© the other press e¢ Features

April 7, 2004

 

Who Its this

 

Kim Meier
David Lam Contributor

 

Every time I enter the glorious atri-
um of David Lam campus, I glance
at the photo of the brilliant man
who garnered enough respect from
our administration to earn the pres-
tigious honour of becoming the one
we have named our Coquitlam cam-
pus after. But I have no idea who he
is.

So, who is he? Turns out that
David See-Chai Lam was the first
Chinese-Canadian lieutenant-gover-
nor in Canada. He was appointed
lieutenant-governor — of __ British

a Page 20

Columbia in 1988. I did a little
research and found out that there
are a lot of neat things to know
about this guy. For example, in
1944, he was attacked by pirates.

When Lam was young and living
in Hong Kong, his parents paid for
him to attend school, as was the cus-
tom. This instilled in him a strong
work ethic. Apparently, Lam was
always a sort of businessman. When
he was only five years old, he col-
lected over $500 in donations for
the Hong Kong YMCA. In his
teens, he ran his own business,
growing flowers in his backyard and
selling them.

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Lam certainly, wasn’t all work and
no play, however. He had an avid
taste for North American music,
and in the late 1930s, started a band
with his two brothers. They toured
the local boys’ and girls’ schools.

Not only business savvy, not only
fun loving—Lam has a big heart,
too. Around 1942, he visited an
orphanage in Fort Bayard and saw
the poor conditions the children had
to live in. He used his business to
raise money and donated as much as
he could to the orphanage.

Lam did his graduate studies in
the United States, but returned to
Hong Kong after getting his master’s

 

degree. He married in 1954, and
built a house in the countryside for
his family.

On May 29, 1967, Lam moved to
Canada, bringing with him his wife
and three young daughters. Always
the entrepreneur, he started his own
company, Canadian International
Properties. He managed to build the
company himself, and became quite
successful.

He has always held that it is
important to give back to the com-
munity, and he certainly demon-
strated this when he donated a mil-
lion dollars to the University of
British Columbia for the improve-

ment of the Asian Gardens. In 1990,
these gardens were renamed after
him.

There. Although brief, you now
know a little bit about the man after
whom our campus was named—
and so do I. Although I still wish my
name and photo were up there
instead, at least now I approve of
David Lam’s presence. And yes, I
feel a little bit proud to know that
he’s the man I’m being associated
with when I tell people that I attend
the David Lam campus.