Stewardess With Koala Mascot

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31002, 7 March 1966, Page 2

Stewardess With Koala Mascot

Before 21-year-old Priscilla Chen (above), of Hong Kong, sets out on a flight she pats her mascot, a toy koala bear, on the head to ensure fine weather. “It works, too,” she said in Christchurch, yesterday. Miss Chen, a 8.0.A.C. stewardess, is in the city for Australia Week, which opens today. She is one of several airline stewardesses who will be in attendance at the display in the Horticultural Hall and will also talk to women's clubs and organisations, as well as giving radio and television interviews. Miss Chen was given her koala bear as a child. She says that it acquired her and has stayed with her ever since. She was born in Shanghai and with her parents left the city when she was four years old, one day ahead of the arrival of the Chinese Communist troops in 1949. The family settled in Hong Kong where her father is in the textile industry. Miss Chen trained as a secretary, but about six months ago she was invited to have an interview with 8.0.A.C.

She was accepted and sent for a seven-week training course in London. She is based in Hong Kong and flies on the Hong Kong-Tahiti-Honolulu-San Francisco route. This is her first trip to New Zealand, the first of many. Miss Chen has found that flying has opened up a new world. “I had never been away from Hong Kong and I learn something new on every trip. You realise just how many things are going on in the world,” she said. When she iis not flying, Miss Chen goes back to a traditional form of transport—horse riding. She is also doing courses on Chinese cooking and painting.