Good evening, everyone. It is my honor to meet so many important scholars here tonight.

It was my dream to become a scholar. I realize I can’t, as I spent too much time in collecting more than studying. Actually, the fact is I didn’t have the potential.

This fact started when I was four, my parent gave me a green jade pendant and led me start the journey of collecting. By the time I was ten, I already had a very good stamp collection. From 1978 to 1985, there were golden opportunities to collect Chinese paintings, scholar items, jades and snuff bottles in China. Now, there are also golden opportunities in Hong Kong to collect tomb sculptures. I can’t stop myself from collecting as I feel they are my “Dogs and Cats” and I want to find a home for them.

When I do these collections, I hope when I get old, I can sit down to organize, to write my study on each collection and donate some of them to museums. But, I realized it’s impossible for me to complete all the studies myself. Tonight, this donation makes part of my dream come true.

There were always questions in my mind: How Western Culture and Chinese Culture influence to each other? How are they related? This donation starts from Stone Aged as my Italian dealer told me their Neolithic Potteries are very similar to ours in Gansu province. Many scholars, such as Dr. Thomas Leung Yin Sing can always tell me how the Western culture relates to my collections. There are three pieces that Dr. Leung likes the most in this collection, a Han Pottery Buddha and a Pottery Foreigner Holding a Cross. These indicate Buddha and Jesus were introduced to China during that period. The third one is a Rare Early Tang Grey Pottery African.

I feel lucky to meet Dr. Zhang Longxi and to know the Cross Culture Centre is willing to complete the study. I hope this donation, 169 pieces from Stone-Aged to Yuan Dynasty, can serve to inspire more collectors to donate their unique pieces for academic study.

Beside this donation, I had four other projects to promote Chinese Art and Culture. Firstly, I’ve set up a web-site www.dragonculture.com.hk. Where we’ve already input more than 600 antiquities. Many clients compliment us it is the best Chinese antique web-site at this moment. I hope this web-site can serve as a platform to link scholars with my collections so that more people can share the beauty and the information behind.

My second project is a guidebook published two months ago. It answers those questions people ask me everyday such as how to avoid fake, how to start the collection, and what can be collected from each dynasty. The most important part of this guidebook is the 230 photos. Through these photos, I hope the readers can find out what really mean beauty to them.

The most important project is my “Horse Book” which I have spent more than 6 years to complete the whole collection: It will be illustrated in around 200 pages, A3 size, 120 pottery horses from Han to Ming Dynasty. In this book, we view from horses to link up politics, economy, history, art and culture of each dynasty. It will be available next year.

The third book, “Antiquities through Ages”, of which we’ve completed 25 articles, gives readers a brief understanding on different categories of Chinese antiquities, such as, Bronze Age, Sancai and Yueh Ware.

Anyone who interests in the above publications can get free copies from Irene.

Through this donation and the publications, I hope I can work with more scholars to do more in promoting Chinese Art and Culture so that the public and our next generation can share the joy and the beauty of our treasure.

Thanks for your support. Tonight you have made me feel like a scholar.

Thank you.

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