The Four big families of Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港四大家族) are an initial group of Chinese families with roots that can be traced back to the opium trade, and the anti-European racist mercantile system of the Canton System (reference needed. This contradicts other wiki entries).. Terming all whites as Gweilo, or ghost people, the Chinese families sought to subordinate Europeans in international trade and consistently worked to take over Colonial Hong Kong and the global Asian trade traffic, an objective finally reached in the late 20th and early 21st centuries (reference needed, China was a closed country before). Today, the Big Four families and their descendents are Fortune Global 500 companies with multinational corporations and listings from the London Stock Exchange to the Singapore Exchange, to the New York Stock Exchange. Along with their European mostly British rivals in colonial Hong Kong, they were responsible for much of the foundations of the territory including its economy, finance, and trade, whilst the British government provided the first codified legal system which until then and in most of China today, was lacking. The four big families begin with the Chinese surname Li, Ho, Hui and Lo. Respectively the head of four families are Li Sek-peng (李石朋), Robert Ho (何東), Hui Oi-chow (許愛周) and Lo Man Kam (羅文錦). Today the two families most recognizable by regular HK citizens are the Li and Ho group descendents.
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