While in high school, my passion was actually not in science or academic subjects, instead, I was deep into painting and art, specifically modern Chinese ink painting under the tutelage of my high school art teacher Lawrence Tam, a beloved teacher whom we all affectionately called “Tam-Sir”. I did well enough in that pursuit for one of my paintings to be selected to participate in the 1972 Contemporary Hong Kong Art Exhibition, an open event intended for professional artists. Immediately after the exhibition the painting was acquired by the Hong Kong Museum of Art, I was just 16 years old then. The painting on the right is currently in the permanent collection of the museum. Below are some of my other paintings during that period included in《The Cradle of New Chinese Ink Painting Movement》.
Passionate as I was in art, I didn’t want to make a living as an artist, so I turned my attention back to my university education in engineering. For admission to Caltech they had two of their alumni who were working in Hong Kong at the time interview me, I remember one of them was Kenneth Young, then a professor of physics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I don’t remember who the other interviewer was, possibly Wilson Cho, also a physics professor at the Chinese University. It was nothing short of a miracle that Caltech admitted me with a full financial aid package that enabled me to go abroad and study there despite my modest family resources.
Looking back, I really had the tremendously good fortune of having terrific teachers and mentors in my entire career, starting with my teachers in my high school at Wah Yan College Kowloon in Hong Kong, who taught me not only math (Mr. Norman So and Mr. Lai Chan Pong), physics (the late Tang Siu Kong), English (the late Francis Kong), but arts and paintings as well, particularly Chinese ink paintings under the tutelage of the late Tam Sir, and the many Jesuit Fathers there including Fr. Naylor and Fr. Coghlan who taught me ethics and morality, and our assistant principal Anthony Ho, nicknamed “Curry Ho” taught me a stern lesson in responsibility.
Kam Lau