Ho Kwon Ping
Template:TOCnestleft Ho Kwon Ping is the founder of Banyan Tree, a worldwide chain of luxury resorts based in Asia.
"I belonged to the baby-boom generation" he says. He attended Stanford University in California, and protested against the Vietnam war. Later, whilst working as a journalist, Mr Ho ended up in jail in Singapore as a result of controversial articles he'd written for the Far East Economic Review. He describes his two months in prison as a "sobering experience."
"You realise in solitary confinement who you are and who you are not," he says. "I realised I was not a Nelson Mandela. I was not ever going to be. The causes for which I might have been imprisoned were not the causes that…I really could identify with."
Nevertheless, Mr Ho feels that he and many of his generation have not completely lost touch with the spirit of those times. "Many of those people who were young, idealistic and got into jail or got kicked out of universities, and are successful people today, haven't forgotten their ideals. They've just found different ways to express them."
After his release Mr Ho continued to work as a journalist, settling on one of Hong Kong's offshore islands with his wife.
They lived in a small fishing village. But despite the fact that they were "pretty impoverished", he says it was an "idyllic" period of time. Indeed his company is named after Banyan Tree Bay where they lived for three years.
Business career
Ho Kwon Ping's foray into the business world came several years later when he decided to join the family business after his father suffered a stroke. He says he quickly decided that it needed a completely new direction.
"The primary thing that we were doing, which I felt was not viable and which today remains to me in many ways the curse of Asian businesses, was contract manufacturing… just a technical term for being a sub-contractor."
Adversity is not a bad thing. That's how Banyan Tree was born - because we had no beach front.
He explains: "You never owned the market, you never owned the brand…the margins are squeezed all the time."
"I decided we had to have a brand and we had to be global in nature… With that intent, I needed to find some business other than what we were doing," he says.
The opportunity came when a hotel they built in Phuket in Thailand was proving difficult to let because of its lack of a beach front.
"Necessity really is the mother of all creativity and we are a living example of that," he says. In his endeavour to attract guests to the hotel, Ho Kwon Ping was inspired to build villas rather than rooms, each with its own swimming pool.
The same line of thought led him to create one of Banyan Tree's feature attractions: the hotel spa.
He says that without the initial problem he wouldn't have been stretched to build a hotel different to the rest. "I've always believed that sometimes it is in solving a problem that great ideas come forth… Adversity is not a bad thing. That's how Banyan Tree was born - because we had no beach front."
But Mr Ho admits his originality didn't always sit well with others, supposedly more expert in the hotel industry. Consultants he hired refused to accept that the tropical spa could be adapted from the European model and they quit in exasperation.
Mr Ho believes the key to success lies in the ability to give customers "a true sense of place, wherever you are".[1]
Attacking Shockley
A rally calling for the ouster of Nobel Prize-winning physicist and engineering professor William Shockley drew about 350 people to White Plaza 16 February 1972at noon, including the subject of the rally himself. Shockley sat expressionless but tight-lipped while a succession of speakers branded him a "mother-fucking racist" and an "oppressor." Later, Shockley briefly addressed the crowd, telling them that "I do not find any respect for the power of rational thinking" at the rally. The rally, sponsored by the Third World Coalition Against Shockley, heard from several minority group speakers before marching to President Lyman's office and posting a resolution on his door calling for a committee to investigate charges of racism against Shockley and "any member of the faculty or professional staff' so charged. Burn In Effigy The group of about 80 marchers
then burned Shockley in effigy outside Lyman's office before dispersing. At the White Plaza rally, former ASSU elections commissioner Alice Furumoto called Shockley "a mother-fucking racist" as he stood not more than five feet away. BSU member Chris Fleming expanded the attack to include Faculty Club chef Arturo Lionetti for his attempt to block black Harvard Club member Roy Boggs from a recent club function and also the Stanford Indian mascot. Chris Yee then handed Shockley a sign to hold that read "One Shockley Among Many." Shockley wrote on the other side "Truth . . . Concern . . . Death" and held it silently while Yee spoke. 'Color-Code' Bill Flores of MEChA and Juan Flores of Venceremos and the Faculty Political Action Group also spoke, along with others.
About 80 people then marched to Lyman's office, where Ho Kwon Ping announced: 1) that there would be a rally at 8:30 a.m. this morning to block recruiting of naval missile engineers at the Placement Center; 2) that four students arrested for disrupting Shockley's class last month would face CJP proceedings Monday; and 3) that Ho's own CJP hearing in connection with the so-called Faculty Club eat-in would begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Art Auditorium.[2]
Invading Shockley
The Campus Judicial Panel (CJP) began hearings Feb 21 1972 for four students charged with violation of the Policy on Campus Disruption for entering the class of Electrical Engineering Professor William Shockley on January 18. The four are Venceremos members Don Lee, Alice Furumoto and Gerry Foote and Third World Liberation Front member Ho Kwon Ping.[3]
Shockley testimony
A key defense witness had his testimony stricken from the record yesterday for refusing to identify an informant in the Campus Judicial Panel hearings of three persons charged with disrupting Professor William Shockley's quantum mechanics class January 18 1972 . The three defendants are Don Lee, Ho Kwon Ping, and Alice Furumoto. In addition, the defense submitted for decision the case of Gerry Foote, originally charged with the other three, without presenting any testimony in her behalf. Her case will not be officially concluded until the prosecution recalls one of its witnesses against her.
The testimony of Bill Flores, a Political Science graduate student, was stricken after he refused to tell the prosecution the name of the person who informed him that there would be a disruption of Shockley's class. Hearing Officer Henry Ramsey overruled strong defense objections by claiming that the question concerned the "veracity of the witness." Defense co-counsel Ricardo De Anda told Flores, "You don't have to answer that if you're going to get somebody in trouble." Flores again refused to answer and his testimony was thrown out. The defense was dealt another blow earlier in the day when Ramsey would not allow them to present testimony relating to what constitutes a disruption in a classroom situation. In obtaining the objection, Ramsey declared, "The charge of the hearing officer is to find out what the hell happened in that class and not what this professor things." He then recessed the hearing until the afternoon. In his stricken testimony Flores claimed Shockley made taunting remarks to the person who read a statement condemning Shockley and asking him to debate. Flores said Shockley's remarks stirred up the originally quiet group of demonstrators. After Shockley had agreed to a debate with Psychology Professor Cedric Clark, Flores testified that the demonstrators left when they felt their purpose had been accomplished.
Flores remembered Furumoto speaking out only once during the half hour protest and Ho only twice. In addition, Flores said there were only three whites in the room, and that they were "observers instead of participants" because the protest was largely run by Third World people. The only testimony entered into the record yesterday was given by Charlie Bennett, a KZSU news analyst. Bennett remembered Shockley saying, toward the end of the protest, "I would vote for the suspension of any student who has disrupted my class."[4]