Hong Kong (SE): It is with sadness that we announce the death of Chan Sui-jeung—fondly known as SJ, a good friend of the Sunday Examiner and the Kung Kao Po, on January 27. He was 84-years-old. He is survived by his wife, Mei.
 
After SJ finished his studies at the University of Hong Kong in 1959, he worked at a local English-language newspaper before joining the Hong Kong Civil Service where he worked from 1968 to 1994. Between 1980 and 1984 he was district officer for Sai Kung in the New Territories.
 
The Hong Kong-born SJ was a raconteur, author and a scholar, and an honorary research fellow at the Institute of Humanities and Social Studies and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. 
 
Among his works is the monograph, The Jews in China: Reflections on Sino-Judaic History, first published in 1986 and reprinted in 2004. This led to his participation, with Dennis Levanthal, in the setting up of what is today the Hong Kong Jewish Community Centre Library and the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong. 
 
In 2001, SJ published the Calendar of Traditional Chinese Festivals and Local Celebrations in which he introduced the origins and the characteristics of folk customs in Hong Kong and wrote about traditional Chinese festivals, their origins and the ways in which they are celebrated.
 
He also wrote, East River Column: Hong Kong Guerrillas in the Second World War and After, the story of Chinese guerilla forces who fought the Japanese occupation, which was published in 2009.
 
Following his retirement from the government, SJ worked for Caritas-Hong Kong, and later frequently assisted at the Sunday Examiner, translating Chinese-language news reports as well as contributing the occasional article.
 
SJ was the founding treasurer of the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council and a vice president of the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association. 
 
A requiem Mass will be celebrated at 9.00am at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on February 10. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Sunbeam Children’s Foundation Ltd, GPO Box 6651 (marked in memory of Chan Sui Jeung).
 
He will be missed.
 
May he rest in peace.