‘I’m a crazy granny’ - artist and activist Evelyna Liang Kan brings creative projects to people in need
- Evelyna Liang Kan escaped communist China as a child and attributes her ‘free spirit’ to growing up on Cheung Chau
- The founder of Art In Hospital has helped refugee children and patients, and even Sai Kung fishermen
Hong Kong bound: I was born in Guangzhou in 1949. When I was just a few weeks old, my parents decided to escape to Hong Kong. My father used to work with a company affiliated to the Kuomintang, so they felt it was better to leave communist China.
We escaped by boat from Guangzhou. My brothers told me the boat was fired on by the army trying to stop people leaving. In the chaos, my five-year-old sister was pushed down and trampled, breaking three of her ribs. A missionary doctor from New Zealand helped to treat her.
My eldest brother was nine years old and remembered the doctor’s name. Later, he emigrated to New Zealand and found the doctor, who remembered my sister.
I had two older brothers and one older sister, a younger sister came later. My father, Dr Chi Chi Liang, taught at the medical school at the University of Hong Kong. My mother was the head matron for the outpatient department at the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital.
