Chapter 33 32. White Swan Hotel

The White Swan Hotel, which opened in 1983, is called "a milestone in the reform and opening up".This hotel, invested by Hong Kong red tycoon Fok Yingdong, is the earliest five-star hotel in China.White Swan Hotel is located in Bai'etan in the south of Shamian Island, Guangzhou.Its site selection took a lot of pains, just like a "Xanadu" in a busy city, where it is covered with banyan trees and has beautiful scenery.It is also one of the first batch of projects in China to attract foreign investment. From the initial conception to the construction process, and then to the final completion, it will reveal various problems that were exposed when the country was initially opened up.

In 1978, Liao Chengzhi, then director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, invited a group of famous Hong Kong businessmen to visit Beijing, including Li Mingze, Huo Yingdong, Li Ka-shing, Feng Jingxi, Hu Yingxiang and Peng Guozhen.Liao Chengzhi's invitation is to hope that these Hong Kong tycoons will generously contribute to a plan of the Chinese tourism department. The Chinese tourism department hopes to build 8 large Sino-foreign joint venture hotels in several major cities in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing. During the visit, Deng Xiaoping received these businessmen.The 1978 "Time" weekly man of the year told these famous capitalists that China would implement the policy of reform and opening up.He hopes that the best of these Chinese businessmen can invest in mainland China.

On the National Day celebration on October 1 of the following year, Li Ka-shing, already known as "Superman", received an invitation from Deng Xiaoping to attend the National Day ceremony with Chinese political leaders on the Tiananmen Gate tower.Li Ka-shing specially changed into a blue Chinese tunic suit for this purpose.Later records said that he set an eight-character rule for himself: "Stop showing off and don't talk about politics." And Huo Yingdong, who has been rumored to have a lot of contacts with mainland China and is therefore known as a red tycoon, has expressed a strong interest in the eight joint venture hotels of the Chinese tourism department.Huo Yingdong offered to participate in this hotel project, and after careful consideration, Huo Yingdong has decided not to build the hotel in Beijing and Shanghai as most people imagine, but in Guangzhou.What he considers is that Guangzhou is adjacent to Hong Kong and Macau, and there are many businessmen coming and going, and it will benefit from the convenience of reform and opening up.Therefore, after contacting the Guangzhou Municipal Government, Huo Yingdong began to drive around every time he went to Guangzhou, and at the same time inspected the construction site of the hotel.After several selections, Huo Yingdong finally chose Shamian in the west of Guangzhou as the hotel address.The scenery here is beautiful, and it is located in the urban area without the hustle and bustle of the urban area. The only fly in the ointment is that Huo Yingdong needs to reclaim land for his hotel.

On April 10, 1979, Huo Yingdong and Guangzhou Municipal Tourism Bureau signed a formal cooperation agreement. The agreement stipulated that the two parties jointly invested 200 million Hong Kong dollars to build a 34-story hotel in Shamian, Guangzhou.This is also the first agreement of the eight joint venture hotels.And the name of the hotel was decided as "White Swan" under Ye Jianying's suggestion. Among Hong Kong tycoons, Henry Fok has always been closer to the Chinese government.A widely circulated theory is that during the Korean War, the US and British governments imposed an embargo on mainland China, so a group of Hong Kong businessmen organized a fleet to transport various war supplies to the mainland, including Fok Yingdong.Some say the impoverished tycoon made his fortune in smuggling during the Korean War.Those who participated in the delivery of supplies to the mainland also included the then Hong Kong shipping tycoon Pao Yu-kang and Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho.Huo Yingdong and Bao Yugang were even blacklisted by the US government. Later, Bao Yugang went to the United States to protest and took his name off the list.

Later, in an interview with his biographer Leng Xia, Huo Yingdong kept secret about this experience.Every time Leng Xia brought up this topic, Huo Yingdong would turn to other topics after he couldn't talk for a few words, but he said that he never sent arms to the mainland, nor did he send "national wealth": "At that time, there was no business to do in Hong Kong. , many businessmen have taken the opportunity to do business with the mainland. They think that the money they earn is very little, fair and reasonable, so I don’t think that I have made a “national wealth”. Of course, without this money, it is difficult to make the next step development of."

Huo Yingdong later set foot in the real estate industry and became the king of land in Hong Kong for a while.But at the beginning, Huo Yingdong didn't even have basic financial knowledge. He didn't know that he could get a loan from a bank to buy land, and he didn't know what a check was: "At that time, I didn't even know how to open a bank account. I opened a Huo After Xingyetang Real Estate Co., Ltd., the company didn’t even have a bank account. I followed others’ example and kept cash at home, or bought some gold and put it in the cracks in the wall. It's like opening a grocery store." Huo Yingdong wanted to buy a piece of real estate from the Lee family, a Hong Kong family, and he went directly to Li Mingze with a bag of money, which surprised the latter.It was from this period that Li Mingze had a good relationship with Huo Yingdong.The already prominent tycoon said to Huo Yingdong: "Mr. Huo, in fact, whether it is buying a property or doing other businesses, you don't have to use your own money. You can open an account in a bank or borrow money from a bank." At that time If you want to apply for a loan or even open an account with HSBC Bank in Hong Kong, you need to be introduced by someone with status in Hong Kong.And Huo Yingdong is just a voice man who has just started from scratch.Li Mingze introduced and cleared for Huo Yingdong again, and HSBC began to lend Huo Yingdong, "It was only then that I realized how important it is to know HSBC"!It is indeed important. If real estate businessmen around the world do not get the support of banks, it is impossible to grow their business. The bank's support can often determine the life and death of a real estate businessman; in Hong Kong, real estate tycoons cannot do without the support of HSBC. Later, in the rise of Li Ka-shing, HSBC played an important role.

After entering the real estate industry, Huo Yingdong invented the method of printing real estate descriptions and selling uncompleted properties. This young man in his early thirties became one of the most prominent businessmen in Hong Kong.Huo Yingdong himself later said that when doing real estate, "I am afraid of receiving money. If this continues, I don't know how much money I will make." But at this time, the British Hong Kong government began to attack Fok Yingdong because of his role in the war.First of all, there were rumors that Huo Yingdong was deported due to wartime smuggling, which was quite unfavorable to Huo Yingdong who wanted to sell uncompleted properties, because the next sentence was, don’t buy his flats, because he might run away with the money.Immediately afterwards, according to Leng Xia's description, the British Hong Kong government deliberately restricted Huo Yingdong's development in the real estate industry, until Huo Yingdong was forced to fade out of Hong Kong real estate, and he was not even allowed to set foot in the wharf industry.However, Huo Yingdong's large-scale investment at this time has not shaken his status as a Hong Kong business tycoon-his investment also includes Macau's gaming industry.

The development of the real estate industry was limited, and he was blocked from entering the pier. Huo Yingdong turned his attention to municipal engineering and sports.At the same time, he is getting closer to the mainland Chinese government.Huo Yingdong and Henry Mingze, another Hong Kong tycoon, often invite some Hong Kong businessmen to their homes for gatherings, allowing mainland officials to meet these Hong Kong tycoons.These frequently invited businessmen include Li Ka-shing, Fung King-hei, Kwok Tak-seng, Lee Shau Kee Hong Kong tycoon.Huo Yingdong even took Hong Kong tycoons including Guo Desheng and Zheng Yutong to the mainland, and he and his family frequently traveled to the mainland and Hong Kong. You know, that was before the mainland decided to reform and open up in 1978.Later Huo Yingdong recalled: "At that time, I went back to Guangzhou every year to participate in the trade fair and bought a lot of handicrafts. Now the house is full and there is no place to put them. At that time, I wanted to buy things to show support for the motherland. In addition, I was almost the first Hong Kong person to use a domestic elevator... At that time, I was really scolded to death. I thought that the products that could be exported in China were good, but after I bought it, it broke down once in a few days and was not repaired. There are no spare parts..." As we all know, Huo Yingdong is still running around on China's entry into the Asian Football Association and the establishment of the Provincial Hong Kong Cup, making great contributions to the development of Chinese sports to the world.

Before the White Swan Hotel, Huo Yingdong had been under great pressure to invest in the construction of the Zhongshan Hot Spring Hotel in Zhongshan County, and built the first golf course in mainland China on the back hillside of the Hot Spring Hotel. With these backgrounds, it is no surprise that Henry Huo actively requested to build the first five-star hotel in mainland China, the White Swan Hotel, in Guangzhou. In July 1979, Huo Yingdong began to fill the river in Shamian to build land, and in November, the White Swan Hotel began full-scale construction.Huo Yingdong entrusted the architectural design of the hotel to two mainland architects, She Junnan and Mo Bozhi.Because the mainland has not been opened to the outside world for a long time, Fok Yingdong worried that architects are unfamiliar with new things. He invited the two architects to visit some famous buildings in Hong Kong and communicate with some famous architects in Hong Kong.As a result, the design of the two Chinese architects won critical acclaim for the White Swan Hotel.Later, when IM Pei visited the White Swan Hotel, he praised that "it can be seen that there are talented design masters in China".

But the resistance in it was also unexpected by Huo Yingdong.Huo Yingdong once said: "If you engage in a white swan, you will be completely bruised!" Even Huo Yingdong asked the hotel waiters to wear silk stockings, which was said to be an ideological problem.During the tea party in the middle of the CPPCC meeting in the background, Huo Yingdong heard two people talking about cross talk, saying, "There is a man with a tie who wants Jingwei to fill the sea." Huo Yingdong looked around, and he was the only one here wearing a tie , Moreover, at that time he was filling the White Swan Pond to build the White Swan Hotel.When Huo Yingdong built the White Swan, he proposed to design, purchase and manage it by himself.The design problem was solved, but the procurement became a big problem. "A large hotel needs nearly 100,000 kinds of decoration materials and supplies. At that time, there was almost nothing in the mainland. They didn't even produce soft plugs for bathtubs, so they had to use thermos bottle plugs instead. More The worst thing is that if you import anything, you have to go to a dozen departments to stamp a bunch of red stamps."

Huo Yingdong came up with a way to transfer the pressure to others. On October 14, 1982, Huo Yingdong decided to invite Ren Zhongyi, secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, to dinner at some of the white swans that were in trial operation. As a result, he went to the hotel in the morning and found that the hotel had no air conditioning or hot water, let alone food and drink.He went to the kitchen, but there was no gas in the kitchen, and the stove hadn't been installed yet.Huo Yingdong was extremely anxious, but there was nothing he could do.In desperation, he found a supervisor and said, I have invited Ren Zhongyi to dinner tonight, no matter what, "Even if it is four dishes and one soup, I have to make it out!" As a result, Ren Zhongyi brought more than a hundred people tonight .Huo Yingdong sat beside him, feeling even more uneasy. "But unexpectedly, after the guests were seated, what was served was not a simple four dishes and one soup, but more than ten kinds of carefully prepared dishes, which were quite large for a dinner party. I was very happy and secretly congratulated: it seems that The hotel staff has great potential to be tapped!" Huo Yingdong also proposed that the hotel should be fully opened on February 7, 1983. He distributed the invitations widely, and then took the invitations to various departments that needed approval to urge the procedures, transferring the pressure to these agencies, and it was successful. In January 1983, Huo Yingdong visited the White Swan and found that the progress of the project was slow.The tycoon simply lived in the hotel by himself for 13 days, and went to the site every day as a supervisor.Later Huo Yingdong recalled the White Swan Hotel, "From the hotel's site selection, design, construction, selection of building materials, personnel system, accounting system, security system, supply of goods, communication and transportation, procurement and storage, etc., almost everything that the hotel has to involve, I involved in decision-making and reform.” As a result, on the opening day of the White Swan Hotel, because Huo Yingdong insisted on opening the hotel, more than 10,000 people flocked into the hotel to visit.Some people even called the white swan a "milestone of reform and opening up", including Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, the two presidents of the United States Nixon and Bush, the Queen of England and other politicians and celebrities all praised the white swan.In the hotel industry, the white swan built by Huo Yingdong adhering to the three-self policy is also known as the white swan model and is widely promoted in high-end hotels in China.Later, when interviewed by reporters, Huo Yingdong said that the White Swan is not a hotel, but a testimony to the correct opening of Deng Xiaoping. On February 6, 2003, when the cooperation period expired, Huo's handed over White Swan to the Guangdong Provincial Government for management. In October 2006, Huo Yingdong died of illness at the age of 84.At this time, people recalled that he was going to look around at the Capital Airport, looking for the painting "Water-Sprinkling Festival - Hymn to Life", to see if there is still a portrait of a naked minority girl in it, so as to judge whether the domestic open policy still exists. In the continuation, every time I think about it, it feels like a world away.