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Kean Siew "man of
different lives"
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Kean Siew dies at
85
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Prominent Penang
lawyer Kean Siew dies at 85
• Looking
Back: Seeds of freedom
PENANG: Veteran Penang lawyer Lim Kean Siew passed away peacefully at
2.30pm after succumbing to a heart attack on Sunday. He was 85.
His remains will lie in state at the Batu Gantong funeral parlour for five days before being taken to the crematorium nearby on Thursday, Oct 4, at 11am. Sources said no rituals will be held. It is still unclear whether he passed away at his residence or in the private Gleneagles Hospital.
Lim, scion of a long–established family in Penang with properties in land and
industries, was a colourful lawyer during his time. He had suffered a minor
stroke many years ago and had been undergoing dialysis treatment three times a
week for some time now.
Born on June 5, 1922, Lim was a barrister from the Honourable Society of Gray's
Inn. He was admitted to the Malaysian Bar on Jan. 22, 1954.
The former politician was a Labour Party of Malaya Member of Parliament, State
Assemblyman and Local Councillor in the mid 1960s. The former chairman of the
Labour Party was also the chairman of the Socialist Front coalition comprising
the Partai Rakyat Malaya (later Malaysia).
The icon of Opposition politics in Malaya joined the Malaysian Chinese
Association (MCA) in 1975, three years after the Labour Party was proscribed in
1972 and was appointed the Penang MCA chairman by then MCA president and
Minister of New Villages and Local Government Datuk (now Tan Sri) Lee San Choon
from 1979 to 1984.
During the interim, in 1977, the fiery politician also served on the board of
The Star for a few years.
It is well known that the entry of this political strategist into the MCA
resulted in the formidable return of the MCA to the Penang political scene. The
MCA went into the 1969 election with the late Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee as incumbent
Chief Minister in the Penang State Government, but the party was eclipsed when
none of its candidates was returned in 1969.
Up to the time of his demise, Lim was a consultant at Lim Kean Siew and Company,
a law firm he founded a few decades ago. He was also keen on Chinese
tea–drinking and Buddhism, having written a few books on these.
The late Lim, whose father is former Judge and Federal Legislative Councillor
Lim Cheng Ean who staged a walk–out over the threat to abolish vernacular
education, also authored several books detailing his experience during World War
II.
One of them is “Blood on the Golden Sands” which held his argument that the
seeds of Malayan and later Malaysian nationalism were sowed during the Japanese
occupation of World War II.
Such was the great but gentle influence wielded by the Lim clan during the
British colonial period that Penangites in the know used to say that while Cheng
Ean was an esteemed lawyer and later legislative councillor, his elder brother
Cheng Teik was Penang’s first millionaire industrialist and his younger brother
Cheng Law owned The Straits Echo through the Clarion Press Ltd, writing under
the nom de plume “LCL.”
Indeed, this established family has two roads named after two prominent personalities of two generations of the clan – Phuah Hin Leong Road and Lim Cheng Teik Square, beaten only by the equally famous but not that wealthy former Malaysian Senator Cheah Seng Khim’s family who now boasts three roads named after three personalities of three generations, two in Penang and one in Kuala Lumpur.
The late Lim leaves behind his wife, Ms Pamela Ong, who is also a lawyer, and a
son, who is a doctor, and two sons and two daughters, one adopted. Among his
surviving siblings are Kuala Lumpur–based Lim Phaik Gan, who is popularly known
as P.G. Lim, Malaysia’s former Ambassador to The Hague, and Penang legal doyen
Lim Kean Chye.