Dublin’s first ethnic-Chinese mayor on racism, her parents’ work ethic, and teaching poor children in China

Hazel Chu’s parents emigrated from Hong Kong to Ireland in the 1970s and she was born in Dublin, where she worked in her mother’s restaurant

Chu, a Green Party councillor since 2019, is the first ethnic Chinese mayor of a major European capital city and the first woman of colour to be Dublin mayor

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Hazel Chu, the first ethnically Chinese Lord Mayor of Dublin, takes a lot of inspiration from the work ethic of her Hong Kong immigrant parents, and is determined her daughter won’t face the same racism she has growing up in Ireland and lately in politics. Photo: courtesy of Hazel Chu

Published: 4:30am, 5 Aug 2020Updated: 4:15pm, 5 Aug 2020

When Hazel Chu Chung-fai’s mother spent her hours after school as a teenager selling flowers at a market in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories during the early 1970s, little did she know that years later her daughter would become the first chief public official of Chinese heritage in Ireland’s capital city.

In June this year, Green Party councillor Chu was elected the 352nd Lord Mayor of Dublin. She became the first ethnically Chinese person to hold political office in Ireland and the first to be mayor of a major European capital.

In the 1970s, her parents emigrated separately from Hong Kong to Ireland. They met while working in the same restaurant in Dublin and eventually got married. Before this, her mother, Stella Choi Yau-fan, and father, David Chu Tak-Leung, had led very different lives.

“Where they come from is [colloquially] called the village of Chus and the village of Chois. They are ancestral and both their families have been there for a very long time, so each place was named after their family surnames,” Chu, 39, explains. “My mother is from a village near Sha Tin called Siu Lek Yuen, while my dad’s village is called Kai Kok Shui Ha, between Sheung Shui and Fanling.

Hazel Chu with her aide-de-camp Martin McCabe (left) and her mother, Stella Choi, at Mansion House in Dublin on her inauguration night. Photo: courtesy of Hazel Chu

“They both came from very poor families, and unlike today, where it’s much easier to get around, dad’s village was very remote back then and there was very little work.

“Most of his family emigrated to the UK, but dad knew someone who lived in Dublin, so he emigrated here instead. He worked as a kitchen porter in a restaurant to start with.