With her ‘higher and truer values’, Elsie Tu’s life truly was one worth living, and an example to us all

We have the privilege of celebrating the life of a remarkable woman – Elsie Tu. And what a life she had, from missionary bride to the “real spirit of Hong Kong”. That spirit will live on.

When we hear that middle-class parents are putting a price tag of up to HK$7 million on getting a child “ready” for the future (that future being, according to 70 per cent of 500 polled parents, landing a university degree, a high-paying job and owning a property) then, if we try hard enough, we can actually hear Tu’s 1977 New Territories Rotary Club speech. In that speech, she asked whether the wish to “get rich would really solve all our problems, or if it wouldn’t rather create new problems”.

Tu believed that good education was the best preparation for the future, but she also believed that education was more than a means to a high-paying job and property ownership. She founded Mu Kuang English School with the mission to provide underprivileged students with “the opportunity to learn higher and truer values”, not just opportunities to get ahead.

READ MORE: Elsie Tu: A true hero of the common people in Hong Kong

And, in a speech to the Parent Teacher Association of King George V School, in 1974, Tu defined what she thought was “a life worth living”. “Life is worth living if one can be useful to others,” she said, and saw serving the community as “the key to happiness and even health”. That made life, “in spite of the difficulties”, worth living.

We can certainly see that in all she devoted her life to. Her sense of service – that we “cannot always help, but at least try [to] … offer sympathy and advice, share in victims’ burden” – is one of those “higher and truer values” that government officials, legislators, district councillors, community leaders, public servants and ordinary citizens, rich or poor, must learn.

In October, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor admitted it was an “uphill battle” to tackle poverty with our “extremely fast-ageing” population. With one in three elderly Hongkongers living in poverty, there is much for the government to do. And with the upcoming policy address and budget, we must demand that the government allot more resources to address the silver tsunami, instead of the annual ritual of seeing “what’s in it for me”.

As with ageing, poverty is a global issue. It cannot be eradicated overnight, and it takes more than government intervention. Economic development alone will not pull people out of poverty, nor will education alone. It is going to take a critical mass of ordinary people adopting Tu’s life philosophies.