Last week I was in Hong Kong to attend an Asian conference. When a Parsi friend heard that I will be in town, I was invited for dinner at the Kowloon Cricket Club situated in the Jordan area of Kowloon. The first thing I noticed on entering the club was the bust of a Parsi in a traditional Parsi Paghdi. As one who works in the Fort area in Mumbai, I see Parsi statues every day. However, seeing a Parsi statue in Hong Kong made me feel quite proud and excited.

The bust was of Sir Hormusjee N. Mody, the first President and a major benefactor of the Kowloon Cricket Club. However, his most enduring legacy was the founding of the University of Hong Kong. Mody’s donation covered the full cost of constructing the university’s main building and included a substantial endowment to ensure its ongoing operations, setting a precedent that encouraged further contributions from others.

I was also told of a portrait of the pioneering philanthropic Parsi merchant prince, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy (1783–1859), which hangs in the Hong Kong offices of Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd. They had formed an effective partnership in the 19^th century, with Jejeebhoy as the chief partner in Bombay for the China trade. The portrait is displayed on a private staircase in Jardine House, Hong Kong.

Iconic Star Ferry

The venue of my conference was the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and adjacent to it was the Wan Chai Star Ferry Pier. The ‘Star Ferry’ is an iconic water transport service initially known as the Kowloon Ferry Company. It revolutionized travel across the Victoria Harbour with scheduled, affordable steam-powered trips. To this date the Star Ferry is recognized as an emblem of Hong Kong’s maritime heritage, with its iconic green and white boats. Incidentally this iconic ferry service was established by Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala, a Parsi baker and entrepreneur from Mumbai who began this service to move people between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, with his first steam-boat in 1880.

In 1852, 20-yeaer-old Dorabjee Mithaiwala had arrived in Hong Kong from Bombay as a stowaway on a ship bound for China. The Portuguese captain discovered him but allowed him to stay on board as the ship’s cook. Upon disembarking in Hong Kong, Dorabjee started out as a household cook. However, he soon recognized the potential for business in Hong Kong, where the rapid pace of development had created market gaps that he was keen to fill. His first post-cook venture was setting up a bakery on Hollywood Road. He secured contracts to supply bread to the British Army and Navy. This venture, among others, established him as a successful entrepreneur.

In 1880, Dorabjee took over an irregular ferry service operated by Grant Smith. Dorabjee’s initial fleet included his steamboat Morning Star, which he used primarily to transport his baked goods and workers between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Later his Kowloon Ferry Company also started accommodating paying passengers. With increased demand, he built and added new vessels such as Evening Star, Rising Star and Guiding Star to the fleet within a decade.

His choice of names for these ferries was inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘Crossing the Bar’, reflecting his taste in literature. The 100-year-plus Star Ferry has survived two world wars, typhoons, a riot, a strike and competition from the MTR (Hong Kong’s underground metro rail system) and harbour tunnels.

Ruttonjee Hospital

In 1949, the Ruttonjee Sanatorium was set up with the support of Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee, in memory of his daughter, Tehmi Ruttonjee-Desai, who died of tuberculosis in 1943. One of the main institutions specifically treating tuberculosis in Hong Kong, it was later converted into the Ruttonjee Hospital, a 600-bed general hospital, in 1991. It served as a key public facility during the COVID-19 pandemic, acting as a designated hospital for coronavirus patients. Ruttonjee also helped build Hong Kong’s first low-cost housing estate at North Point.

Parsis in Hong Kong

Parsis first arrived in Hong Kong when the city was established as a British colony in 1841. While traders operated in Canton (Guangzhou) as early as 1756, significant Parsi settlement and business establishments followed the opening of the port. 1850 onwards, more Parsees opened offices in the colony and the 1860s witnessed well-established Parsi firms in Hong Kong, like Cowasjee Pallanjee & Co., Dorabjee Naorojee & Co. and F M Talati.

Though Hong Kong is blessed with very few Parsis, they are a united, warm, friendly and generous lot. Many roads in Hong Kong begin and end in a quiet corner of Happy Valley – the Parsi Cemetery. Amid the sculptured evergreens and kumquat trees, stand memorials to Sir Hormusjjee Nowrojee Mody, Cawasjee Kotwal and Dhunjibhoy Bisney, pioneers of the island’s economic success, and greats whose names even today grace some of the busiest streets in Hong Kong.

The Zoroastrian Building located at 101 Leighton Road, Causeway Bay, is a 22-storied commercial building, inaugurated in 1993, serving as the spiritual and community centre for Hong Kong’s Parsi Zoroastrian community. It features a prayer hall on its top floor and is managed by The Incorporated Zoroastrian Charity Funds of Hongkong, Canton and Macao. The current building was constructed over a previous two-storey building built in the 1930s.

In over two hundred years of Parsi presence in Hong Kong, their numbers have been modest – just around two hundred. Yet, this is this same little community that helped found such institutions like the Star Ferry, Ruttonjee Hospital and the Kowloon Cricket Club. Even today substantial sums of Hong Kong Dollars flow to charities in Hong Kong itself and millions more go to charities abroad, particularly India. What’s most important is the fact that their ‘giving’ is silent and effective.