Dr. Ding Lik-kiu ( Chinese: 陳立僑, 1921 in

Raj of Sarawak (While I breathe, I hope) , national_anthem = '' Gone Forth Beyond the Sea'' , capital = Kuching , common_languages = English, Iban, Melanau, Bidayuh, Sarawak Malay, Chinese etc. , government_type = Absol ...

– 24 June 2008 in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, United States) was a prominent Hong Kong social activist in the 1970s and 80s.

Biography

Ding was born in an impoverished family in

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

(modern day

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the M ...

) in 1921. His father was a poor merchant and murdered on the road when Ding was a baby. When he was 5 his mother found a rich local merchant to adopt him, but could not bear to part with him on the doorstep of the merchant's house and took him back home. A year later she died from the vitamin deficiency heart disease

Beriberi Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (Vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi. Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, r ...

. Ding was taken in by the local Methodist missionary school and through a series of scholarships eventually studied medicine at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

and then went back to

to serve as a medical missionary, where he helped set up Christ Hospital. After moving to Hong Kong in 1962, he started fighting for the rights of workers and the underprivileged. His focus on social ills started with drug addiction, one of the city's gravest social problems at the time. He was an experienced narcotics researcher and called for better rehabilitation of addicts. A methadone outpatient scheme, which Ding had advocated since the late 1960s backed up by results from

Randomized control trial A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical te ...

, was set up in 1972 by the Medical Health Department. He even opposed to the performance of the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...

in Hong Kong because of their past association with drugs.Farewell doctor mission and view everything
/ref> Among other issues he also campaigned against corruption, drug addiction and price rises by public utilities, and advocated women's right to abortion, workers' rights, democratic reform, environmental protection, population growth and human rights protection. He led a seven-member delegation to London in May 1984 to lobby for democratic reform in Hong Kong before the colony's handover to China and met with the former British Prime Minister

Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conserv ...

. He was the chairman of the

Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee ( Chinese: 香港基督教工業委員會, also called as HKCIC) is a non-governmental pressure group that focuses on labor welfare policy and industrial safety. The group was founded in 1966, original ...

for more than 20 years. He was also founding chairman of the

Association for Democracy and Justice The Association for Democracy and Justice () was a short-lived liberal political organisation in Hong Kong during the mid-1980s as the predecessor of the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL). History It was founde ...

in 1985 and became founding chairman of the

Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood The Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) is a Hong Kong pro-democracy social-liberal political party catering to grassroots interest with a strong basis in Sham Shui Po. Established on 26 October 1986, it was one o ...

in 1986. He founded first green group in Hong Kong

Conservancy Association The Conservancy Association () is a Hong Kong non-governmental organisation founded in 1968. The organisation focuses on the protection of the environment and the conservation of natural and cultural heritage. It also seeks to enhance the qu ...

and Hong Kong Youth Music Society. His motto was to 'Live simply, give generously, and think vigorously'.

Personal life

Ding had 4 children with his wife Lillian who was also a doctor and very engaged in social work. Their oldest daughter Vivian is a doctor, their second daughter Mary May is in the technology industry, their third daughter Grace is also doctor, their youngest son Luke studied medicine but switched to finance and now also very engaged in philanthropy. Ding emigrated to San Francisco in 1990 and died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

on 24 June 2008 at the age of 87.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ding, Lik-kiu Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood politicians 1921 births 2008 deaths Hong Kong Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in Indonesia Christian medical missionaries Deaths from pneumonia in California Johns Hopkins University alumni Hong Kong activists Hong Kong people of Malaysian descent Malaysian expatriates in the United States