Jo Hyun Jae

JohyunjaeHongKong launched their first charitable activity on May 23. A group of JHJHK members visited seniors who lived alone and distributed to them Chinese dumplings. (May 28 is the Dragon Boat Festival.*) Here in their own words (translated from Chinese):

We only visited 6 seniors since the rest (assigned to us by a charity organization) opted to collect the dumplings themselves. The funny thing was — the addresses were a little confusing, so even after taking the elevator, we often had to run up and down the stairs.

In case the seniors could not hear the doorbell or were slow in opening the door or were wary of strangers, we rang the bell and knocked on the door and loudly announced the purpose of our visit.

The seniors were all very happy to see us and talked about their daily lives or complained about their old mates or told us about their ill health, like a broken leg that took months to heal. They all appeared very friendly if a little lonely.

These seniors are all over 80 years old. Their health and responses are remarkably good. Old people in Hong Kong are better off than those in other parts of the world. All they need are some attention and care.

Even though today is a stormy and rainy day and we got all wet (normally on a day like this we would have stayed home), we all feel very happy to have participated in such a meaningful activity. We hope to convey our concern and caring of our community in the name of Jo Hyun Jae.

Today is the first time JohyunjaeHongKong embarked on a charitable activity which we found most meaningful and memorable. This is the first step. We will carry on. Fighting!

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese (lunar) calendar is the Dragon Boat Festival — in memory of Qu Yuan (c.340 BC-278 BC) of the Warring States Period. A high-ranking official of the state of Chu, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in a river in disgust over court corruption because he could not get the king to listen to him. He was much respected by the local people who threw dumplings into the river so the fish would not eat his body. They also used their long narrow paddle boats (see photo) to try to scare the fish away with the thunder of drums and the fierce-looking carved dragon head on the boats’ prows (hence they are known as Dragon Boats.)

(Thank you, JohyunjaeHongKong, for the report.)