Mr. David Chuk Wo Cheung - Down the Memory Lane – Lasallians Remembered

Mr. Cheung, David Chuk Wo

Date of Birth: 1945 Class of Graduation: 1963 Date of Death: 20 January 2010

Biography

The following was posted on the OBA Chatboard (modified) on David Cheung’s passing.

RIP David Cheung (63) Dear All

I am very saddened to share with you that David Cheung (63), a former loyal Committee Member of the LSCOBA for many years, passed away early Wednesday morning, 20th January 2010. David suffered from cancer, which was discovered middle of 2009.

David was extremely proud to be a Lasallian, and he had been a loyal supporter of Lasallian affairs for many years.

At 11 years old, David left Pooi To (培道) Primary School and entered LSC’s P5 in January 1956 (at that time LSPS was not yet open). The school was then located on Perth Street. In Sept 1956, he repeated P5 as the academic standard of his former school was different from La Salle’s. In September 1957, David entered the new LSPS grounds on La Salle Road as a P6 boy. David entered LSC F1 in 1959, which was still occupying the Perth Street Campus, so he had to move from LSPS La Salle Road to Perth Street. In F2, he returned to La Salle Road campus as the school moved back to La Salle Road after the British Army released the building back to the Brothers.

So he used to tell me that, as a kid, he had a very confused childhood, as he didn’t understand why he had to move school (campus) all the time!! David offered me much help with my research into Perth Street, through his many stories and personal memories, like opening an umbrella in a leaking classroom during heavy rain, folding paper boats and setting them off in a flooded classroom, burning the grass of the hill behind the school etc.

David studied all the way to F7 in LSC, and then left HK for studies in N. America.

David was a faithful supporter of many school events and sports competitions. When I played soccer for La Salle in the early 1980s, David was already watching interschool games. Besides, David was always full of life. He was a globe-trotter and visited dozens of countries worldwide in all continents, including many very exotic destinations. He once told me he had visited all provinces of China, including the origins of Huang Ho in Qinghai Province, and I think he had to engage a jeep and a driver and it took days of poor roads to get there. David had been a travel columnist for a magazine, sharing his travel tales.

Besides his travel, David had achieved some outstanding episodes in life that few could match. He had completed many 100Km Oxfam HK Trailwalkers and half marathrons through the years, and also completed many Sower Action walks to Guangzhou from HK, fund raising for the charity. However, those achievements were only warm-ups for this man’s ultimate challenge of his life, a 2,800 kilometres walk from HK to Beijing, also for Sower’s Action to raise funds for China’s needy school children. While participants could take part by picking different stages of the walk to Beijing, David is said to be the only participant to walk every day of the 120 day walk, two others who walked the full journey were taken ill on some of the days in between. The group walked 6 days a week, and on the rest day, David still had energy to go to the local Chinese discos for some dancing and fun, he recalled. On the journey, David he wore out three pairs of shoes and shed quite a few pounds on the way, and he was very happy all through the journey.

David was still serving in the OBA Committee up to the term 2008-09. In June 2009, at an OBA Committee dinner gathering, the committee gave David a surprise birthday celebration, and he could not stop smiling that evening. Unfortunately, soon after, David learnt that he had cancer in the throat.

I visited David just before Christmas in his office, and although he was considerably thinner, he was still relatively bright. As an insurance agent, he was still eagerly “running numbers”, and was proud to show me he was still one the top of top agents in his team, and was due to win another trip! As we departed at our last encounter, he still offered me a firm handshake, and I told him to keep fighting and he gave me a nod. A few weeks ago, the man happily went on the last earthly trip, to Vietnam. Good for him! He returned to HK on the 16th January, and recommenced work on 18th January. He was still working on 19th January, and he passed away on the 20th January. This guy truly lives life to its full, and with no regrets.

Many of us in La Salle will remember David in our own fond way. At the Committee meeting of the OBA later that January, the Committee observed a minute’s silence for David.

From being much a senior to me, seeing me play football for LSC when I was in my early teens in the early 1980s, David became a life long friend of mine, enjoying hikes, jokes, the Trailwalker, hearty meals, stories and pranks, and also serving the interests for old boys in the OBA in the committee. Please pray for the soul of David, and we will see him in heaven later.

David, who turned closer to God in his final days, was a bachelor and lived with his father, stepmother and one of his younger sisters in Kowloon City, the same place he called home since at least his 1950s La Salle Perth Street days.

With a heavy heart,
Mark Huang (85)

Photos of David on his 2,800Km walk to Beijing. David is wearing shorts in the center in the first photo, and the only one wearing shorts in the second.

Categories: Deceased, Old Boys