Reflections | Mr and Mrs Ho’s 33-year age gap isn’t that strange – take ancient China, the Murdochs
- The couple’s 33-year age gap may raise eyebrows, but it is not uncommon, from the Macrons and Murdochs to poets and artists in ancient China
Since May this year, many people in Hong Kong have been transfixed by the public family saga involving a couple known as “Mr and Mrs Ho”.
While the authorities – especially the Housing Department – want to find out more about the couple’s assets and their eligibility for public housing, given their extravagant spending, the rest of Hong Kong is more interested in the complicated family dynamics involving 76-year-old Mr Ho, his five adult children, and their stepmother Mrs Ho, who is 43.
I am pretty sure the Chinese phrase “old bulls eating young grass” has been said many times over drinks or by the office cooler. It describes a romantic relationship where the male partner is considerably older than the female.
A Cantonese expression for the opposite, where the woman is much older than the man, is “boiling the old lotus root”, the etymology of which I have yet to determine.
