Getting Real: Laurinda Ho Beyond the Spotlight

Although born into a life of abundance, Laurinda Ho tells us why she’s not content just to sit back, where her motivation to push her limits comes from and how she hopes to make Hong Kong a happier place.

Photography and Creative Direction Ricky Lo    
Styling Tasha Ling
Make-up Lumingyue at Wow!Studio using Clé de Peau Beauté
Hair Sing Tam at ArtifyLab
Styling Assistants Madelaine Clark
Photography Assistants Kelvin Sim and Chung Sun

At some point in our life, most of us will have fantasised about being born into a family of wealth and fame. It’s hard not to. The faces of celebrities and billionaires are plastered on almost every surface possible, and the annual lists of the world’s wealthiest people constantly remind us of what success – and happiness – are supposed to look like. It’s the dream we’ve all been told to chase. 

But for Laurinda Ho, one of the late Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho’s 17 children, it isn’t a dream but a reality – a reality that she admits she didn’t come to understand till she was almost 10, when she noticed the attention that revolved around her family and the vastly different treatment she received from everyone around her. 

Given such a background, you’d imagine it easy to just kick back and live a lavish life of comfort and abundance. Many of us would probably have done just that. Yet Ho refused to let her family name define her, instead finding the motivation to prove she’s more than just the daughter of a billionaire. 

“Because of my family background, I grew up trying very hard to prove myself to other people,” she tells me over a video call the day after our cover shoot. As usual there was business to attend to in China, where she now runs multiple ventures, which forces her to fly back and forth often. “It’s only now that I’m older I realise I don’t really have to do that at all; that I should focus on doing positive things that I enjoy. 

“But when I was young, it was so important to me to prove that I was more than just a rich child – there’s so many more things I’m capable of doing on my own. That said, it’s because of that ambition at the beginning that allowed me to start all those business ventures and projects, none of which I regret, and now I’m more mature I want to continue running them well and seeing them through. That’s what drives me now.”

Today, those businesses include a hotel in Australia and a bakery and beef-noodle restaurant in Shanghai, the latter two being especially dear to Ho’s heart because of her passion for food and dining. 

“I believe if you want to be successful in starting a business venture or project, you’ve got to be passionate about what you’re creating and have that ambition, or else it’ll feel like a chore,” she says. “That’s why I don’t follow trends or run businesses for the sake of running them. The food industry is something I’m very passionate about, and I absolutely love eating.”  

Her noodle franchise had previously operated in Hong Kong during the pandemic, but the combination of social-distancing restrictions and the rent rises from landlords who were aware of her family background ultimately led to its closure. The business might not have worked out at the time, but Ho isn’t someone who accepts failure. Instead she took it as a lesson that would better equip herself for the franchise’s resurrection in Shanghai.

“I learned a lot from that experience,” she says. “Because my beef-noodle restaurant business in Hong Kong spanned the pandemic, it offered a very interesting lesson in learning how to run a business when times are tough, balancing revenue, managing staff and maintaining the quality of the food. When I first opened my shop, I never thought so deeply about those aspects, but now I’ve experienced such a tough period, I’ve gained more knowledge and a thorough understanding of what types of things to look out for in the future. And those lessons aren’t only limited to the F&B industry either. Without that experience in Hong Kong, I wouldn’t have learned so much, so whether or not my business venture was ultimately successful, I still think it was a positive experience.”

Ho may no longer feel the need to prove herself to others, but the desire to keep learning, expanding her skills and proving her abilities to herself continue to motivate her to enter new spheres, including entertainment. In recent years, she’s appeared on numerous reality television shows both here and in the mainland, giving people a deeper understanding of who she is. 

“What inspires me to step into the spotlight is a sense of curiosity,” Ho tells me. “I grew up being pretty well protected, and because of my background I have the luxury to try a lot of new things, many of which pique my interest and curiosity. I always wonder whether I’d be able to do certain things or achieve certain things, and those thoughts motivate me to constantly seek out new opportunities to express myself.”

As well as appearing on television and running her own businesses in various parts of the world, she also helps manage her family business and has a huge social-media presence, with almost 750,000 Instagram followers alone. How does she find the time to balance all these roles?

“I think because of technological advances and the Internet, the distance between people has been significantly reduced, and you’re able to tackle many different things within a much shorter timeframe,” Ho says. “This allows me to do much more in a given day. I also don’t think any of my roles are contradictory; they all work in harmony. Because of my social-media presence, people might be more interested in going to my restaurants or staying at my hotel. I see it as all part of one ecosystem, so I don’t feel like I’m juggling many different roles.

“I don’t think my approaches to running a business or being on a television show or in a magazine are any different,” she adds. “I find a lot of commonalities between different industries, and I’m inspired by all these different things. Through these television shows or magazine shoots, for example, I’ve learned to be more independent and trust my instinct, and these qualities contribute back to my process of running my own businesses or family business.”

Out of all her ventures, however, the one that stands out the most for us is Smile with Us Hong Kong, the charity Ho founded in 2017. The initiative works with volunteers to spark joy and happiness in those often marginalised by society, with past events ranging from handing out free meals to the elderly to humanitarian trips to the countryside in mainland China. 

“I was actually inspired to start Smile with Us HK because the media was constantly following me around,” she explains, “and I figured that if they enjoyed taking photos of me so much, why not be doing something meaningful in those photographs so that it would gain more publicity and inspire more people to do the same or pay attention to these social issues?

“I felt like the society in Hong Kong was quite cold in a way. When I was studying abroad in the UK or volunteering in Nepal, I felt this warmth from the people living there, even if it was only through their greetings, but it just didn’t feel that way here. I knew I had the means to make a real difference, and I also knew that many around me with similar means felt the same way, so we created a committee of like-minded people. We funded our own initiatives, events and activities which sought to help those in need in the hopes of bringing smiles to more faces.”

Ho tells me she’s always been very hands-on with Smile with Us HK, as it’s something she’s extremely passionate about, but as she was stuck in the mainland during the pandemic, she admits she’s been more distant than she’d hoped to be in the past few years. Asked if it’s a project she’d like to rekindle, her answer is a resounding yes. 

“It’s very difficult to keep the momentum going, and we’re going through the toughest period now,” Ho says. “When you first start something, there’s a lot of passion and drive, a lot of ideas, but over time, the people involved might have different agendas or schedules, so it’s hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm and effort, especially during the pandemic. This wasn’t just the case for others, it was the same for me. So to restart things now is very difficult. But I’m trying very hard to get it going again. We’ve organised a few events this year already, and since I’m in Hong Kong now, I try to do more. I might not have had much time for Smile with Us HK in the past two or three years, but I’m working very hard to change that.

“If people are so interested in my personal life, then let’s do something charitable and meaningful with it and draw more awareness to these issues. Let’s make a real difference.”