The ‘Father of 100 Schools’

Tin Ka-ping was honored as the “Father of 100 Schools” for his contributions to education. What is unknown to most people is that he earned the accolade at great personal sacrifice. For all the wealth Tin had earned as a successful businessman, his greatest commitment was to help build schools to give kids the chance he never had.

In 2001, when the special administrative region was still struggling to get back on its feet after the Asian financial crisis, the Hong Kong billionaire sold his HK$100-million villa in Kowloon at an undersold price of HK$56 million. He donated all the proceeds from the sale to the building of more than 20 new secondary schools. Tin’s family had to move into a 130-square-meter flat after the 700-square-meter mansion, which had been home to his family for 37 years, was sold.

“I did think it (the villa) was a waste of money,” Tin explained in his autobiography.

Tin sold his villa at a time when the Tin Ka Ping Foundation he had founded in 1982 ran into financial straits — a cash shortage. That didn’t stop Tin. In 2004, he got a HK$6-million bank loan on his property and donated the money to City University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Chang Hsin-kang, former president of CityU, recalled Tin handing over a HK$5-million check in his office one day in 2004. Tin said he had applied for the loan under his own name because the foundation, at that time, was short of money.

“I was so moved that I didn’t know what to say and how to deal with the check from this honest elderly man,” Chang told the Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao.

Tin’s foundation has sponsored hundreds of education projects not only in his hometown — Meizhou city of Guangdong province — but also across the country, including the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Tin didn’t just contribute from a distance; he got right into school events, communicating with students, teachers and giving talks to do his best for the betterment of education and society as a whole.

In 2009, when he was 90, Tin went to Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong, and presented two-hour lectures at Jinan University and South China Agricultural University (SCAU).

At SCAU, students called him “Grandpa Tin”. In his address, he encouraged students to live a meaningful and fulfilled life with anecdotes from his own experience.

One of those who attended the lecture, a blogger calling himself Feiyu, recalled that the philanthropist patiently gave detailed answers to more than 10 students’ questions about life, career and family after the lecture.

The blogger went on, saying that Tin spent much time communicating with the students and they repaid him with their deep respect.