholarship specifically; this article reports it from public accounts. The exact year and amount await verification from HKU's archives.
• Chang's movements after leaving HKU and the precise date of her return to Shanghai: this belongs to the realm of personal biography; this article records only her HKU years. See her biographies and Wikipedia entry.
• The correspondence between Chang's specific works and her Hong Kong experience: this belongs to the realm of literary criticism; this article makes no literary judgments per the fact-based conventions of this archive, and merely reports public discourse.
• Discrepancies in the account of Chang's 1952 re-enrolment: one version says her application was approved, she studied for two months, left for Japan of her own accord, and was later pursued for repayment of her grant (per NetEase News); another says her application was rejected (as relayed in notable-alumni.md). Both are secondary biographical collations; this article sets them side by side as unresolved, and the definitive account rests with HKU's archives or an authoritative biography.
• Norman Hoole France — his life and detailed career: this article, following biographical accounts of Chang, describes him as a history professor who died in the Battle of Hong Kong; we have not found an independent record in official HKU archives, so we list this as a secondary-source fact.
• The exact years of Stanley Ho's enrolment and interruption: the HKU citation notes "third year, before graduating, when the Japanese came"; public collations generally give "enrolled 1939, interrupted 1941". This article follows that phrasing; the exact academic years await confirmation from HKU records.
• Details of Stanley Ho's wartime experience at the Luen Chong company in Macau: this belongs to his personal biography; this article records only, from Wikipedia collations, that he "joined the Luen Chong company, working in shipping-related business", without expanding on specific roles or operations.
• The exact amount of Stanley Ho's donations: the citation notes his donations of "tens of millions of dollars" for educational and sporting facilities; itemised amounts can be found in ../08-finances/benefactors-and-donors.md and HKU's donation archives.

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