Elsie Tu

Elsie Tu, GBM (Grand Bauhinia Medal), CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) (née Hume; Chinese: 杜葉錫恩; 2 June 1913 – 8 December 2015), known as Elsie Elliott in her earlier life, was an English-born Hong Kong social activist, elected member of the Urban Council of Hong Kong from 1963 to 1995, and member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1988 and 1995.

Born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, Tu moved to Hong Kong in 1951 following a period as a missionary in China. She became known for her strong antipathy towards colonialism and corruption, as well as for her work for the underprivileged. She fought for gay rights, better housing, welfare services, playgrounds, bus routes, hawker licenses and innumerable other issues and her campaigning is credited with leading to the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974. She was seen by public as "Hongkong's most widely admired personality".

In the run up to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China and the midst of the Sino-British conflict on the 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform, Tu found favour with the Chinese Communist authorities, and taking a seat on the Beijing-controlled Provisional Legislative Council, from December 1996 to June 1998, after losing both her seats in the Urban and Legislative Councils in 1995 to another prominent democrat Szeto Wah. In post-1997 Hong Kong, although without a formal public role, Tu consistently supported the SAR government and policies including the controversial Basic Law Article 23 legislation.

Early life

Tu was born to John and Florence Hume on 2 June 1913 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the second child of four from a poor background. After attending Benwell Girls Secondary School and Heaton Secondary School, she went on to study at Armstrong College, a forerunner of Newcastle University, graduating in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts. From 1937 to 1947 she was a schoolteacher in Halifax, where, during World War II, she was a Civil Defence volunteer.

Hume converted to Christianity in 1932. In 1946 she married William "Bill" Elliott, and went with him to China as a missionary in 1947. After the Communists took power in 1949, foreign missionaries were expelled from the Mainland and the couple moved to Hong Kong in 1951. Shocked by the poverty there, Elsie became disenchanted with her husband's extreme Protestant faith and the refusal of their church, the Plymouth Brethren, to become involved in social issues. The couple eventually separated during an abortive trip back to England, and later divorced. Elsie left the Plymouth Brethren and returned to Hong Kong alone. At that time, she lived for a time in a kitchen in a Kowloon Walled City tenement.

In 1954, she founded and worked in Mu Kuang English School for poor children in the squatter area near Kai Tak. She started with 30 pupils in an old army tent. For a year, she had to depend debt on giving private lessons and teaching in other schools while tending her own, she lived on little else but bread and water until employed at Baptist College. The Mu Kuang English School is now situated on Kung Lok Road in Kwun Tong, serving 1,300 children of Hong Kong's low-income families. She remained as the school principal until 2000.

Political career

Colonial period

Becoming politically active, Elliott was elected for the first time to the Urban Council, then the only public body with a partially publicly elected membership, in 1963 as a member of Brook Bernacchi's Reform Club. Later she left the Reform Club and ran as an independent candidate. She then remained a Urban Councillor until her defeat in 1995 and had always been re-elected with the highest votes. She was also the spokeswoman for the United Nations Association of Hong Kong, which advocated for self-government in the colony in the 1960s. In 1966, Elliott went to London and met with politicians including Secretary of State for the Colonies Frederick Lee and members of parliament, demanding for an investigation on the economic and judicial inequality and corruption in the colonial government and self-government in Hong Kong like the other British colonies.

In 1965, the Star Ferry applied for an increase of First Class fare by 5 Hong Kong cents (from 20 cents to 25 cents). This was widely opposed in Hong Kong. Elliott collected over 20,000 signatories opposing the plan, and flew to London in an attempt to arrest the plan. The increase in fare was given its go-ahead in March 1966 by the Transport Advisory Committee, where the only vote opposing was Elliott's. Inspired by Elliot's actions, on 4 April 1966, a young man named So Sau-chung began a hunger strike protest at the Star Ferry Terminal in Central with his black jacket upon which he had hand-written the words "Hail Elsie", "Join hunger strike to block fare increase". So was soon arrested and more protests were sparked which eventually turned into the Kowloon riots in April 1966. Elliott faced smear attacks from the pro-government media, trying to portrayed as the instigator of the riots. She faced persecution from the government as a result. She was not convicted of any charge in the end.

From the 1960s to 1980s, Elliott fought for gay rights, better housing, welfare services, playgrounds, bus routes, hawker licenses and innumerable other issues. She was especially an opponent of the corruption then endemic in many areas of Hong Kong life and the influence of the Triads. She also campaigned for better working and housing conditions for the poor. Her actions gained her popularity and reputation as the fighter for the underprivileged and the most outspoken critic of the British colonial rule. Though many in ruling circles disliked Elliott "rocking the boat", her campaigning is credited with leading to the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974.

In 1980 it was revealed by investigative journalist Duncan Campbell that she was under surveillance by the Special Branch of the then Royal Hong Kong Police. This, however, did not worry Elliott as she stated: "I know my telephone was tapped and probably is at this moment but I have done nothing wrong and have no political affiliations." Later, Tu wrote in her semi-autobiographical work, Colonial Hong Kong in the Eyes of Elsie Tu, that her phone line was already tapped in 1970.

Run up to 1997

Tu was appointed as a HKSAR Basic Law Consultative Committee member in 1985 before the handover. In 1988 she was first elected to the Legislative Council through the Urban Council electoral college.

In the period leading up to Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, Tu became an advocate of slower pace in democratisation (as preferred by the Chinese government, which markets it as "gradual pace") as opposed to many other democrats who advocate faster-pace democratisation (such as Emily Lau and Martin Lee). She opposed strongly to the last Governor Chris Patten's electoral reform and questioned the British refused to give Hong Kong democracy all along but put forward reforms only in the last years of its rule. She attacked governor Chris Patten as a hypocrite. Her popularity remained high and topped a public opinion poll as "Hongkong's most widely admired personality" in 1993.

In the Urban Council election in March 1995, she lost her seat after 32 years of service to another democratic icon Szeto Wah, whose campaign targeted Tu's perceived pro-Beijing stance. In the Legislative Council election held September in the same year, she left her Urban Council constituency and went for the Kowloon East direct election but was defeated by Szeto Wah again.

Between 1996 and 1998, she served on the Provisional Legislative Council, which was controlled by the Beijing government. Response to her opponents' criticisms of her being increasingly pro-Beijing, she said "I'm not for China, I'm not for Britain. I've always been for the people of Hong Kong and for justice. I will do the work I've always done and stand for the people who get a raw deal."

Retirement and death

Tu left active politics and closed her office in 1998 but continued to comment on social issues and turned in articles to newspapers to criticise government policies she deemed unfair or inadequate.

In 2002, she wrote to the Legislative Council in support of the legislation of the anti-subversion laws under the Basic Law Article 23, which was largely unpopular among the public, fearing it would be threat to civil liberty. The controversy over the Article 23 sparked the 1 July Protest of 2003 with the record of more than 500,000 demonstrators.

In 2007, she publicly endorsed Regina Ip, the former Secretary for Security who was responsible for the 2003 legislation of Article 23 and supported by the pro-Beijing camp, running for the Legislative Council by-election against Anson Chan who was the former Chief Secretary for Administration and supported by the pro-democracy camp.

In 2013, she criticised the widening income disparity in Hong Kong and the tycoons who have no conscience, expressing sympathy for striking dock workers against billionaire Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa.

Tu turned 100 in June 2013. She died from pneumonia-related complications at the Kwun Tong United Christian Hospital on 8 December 2015, aged 102.

Marriages

Elsie married William "Bill" Elliott who worked in the Plymouth Brethren missionary in 1946 and went with him to China in 1947. She became increasingly disillusioned with her husband's fundamentalism and the refusal of their church. The couple eventually separated during an abortive trip back to England, and later divorced.

She later met her second husband, Andrew Tu Hsueh-kwei, who came from Inner Mongolia at the Mu Kuang English School as a longtime working partner in her education work. In 1985, 30 years after the two teachers met, they finally got married when Elise was 71 and Andrew was 63. The old couple remained married until Andrew died in 2001.

Works

Tu wrote two volumes of autobiography, as well as other works. Colonial Hong Kong in the Eyes of Elsie Tu was published in 2003 and Shouting at the Mountain: A Hong Kong story of love and commitment, cowritten with Andrew Tu, tells the couple’s lives dedicated to the society. It was completed after Andrew Tu’s death in 2001 and published in 2005.

She also completed the publication of her husband Andrew's autobiography of his childhood in Inner Mongolia, Camel Bells in the Windy Desert.

Honours

Tu received numerous honours in recognition of her services to Hong Kong. In 1975, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, often called "Asia's Nobel Prize". She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1977 for her work against corruption. She was among the first recipients of the Grand Bauhinia Medal (GBM), the highest honour in the SAR award system in 1997.

A number of honorary degrees were also conferred on her. Although she graduated from Durham University, the Armstrong College where she studied separated with Durham University in 1963 to become the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. She received honorary doctoral degrees in Civil Law from both universities in 1996.