Wu Lien-Teh birthday anniversary activities

On the tenth of March every year, the Dr Wu Lien Teh Society would organise some activity or function to mark the anniversary of this renown gentleman's birthday. For 2021, the 142nd anniversary of his birth, we decided a few weeks ago to have a tea gathering on the grounds of the Penang Institute where there is a bust of Wu Lien-Teh. 

We were planning a soft launch of the second reprint of his auto-biography, Plague Fighter, which is now out-of-stock in the bookshops. In the first reprint several years ago, 1,000 copies were printed but we had not anticipated the immense interest shown in this book. Obviously, the Covid-19 pandemic had added to the demand because of the N95 face mask. There were also plans to video-tape the committee members reading short excerpts from this book which would then be uploaded to the website. My contribution was to read from a newspaper report on his death in 1960.

Then on Tuesday, the Society's president, Anwar Fazal, informed us that Salma Khoo would be offering us a herbal plant to remember Wu Lien-Teh's work on traditional medicine. This would be planted near the bust at Penang Institute. With these going on, these were already quite a lot of activities lined up for the gathering.

We awoke on the 10th morning to a lot of excitement. People who had logged into the Google homepage were intrigued to see a doodle of Wu Lien-Teh on the Google search page. Google's explanation of this doodle: 

Today's Doodle celebrates the 142nd birthday of Chinese-Malaysian epidemiologist Dr Wu Lien-teh, who invented a surgical face covering that is widely considered the precursor to the N95 mask.

Born into a family of Chinese immigrants in Penang, Malaya (modern-day Malaysia) on this day in 1879, Wu went on to become the first student of Chinese descent to earn his MD from Cambridge University. Following his doctoral studies, he accepted a position as the vice director for China's Imperial Army Medical College in 1908. When an unknown epidemic afflicted north-western China in 1910, the Chinese government appointed Wu to investigate the disease, which he identified as the highly contagious pneumonic plague that spread from human to human through respiratory transmission. 

To combat the disease, Wu designed and produced a special surgical mask with cotton and gauze, adding several layers of cloth to filter inhalations. He advised people to wear his newly invented mask and worked with government officials to establish quarantine stations and hospitals, restrict travel, and apply progressive sterilization techniques; his leadership contributed greatly to the end of the pandemic (known as the Manchurian plague) by April 1911—within four months of being tasked with controlling its spread.

In 1915, Wu founded the Chinese Medical Association, the country’s largest and oldest non-governmental medical organization. In 1935, he was the first Malaysian—and the first person of Chinese descent–nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work to control the pneumonic plague. A devoted advocate and practitioner of medical advancement, Wu’s efforts not only changed public health in China but that of the entire world. 

Happy birthday to the man behind the mask, Dr. Wu Lien-teh! 

By mid-morning, the doodle had created a lot of buzz in the country. Suddenly, people wanted to know more about Wu Lien-Teh. We were getting a bit flustered by the attention created by this doodle, not that we minded. But something else was happening in Penang that we were unaware of. 

According to the grapevine, several news media began contacting the Chief Minister's Office to ask what the state government was doing to commemorate Wu Lien-Teh's birthday. I heard that the Chief Minister, Chow Kon Yeow, was caught by surprise. He had little idea of the significance of this date and was unprepared for it. In a half-panic, his Office contacted the Penang Institute to find out more and was told, "We have the solution. Please come to the tea gathering at the Penang Institute this afternoon at 4.30pm to find out more. And that was why when my wife and I turned up at the Penang Institute at about 4.45pm yesterday, we were bemused to see the Chief Minister there together with lots of media people covering the event.

Among them was a television crew from Astro Awani. Meanwhile, the Astro AEC channel also wanted to conduct an interview with the Society through Zoom. So suddenly, they had a stroke of luck as the Chief Minister himself could be interviewed on the very same topic of Wu Lien-Teh and at the same time, witness him doing the soft launch for the book's reprint. 

I shall now take the liberty to share a summary report by the Secretary-General of the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society, Dr Hor Chee Peng, regarding the activities held yesterday at the Penang Institute.

Today marks a special day for us to celebrate the iconic legend, Dr Wu Lien-Teh, the internationally acclaimed plague fighter in China and a visionary public health physician standing up for social justice and community development. His life story and heroic achievements have remained as an inspiration and set the standard for generations of doctors to come.

It has been more than a year since the Covid-19 outbreak started in Wuhan and became the pandemic affecting every one of us in unprecedented scale. Dr Wu left a legacy in his initiative approach in containing the plague epidemic from strict isolation policy, movement control practices and orders, disinfection, and the historic mass cremation in the history of China, through his tough fights with authority for the community. 

We are celebrating his birthday, reflecting from his life journey and learning from his legacy, not only as a visionary, courageous public health physician, but a highly intellectual and wise person which has much to offer to the society ranging from anti-racism, anti-opium to advocating primary education for girls back then.

There were series of activities the Society has conducted today:

(a) A small tea party at the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Garden in Penang Institute with his bust donated from University of Harbin, China. A few of us were present physically, of course, all masked up with good physical distancing. We were honoured with a surprise visit from our honourable Chief Minister of Penang, Mr Chow Kon Yeow. His presence acknowledged the recognition of the Penang State Government for Dr Wu's extraordinary contributions to the world and his legacy. Besides, we also had Ms Alison Chong, Vice-President of the Society and Great Grandniece of Dr Wu, joining us virtually from Singapore to celebrate this special day.

(b) Planting a herbal plant (Senna alata, or known as the ringworms shrub) in the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Garden to commemorate his passion and works for the traditional and complementary medicine. Dr Wu Lien-Teh co-authored the History of Chinese Medicine with Dr Chimin Wong. The plant was donated by Mdm Salma Khoo, one of the founders of the Society, and our beloved President, Dato’ Seri (Dr.) Anwar Fazal. We planted it with love and look forwards to seeing it being nurtured to blossom in years to come! 

(c) Soft launching of the second reprinting of Dr Wu’s autobiography, Plague Fighter: The Autobiography of a Modern Chinese Physician in 2021 conjunction with his 142nd birthday anniversary in midst of a global fight for the Covid-19 pandemic. The current copy is out of stock. A thousand copies of reprint is in progress!

(d) Launching the book reading session from the autobiography to share the stories and reflections from Dr Wu's life journey. There were several book reading sessions of variable lengths recorded by various committee members of the Society and they will be uploaded from time to time!

Last but not least, the blast of the day was Dr Wu being featured in Google Doodle! Many of our friends and colleagues texted us with words of motivation and filled with joy! It was great to learn that the great-grand-daughters of Dr Wu, namely Dr Shan Woo- Liu and Dr Ling Woo-Liu, worked in partnership with Google for this project. Dr Shan Woo-Liu is also our life member of the Society and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine from Harvard Medical School.

In a single day, Dr Wu received such an enormous attention throughout the world from various media platform locally and internationally - such a long overdue recognition!

These were the activities for today. Stay tuned for more! Do follow our facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/wulientehpg , and website, www.wulientehsociety.org , for more updates!

Finally, here is a link to a video which had been uploaded by Astro AEC to their youtube channel. It's in Mandarin but the message should be clear to everybody watching.