The Wealth Dragon Way. Lee John
and vain. But my mother ignored his protests and took me for regular perms until we left Hong Kong, when I was 12 years old.
My parents' decision to leave Hong Kong was largely based on their desire to give us a British education in the UK. There were two great universities in Hong Kong that were based on the British system, but there was huge competition for places and you needed exceptional grades to get in. My parents felt we would all have a better chance of getting a good higher education if we went back to England and were educated there. My father was also concerned about the changes that might occur in 1997, when Hong Kong would be handed back to the Chinese. I was always going to be a British citizen, having been born in Liverpool, but people born in Hong Kong were unsure where they would stand in terms of citizenship once Hong Kong was no longer a British colony. My father's friend who worked in the immigration office suggested to him that the right to British citizenship, even for those who were born in Hong Kong under British rule, might get complicated. He didn't want to run the risk of being stuck in China.
So in 1979, with Britain on the brink of a historic shift in power led by the first female prime minister (the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher had just won the general election), we arrived in Wembley. We moved into a new house and I started attending the London Oratory School, a grant-maintained Catholic boys' school in Fulham. My life changed forever. There was no more TV work, no more adoring fans; it was just a regular schoolboy's life. It was a huge adjustment for me. Plus I had to get used to a whole new look in the hair department…because no hairdresser in England would give a 12-year-old boy a perm!
For the first time in my life I really felt – and knew– I was different, and not in a good way. I stood out a mile at school because I looked so different from the other boys. It made me feel as if I were somehow ugly and substandard. I became very withdrawn because, like John, I got teased and bullied for being Chinese. I got called racist names and left out of social events. I never had girlfriends like all the other boys did. I had absolutely no confidence and very low self-esteem. It was like I had a complete loss of identity. My early teenage years were probably the lowest time of my life. I was thoroughly depressed.
Life at home only exacerbated my low mood. My father was a bully and an autocrat. He believed in corporal punishment and often physically struck my older sister and me when we had done something he disapproved of. For some reason he never laid a finger on my younger sister; she was exempt from the beatings. By today's standards you would call him abusive, but back then many parents believed it was their right to punish their children with physical force. It was tough to grow up with this style of discipline and difficult to understand what drove him; I think he was trying to curb what he saw as an excessively arrogant attitude in me. What hurt worse than the beatings was the idea that I had let my father down. I craved his acceptance and praise. I felt as if nothing I ever did was good enough. To this day he never tells me he's proud of me; he is as dismissive of me and as negative as he's always been. It's taken me many years, and it's been an uphill struggle, to make peace with his behaviour. In the end, I've put it down to a generational difference of opinion. Whatever I felt, he believed that what he was doing was right and best for us. I know in my heart that he is proud of me; he just doesn't know how to show it, so there is no point in staying angry with him. I have accepted him as he is and forgiven him for things he will never apologise for. But I am at peace with my relationship with him. I am simply glad that I have broken the chain because I am a completely different father to my children. I would never punish them physically; I try to praise them and use positive, loving words with them on a daily basis.
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