The Legacy of Daniel Ng: A Game Changer in Hong Kong's Fast Food Scene

The only person I knew who could read the tea leaves and truly understand the China market was my friend and client, Daniel Ng. A former NASA engineer with a PhD in engineering, he somehow ended up opening the first McDonald’s in Hong Kong by owning the franchise in the city.

A Visionary Against the Odds

Despite the naysayers warning that Chinese people only ate rice and citing Burger King's decline in Hong Kong, Daniel sailed past them, guided by incredible self-belief.

When he took me to Beijing and Shanghai for the first time, I felt like a Grasshopper learning from a master Shaolin monk. He taught me how to see what wasn’t immediately obvious.

Daniel was on a mission to find a trustworthy manufacturer in China to produce the mustard and ketchup sachets needed for McDonald’s at the right prices. But he was also teaching me to listen closely to what else was being offered as part of the deal.

The Art of Negotiation

As always, Daniel read the narrative correctly. Of the 4-5 business people we met, each had an uncle or cousin in high places who had the perfect locations for a McDonald’s outlet with the necessary foot traffic.

Purchase any of these locations, and those sachets for ketchup and mustard would almost be thrown in for free.

He might have laughed like a madman and refused to wear a tie, but this was Daniel—quirky, disarming, and incredibly smart.

He was a giving man, but he kept his generosity to himself. He never made a fuss about giving Hong Kong its first Ronald McDonald House for terminally ill children. Nor did he boast about convincing McDonald’s to drop the Quarter Pounder from its menus in Hong Kong.

Understanding the Market

The reason for removing the Quarter Pounder? It simply wasn’t selling. The pricing was off, and it was too filling for Hong Kong appetites. So, Daniel concocted a cockamamie story for the Americans from Oakbrook about the Quarter Pounder having too many onions, which supposedly gave Chinese people gas and bad breath—much like Burger King’s Whopper, which Daniel claimed was the reason for its failure in Hong Kong.

At a large McDonald’s marketing conference in Chicago, he quipped, “If you ate a Whopper, you couldn’t help farting all day!” His laughter filled the room.

Daniel was persuasive, and with the franchise for the most successful McDonald’s in the world per capita, he had the clout to make things happen. The Quarter Pounder vanished from the menu, and marketing dollars shifted to promote the far more popular and less expensive Filet O’Fish.

A Man of Many Talents

He was a good man who despised haughtiness. I loved and respected him and his fabulous American wife, Rebecca, who always reminded me of Lauren Bacall. I was deeply saddened when they divorced.

Maybe Daniel knew his journey this time around would be short. He lived life as if there was no tomorrow because, who knows what tomorrow might not bring?

He financially supported the arts and the Hong Kong Youth Orchestra. He learned to fly and was one of the first to land his own plane in China. He even learned to be a musical conductor.

Daniel even funded a music company for an idea I had to help kids learn English through pop music. Unfortunately, we were pipped at the post when our ELT business partners were sold to a bigger publisher. Someone I thought I could trust copied our idea, and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Before he left this world, Daniel conducted the Boston Symphony. Soon after, he took his final bow, leaving us in 2013 at the age of 76.

A Lasting Impact

Daniel was an incredible human being, busy enjoying life and certainly not suffering fools.

He took immense pride in bringing an all-American product like McDonald’s to Chinese Hong Kong, turning the noodle tables and becoming a genuine game changer.

I will always remember a breakfast meeting with him and someone else trying to get something from him. Whenever he didn’t make eye contact, I knew something terse was coming.

After half-listening to the person, he simply said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Today’s Hong Kong desperately needs someone with his positivity and street smarts.

It’s a time when I see weak leadership in many companies and organizations, filled with smoke and mirrors and subservient toadies hiding the truth.

When I encounter these types of people, I think of Daniel. Strangely enough, he’s there next to me, especially at dinners and meetings, offering advice and helping me see people’s strengths and weaknesses, revealing what hides behind the game of thrones being played.

What I learned from him was to always keep it real. The moment you don’t, you start living a lie. Lies expand into something fatuous and full of wind—kind of like the Quarter Pounder, especially one oozing with fat and gooey melted cheese.

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Born in Ceylon, Hans Ebert is an award-winning advertising executive. His powerful campaign for the Right Of Abode in the UK for ethnic minorities in Hong Kong won Gold at the London Advertising Awards.

He also helped launch McDonald’s in Hong Kong, created the Happy Wednesday brand for the HKJC, was part of the team to launch STARTV and MTV in Asia, and ran the International divisions of Universal Music and EMI Music in Asia.

As a journalist, he has interviewed everyone from Billy Joel and legendary music producer Quincy Jones to actor Peter Sellers, and worked on music for David Bowie, Robbie Williams, and Gorillaz.

He coined the term Canto Pop while writing for Billboard magazine.

He has a penchant for women who remind him of Diane Keaton.