Opinion | Hong Kong’s blind protester on life on the front line and why she will keep demonstrating
Joy Luk, a 41-year-old lawyer from Yuen Long, first experienced tear gas 14 years ago and has been active in the current protests. She explains why making her presence felt is so important to her
Early arrival: I was born and raised in Hong Kong. The due date was in April 1978, but I was born prematurely on January 2, so I suffered some birth defects, which affected my sight. I lost vision in both eyes and cannot see any light. My mother worked as a cleaner and my father as a cleaner and construction labourer. I am the youngest of four. I have two brothers and one sister.
I grew up at Ebenezer School & Home for the Visually Impaired, in Pok Fu Lam, where I was admitted when I was five. They taught me life skills, such as how to take the bus and eat. The academic curriculum was similar to regular schools. I returned home on the weekends. We lived among mostly indigenous inhabitants in a village in Yuen Long and moved into public housing there in the late 80s.
The biggest problem for me was not being able to read the textbooks and casebooks, because they were available only in print. I had to spend a lot of time scanning them into the computer, page by page. After I graduated, I worked as a case officer at the Equal Opportunities Commission for two years, until I found a law firm that would hire me and I became a trainee solicitor in 2010, handling cases related to personal injuries. I quit in 2016 as my health deteriorated.
The justice league: As a disabled person, I am aware of how we are discriminated against, which fuels my passion for human rights and justice. After my first public exam, in 1997, I submitted an application to join the Democratic Party and was accepted. I also did a masters of law in human rights at HKU, where the rest of the small cohort of students were from Russia, Nepal, Africa and Korea. I was the only student from Hong Kong.
