On a hazy spring afternoon in Hong Kong, one of the world’s wealthiest families has gathered for a traditional opening ceremony. A pair of gymnasts animate a yellow lion puppet, leaping in tandem between platforms. As a band strikes cymbals and gongs, the lion spots a lettuce hanging from a pole alongside an envelope of money. In Cantonese, the word for lettuce sounds like “growing wealth”. The lion pretends to devour the offering before spitting greens at the feet of the Chengs, whose wealth has grown over three generations to tens of billions of dollars.
As a suckling pig is taken inside to be turned into canapés, the lion follows in search of more lettuces. They have been hung throughout Rosewood Hong Kong, the city’s newest and perhaps most luxurious hotel. It occupies 43 floors of a new 65-storey tower on a resurgent Kowloon waterfront and is part of the family’s $2.6bn Victoria Dockside development, which will also include a new art gallery, offices, shops and serviced apartments.
I have been invited to the opening as a team of bright-eyed staff apply the finishing touches. Overseeing it all is Sonia Cheng, the 38-year-old chief executive of the Rosewood Hotel Group. She is the granddaughter of the late Cheng Yu-tung, a son of a Chinese tailor who turned his father-in-law’s jewellery shop into a global business empire.