Raimondians from the Class of 1969 were saddened in April to learn of the passing of Fung Ho Lup 馮可立, a fondly remembered classmate who had a distinguished career in social work.
Fung was highly regarded for his pioneering campaigns for disadvantaged groups in Hong Kong. He had made his mark in social work from the 1970s onward until recent years, both in the field and as an academic who taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
His death was reported widely in the Hong Kong news media. Former classmates who shared their high-school years with Fung were moved to send messages of remembrance and condolence.
Here is a collection of the tributes that their senders wish to be posted on this class blog.
YC Wong
馮可立兄是我中學同班的同學。我們中六時一起自修報考中大，俱獲錄取，但他後來沒有入讀。升上中七後，他考港大而得取錄。
他一生從事改革社會及改善民生的工作，成績裴然。七十年代初艇户事件令他留名社運界，並終身服膺之，實在難得。
我們並不常見，後來聽說他患病，在中大由全職變成兼課。大約六、七年前，支聯會邀請我談文革，他和太太一起來聽，令我十分感動。
近一年左右，我們 1969 年中學畢業生组織了一個網上群組，他也参加了。不過，未幾他即退出，我大約感覺到他的病嚴重了。
令人欣慰的是他在睡夢安詳地過去了，可立兄，一路好走！
Leo Leung
細立,
去年底應邀加入Raimondi69 群組, 你即说：” 梁立勳大隻叫大立 … 我又瘦又矮叫細立。”
細立,大立, 彼此相稱已五十多年了.
細細的身影, 此刻卻大大浮現在我眼前：在志傑普慶坊住處, 晚上登天臺觀星；在馬料水陪著尚明與女友, 四人一艇在划行；在尖沙咀西青會中文部, 領著青少年一起唱我的祖國、保衛黃河、鋤頭歌 … 俱往矣！
唯你那憨直的笑容, 仗義秉公的性格, 永遠加倍存在我心中.
大立
Michael Yuen
收到可立兄走了的消息，有點落漠，記得在高主教的兒時，跟可立兄頗為熟落，因我的住處，跟他的只是隔了一條皇后大道西，一起走路上學，放學的日子，歷歷在目，現在他駕鶴西歸，希望他在主懷安息，長享永生。
Gabriel Lam
為兄弟姊妹弱小的一群發聲，不畏強權，爭取社會仁愛公義，一位可敬的人，一個可敬「可立」且熟悉的名字，原來是自己當年中學同級那一位，多麼令我驕傲。
可立同學，辛苦了，環境現也跟我們那時的不一樣了，請安息於仁愛的主懷中，願天家再會、再向你請教。
Patrick Tse
A sad day, one less person to defend the weak and the underprivileged. RIP, my dear old friend.
Willy Lam
Ho Lup and I were at Raimondi College and the University of Hong Kong at the same time. In super-busy Hong Kong, former schoolmates normally do not keep up contact with each other unless they are in the same profession or if they are members of some relatively exclusive clubs.
Fung was in the news in the late 1970s for helping Hong Kong’s “boat people” get resettled in government-built housing. He organized a street protest and was briefly detained by police.
I was lucky enough to have kept up contact with him until the early 1990s. I was a journalist in the 1980s and 1990s covering greater China. I still remember visiting the NGO where Fung worked for some ten years from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s: the Society for Community Organization (SOCO). Fung gave me many tips on who to interview to get the Hong Kong story right. Partly founded by missionaries and welfare-related community groups, SOCO is not a radical set-up in terms of political orientation. It focuses on work for the underprivileged in areas including housing, health and general social welfare. By the 1980s, Hong Kong as a whole was getting rich; but social inequality also reared its head. The situation has hardly changed today. On the one hand local real estate prices are the highest in the world; on the other, there are still thousands of the “underclasses” living in crowded housing estates, plywood-partitioned rooms and even “cage homes.”
Fung hankered after neither money nor fame but devoted his entire career to helping the less privileged. In the 1990s, he shifted gear and began teaching social work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Fung did not seem to have played an active role in either the Occupy Central Movement of 2014 or the more recent series of pro-democracy demonstrations. Most of the protesters were infused with the spirit of social equality and justice that Fung taught by his own example. Owing to his thorough understanding of the social-welfare scene in Hong Kong, his many papers on housing and poverty relief are considered must reading for students in social work and sociology in local universities.
Just a few years ago, we re-connected while taking part in forums to try to reform the heavily bureaucratic administrative structure of HKU. I gave him a brief call earlier this year when he joined our Raimondi 69 chat group. The day after his passage, the mass-circulation Ming Pao devoted a full page (page 2) to Fung and his illustrious legacy. His passing is a big loss for Hong Kong.
Paul Loong has the honour of compiling and presenting these tributes in memory of Fung Ho Lup.
Raimondi '69 