Monday, September 13, 2010

Doctor of what, Father of where?

For some reason, the Hong Kong media have recently started to refer to Ocean Park CEO Allen Zeman as "Dr Zeman". However, I have been unable to discover what he is supposedly a doctor of.

The other nystery about Zeman is why the media constantly refer to him to as "the Father of Lan Kwai Fong". Those old enough to remember how the area got started on its development into an entertainment district know that this title should rightfully belong to the late, and now almost forgotten, Gordon Huthart. The South China Morning Post (surprisingly) tells his story sympathetically. [You may have to Google it, as somehow Google gets round the Post's subscription-on;y front door.]

3 comments:

Spike said...

That's a great SCMP story, thanks for the link. Too bad they don't write 'em like that there any more.

More recently (last week) CNNGo covered some similar territory:

http://www.cnngo.com/hong-kong/drink/lan-kwai-fong-used-to-be-more-fun-262656

Unknown said...

According to http://www.sino-land.com/eng/default.asp?xid=ci_mp_tstp

Allan Zeman "is the holder of Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from The University of Western Ontario, Canada".

And according to http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/senate/honorary_degrees_by_surname.pdf it was awarded on 8 June 2004.

-Spode

Private Beach said...

Are holders of honorary doctorates entitled to call themselves Doctor? After all, foreign citizens receiving an honorary British knighthood cannot call themselves "Sir...".