Orange elephant leads stampede for creative arts
	When a teacher told Joanna Hotung's daughter that he couldn't paint an elephant orange because "elephants can only be grey", it was the final straw. There and then, Ms Hotung decided to put into action a business plan she had long been formulating, and Kids' Gallery, teaching a wide range of extra-curricula arts courses to children, was born. Formed in partnership with her husband, Michael, in 1996, Kids' Gallery now has three schools in Hong Kong and Beijing. From their Hong Kong base, the Hotungs are looking at further expansion in the region by franchising the Kids' Gallery brand and their services. Ms Hotung's background as a management consultant at Marks & Spencer in London and later Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) proved invaluable for the Hong Kong-born entrepreneur.
" I first had the idea when my own children were attending a local kindergarten in Hong Kong," Ms Hotung said. "I have always felt strongly that the arts should play an important role in a child's education, but could see nothing of value being taught to my children in terms of developing creativity, imagination, and ideas generation.  " The 'art' the children were taught was very prescriptive and mostly done by the teacher with little input - creative or practical - from the child. The actual trigger was when my four-year-old was told off for wanting to paint an elephant orange because "elephants can only be grey"." Kids' Gallery courses include visual arts (sketching, fine arts, arts and crafts), performing arts (musical theatre, speech and drama, singing, and ballet), language arts (art in Mandarin), and digital arts (web design and film).  Over 2,500 children attend its centres in Mid-Levels, Kowloon Tong and Beijing each week, and of the 60 staff, around 50 are specialist teachers. Setting up a business in Hong Kong was particularly easy, Ms Hotung said. "In other places I have lived, for example the UK, I would have had serious doubts about whether I could make the business succeed, particularly at the start-up stage.  " The best aspects in Hong Kong are that the business, legal and tax systems are relatively simple to understand and comply with, and that information is easily obtainable from the various government departments.  Hong Kong is a great place for networking, PR and 'word of mouth', which is particularly important for my business.  It is also easy to carry out accurate market research." Three years after opening their first centre in Hong Kong, the Hotungs entered the China market with Kids' Gallery in Beijing. Now that Shanghai has caught up in terms of numbers of international children, they are looking into opening a second centre in the mainland.  " Beijing is only a three-hour flight from Hong Kong and although the red tape has been more difficult to negotiate in China, with the appointment of a good manager there we have been able to grow the business there as well," Ms Hotung said " We are about to launch ourselves into franchising the Kids' Gallery brand and our services.  We are currently in discussion with a possible partner in Singapore to open there next year, and we are also interested in opening a couple more centres in Hong Kong as well as in other South-East Asian cities where parents tend to have the same expectations for their children's education."