Joseph Kow Tat Cheong was born in 1912, just after the birth of the Republic of China, spending most of his youth in the small island of Mauritius before winning a prestigious scholarship to study at Imperial College, London. Like other formidable members of the Chinese diaspora, including Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Kung Kung devoted his intellect and ambitions to the betterment of a country in which he barely lived throughout his life. He may have left China, but China never left him; throughout his distinguished career as engineer as well as his family life and activities within the community, his efforts were devoted to living up to many of the ideals which sustained Chinese society throughout its millennia of history. This fact is reflected in the contents of this book.
A Chat with my Friends consists of 26 short essays which were originally words of wisdom conveyed to employees of the Taiwan Power Company, of which ‘Mr. T.C. Koo’ was president. This little book was first published in 1957, just after he left Taiwan for Mauritius, where he had grown up. What is striking about the essays is how their subject-matter—various pieces of advice to boost employee morale, productivity, and welfare—seek to transcend the clichés usually found in presidential addresses in company newsletters (and even at the highest levels of government!). Of course they focus on matters of immediate and practical import to the company, but at the same time they reflect the struggles and uncertainty of the mid-twentieth century: an era characterised by Cold War brinksmanship between Western powers and the Communist world.
In these essays and in much of his life, Joseph Kow Tat Cheong sought to improve China: China defined not narrowly as a particular regime on the mainland or in Taiwan, but as a long-standing civilisation which, he rightly felt, should be proud of its rich traditions but also take its place among modern nations through the responsible use of science and technology.