‘I learned English from the Backstreet Boys because I was going to marry one of them,’ says Alyson Hau of her preteen self – years later, she introduced them on stage
I WAS BORN in Kwong Wah Hospital in October 1983. I have a sister, Melody Hau. She’s eight years older than me. She’s always been more of a second mother than a sibling. She’s actually my manager now. We have different fathers and she didn’t come into my life until she was 11. She was brought up by my (maternal) grandma and then she joined our family. That’s when I realised I had a sister. I was three. My mum was a businesswoman and she would fly a lot. So I saw my sister a lot more than my mum or dad.
WE STARTED OUT in Jordan and then lived in Wan Chai. I have lived in at least 25 places. The whole nomad journey was because when I was seven my mum divorced my dad because he got into some bad habits and we were escaping from him. He had a gambling problem. My mum just said, “Here, take my company, take all my money, take my house. I just want to keep my girls.” So, every time he found us to ask my mum for more money, we had to get going again. At the time I thought it was fun. She kept every weekend very busy for us. We would have so much to do that we forgot that we needed a dad.
