Hong Kong tycoon`s gay daughter asks him to accept girlfriend

USPA News - The daughter of a Hong Kong businessman, who last week suggested raising his controversial `marriage bounty` to 1 billion Hong Kong dollars (128.7 million U.S. dollars), has defended her sexuality in an open letter and asked her father to treat her long-time girlfriend as a "normal, dignified human being." Gigi Chao, 33, who is an executive director at her father`s Cheuk Nang property development company and a founding member of a local gay rights group, published the letter on late Tuesday after her father, 77-year-old Cecil Chao Sze-tsung, told a Malaysian newspaper that he was considering to double his offer for any man who can successfully woo his daughter.

"I am sorry that people have been saying insensitive things about you lately," she wrote in the letter. "The truth is, they don`t understand that I will always forgive you for thinking the way you do, because I know you think you are acting in my best interests. And we both don`t care if anybody else understands." Gigi Chao said she wants "nothing more" than to make her father happy, but told him that his expectations in terms of relationships are not coherent. "My regret is that you have no idea how happy I am with my life, and there are aspects of my life that you don`t share," she wrote. The daughter, who is in a long-term relationship with a woman, Sean Eav, but has in the past been in relationships with men, blamed herself for making her father believe that she was only with a woman because there was a "shortage of good, suitable men" in Hong Kong. "I`ve broken a few hearts, hearts of good, honest and loving men, and I`m sorry that it had to be so," she said. Now, Gigi Chao hopes her father will finally accept her as a lesbian, saying she is "comfortable and satisfied" with the life she shares with her girlfriend. "I`m not asking you to be best of friends. However, it would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of her, and treat her like a normal, dignified human being," she said, adding: "There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me." The father and daughter made headlines around the world in 2012 when Cecil Chao Sze-tsung offered 500 million Hong Kong dollars (64 million U.S. dollars) for any man who is able to successfully woo his daughter. But after more than 20,000 unsuccessful responses, his father indicated this month that he may double his offer. Cecil Chao Sze-tsung told the Financial Times in January 2013 that he was not so much offended by his daughter`s sexuality, but that he wants grandchildren to whom he can pass on his business. The property tycoon, described as a lifelong bachelor who once claimed to have slept with more than 10,000 women, is said to be one of Hong Kong`s richest men.