Honorary University Fellows
An excerpt from the Vice-Chancellor's Address delivered at the Honorary University Fellowships Presentation Ceremony on December 10, 1998:
Dr Maria Lee Tseng Chiu Kwan, philanthropist, businesswoman, gourmet cook, artiste and patron of the arts extraordinaire. Dr Lee was born and educated in Shanghai. She then proceeded to further education in San Francisco State College. In the late 1950s after she set up “Maria’s Culinary Arts School” in Hong Kong, Dr Lee became a successful and high-profile entrepreneur, parlaying her expertise in culinary arts into an international business with branches in Hong Kong, the Mainland, Taiwan, the United States and Canada. Indeed “Maria’s” became a household name.
The community has also benefited from two other areas of Dr Lee’s activities and interests. She is an accomplished practitioner of the Chinese traditional arts of opera singing, Chinese brush painting and calligraphy, as well as a scholar of Chinese poetry and literature in general. In addition she is a dedicated philanthropist, who has been involved in community service and charities for decades. Her love of Chinese culture and arts and her philanthropy are intertwined in that she has used her expertise in the arts to raise money for her many worthy causes, and one of these causes is the promotion of Chinese arts.
In 1985, in association with her good friend, Dr Katie Yang, whom we have the privilege of also honouring today, she set up the Kwan Fong Charitable Foundation Inc. Either by herself or with Dr Yang, Dr Lee has contributed to more than 20 social welfare institutions in Hong Kong, the Mainland and the United States. Among them are children’s homes, homes for the aged, a trust fund for the needy, a theatre for senior citizens, a cancer ward in a hospital. She has even donated a bakeshop to an organization in Hawaii to help the retarded. She & Dr Yang have raised record-breaking amounts through charity Cantonese opera performances, and through the sale of their paintings and calligraphy.