The pursuit of financial knowledge is not often tied to an interest in moral affairs. But had Eric Chang, dean of the faculty of business and economics at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), not ended up in academia, he says he would have liked to have been a preacher.
He might have been rather good. The quiet, smiling man who welcomes me to the chilly conference room at HKU’s main campus seems just as interested in me as I am in him. We chat for some time before I realise that the subject has shifted away from himself. I have to wrest control back. He explains that he is a part-time preacher at Hong Kong Mandarin Bible Church.
Born in 1951, Prof Chang says his childhood in Taiwan was quite unusual in that it was so devout. “I spent a lot of time in church. I grew up in a youth fellowship.” His early adulthood, however, was characterised by a very conventional choice of university degree.