The Things I Know

Planning, 22 August 2008

- What skills did you have when you graduated?

After graduating in English from the University of Cambridge, I had a nodding acquaintance with Old French and moral philosophy.

- What attracted you to planning?

I started working with the Hong Kong government in squatter areas in the New Territories and I thought: "There has got to be a way out of this." Planning was the answer.

- What did you learn in your first job?

If you want to demolish an illegally built Mao study room, make sure that you have 120 policemen and two armoured cars on hand.

- What skills have you had to learn over your career?

I quote from the poem by Robert Browning: "Think first, fight afterwards - the soldier's art."

- What or who have been the biggest influences on your career?

The first synthetic leather factory in Hong Kong was the largest illegal structure I ever came across. It was financed by a well-known bank and opened by the then chief justice. I swore an oath to myself that we would find better ways to do things, but it took 15 years to introduce strategic planning and enforcement across Hong Kong.

- What is your career highlight?

The best is yet to come.

- What have you learned outside work that has influenced you?

I set great store by Harry S Truman's remark: "When in doubt, do the right thing. It will please your friends and astound your enemies."

- What further skills do you aim to obtain or develop?

I want to learn German, complete my writings on the practice of planning as spatial ethics and rediscover the definitive recipe for a Singapore Sling.

- How important is it to keep abreast of developments in allied professions?

We are moving into a new era in which the imperatives of climate change in its broadest sense - economic, social and environmental - will require us to develop a whole new awareness of what is going on in our world and why and how.