Tribute page

About the page

Tribute page is one of the projects one would build when learning web development.. The first time when I read the instructions in freecodecamp about this project (it was in summer 2022), admittedly, I struggled and confused. I wondered which great thinker in history I should choose to be the topic... or perhaps my favourite film director? Yet, after few months and now I am building the same project with more skills equipped, I wish to choose another approach to the topic and I asked myself the question below:

What is tribute?

As I am not a native English speaker, I looked up to the dictionary and found the following,

Tribute means something given or contributed voluntarily... showing respect, gratitude, or affection
From Merriam Webster

And suddenly it came to my mind that this can be used to record the achievements of a closed one and their (once) existence. Indeed, famous people have already many tribute pages dedicated to their achievements and influence, and each page contains more or less similar information, sometimes in greater details and sometimes rather in brief. On the other hand, ordinary people must also have something in their life worth being recorded in this vast internet, particularly those who have been special to us.

As a result, this triute page is made by me for my sister, Kayan Lam.

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Who is she?

Family background

Kayan Lam was the eldest daughter of the family. Accordingly, before she was born, her mother gave birth to a baby boy who was immediately found dead due to the poor facilities of hospital and the staff there. By the time of moving to Japan for further study at the age of 19, she had been living with her parents and a younger sister, in a studio flat in a public house in Hong Kong.

Personality

Kayan was a very energetic, witty and adorable person with her own struggles and shadows.

Once Kayan set goal on something, she was unstoppable and this characteristic of hers helped her achieve many miracles, in work and in private life, just like her Chinese zodiac sign, the boar. It might be also contributed by Kayan's parents holding high expectations about her academic performance when she was at school. She also cared about friends so much that her kindness brought her lots of precious friendships.

On the other hand, Kayan was insecure, skeptic, and proned to sarcasm.

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Birth and death

Birth

Kayan was born on 24 December 1983, an afternoon at Christmas. Until the puberty, she was suffering from asthma and some other health problems. Once at her birthday party, she got epilepsy that her parents had to carry her running to the A&E at night - luckily back then they were living very close to the hospital.

Death

Diagnosed of Cancer

In March 2020, alerted by unnaturally frequent periods in a single month, Kayan decided to visit her doctor for cervical screening. Then as she was about to resume her busy working life as a single-mother in a foreign country, she was informed the test result was not normal and immediately referred to a further examination. She was diagnosed of cervical cancer, in stage 4 which means there had been widespread metastasis.

She was at her age of 36 at that moment.

On top of that, the medical staff confessed that they were not certain about the type of her cancer but only knew it was rare and unrelated to HIV, the major trigger for most of cervical cancers.

Worried about the future of her 9 year old son, Kayan was determined to take part in any possible treatments. In May 2020, in the heat of COVID-19, she went through 2 months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in Ariake Cancer Hospital in Tokyo.

Death

Kayan's situation got momentarily improved in summer but soon in less than a month, her metastasis turned worse and through the examination, the medical staff in Japan decided to stop providing her any active treatments.

After consulting with many people and a discreet consideration, in September, Kayan left for Hong Kong with her son and her younger sister who went to Japan as a support in summer. Once she got back to Hong Kong, she was admitted to the department of oncology in Tuen Mun Hospital. The senior medical officer there raised their a collection of doubts when reading through the referral report from the hospital in Japan, admitted now Kayan's situation got worsened by the delay of a proper treatment but willing to help her at their best.

Later Kayan had a severe stroke leading to the realisation that it was not her first time. She had a mild one in summer due to the thrombosis.

Following the celebration for her son's 10-year-old birthday at home in Early December, Kayan was called back to hospital for a week of stay. During the time, she had the third stroke and fell into deep coma afterwards. She passed away a day before her 37th birthday, on 23 December 2020.

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Relationships

Kayan was perseverant and multitalented that she was able to achieve her goal so long as she set her determination on it. Nonetheless, although Kayan had been long dreaming of forming her own family with a lovable partner since childhood, relationship was the top challenge in her life.

The first time Kayan ever in her life had a crush happened when she was around 10 years old, with her classmate. However, after she confessed with him, the news got spreaded around and she was bullied by other classmates. Her initial relationship was when she moved to the secondary school. She was 13 years old and one day, a 18 years old gangster member who was active in the vicinity of the school started pursuing her. This relationship did not last long.

After then, Kayan had another few short term relationships during the junior levels at secondary school before setting her aim at studying in Japan. She was always the one being pursued in the first place, then always devoted herself fully into the maintenance of the relationship, and eventually always being broken up with. From all these experiences, she gradually learnt to be more defensive.

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Key events

1983.12.24: Born in Hong Kong.
1988.11: Kayan's younger sister was born. Kayan became the eldest daughter in the family.
1989 - 1995: Going to a private primary school in the neighbourhood. When in Grade 4 (1993), she had her first crush at school. After her feeling was known by classmates, she was being bullied for her less resourceful family background.
1995: With a relatively outstanding academic result, Kayan got admitted into an English secondary school. Had the first relationship but did not last long.
1998: Kayan got into a fight with her best friend. In order to earn her friend's forgiveness, she was begging in front of the other's flat for hours. Only then she eardropped the phone conversation between her with someone and found out this friendship was a fraud.
1998 autumn: Incidentally, Kayan got to know about Japanese rock from a band Luna Sea and started building up her identity from there, expanding social circle by meeting with new people shared similar interests in ICQ.
1999 summer: First time traveling to Japan and alone for a whole month, after passing HKCEE (GCSE equivalent).
2002 spring: Moved to Tokyo and started studying in the language school.
2003 - 2006: Began to study jewelry design at a renowned college.
2005: Began a 2-year-relationship with the senior, Teru, in the convenience store where she was doing part-time.
2009: Met with Yuuki (Aki's father) and started cohabitation along the relationship.
2010.12.04: Gave birth to Aki.
2017: Formally broke up with Yuuki.
2020.12.23: Passed away in Hong Kong.

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Interests

Kayan was a very artistic and talented person. She was interested in rock music, interior/ jewelry/ fashion design, illustration and styling.

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Epilogue

My intention was stated in the first section on this page - to record my sister's existence in the internet for her virtues and my complicated affection towards her.

To start with, it has been not easy to decide which color tones may be suitable for presenting her. Yet, compared with the application of my web development skills, what is most challenging is the context.

What should I put on the web for the public? What would it be inappropriate to be mentioned but worth being recorded because it was part of her pain?

This may be just a small basic project but will be ongoing updated, with its content and presentation. Hopefully, by obtaining these skills, I got more to offer and have the strength to protect whom I care.

Ultimately, I wish to build something small it may be but has its own value.

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