JOHOR BAHRU, July 18 (Sin Chew Daily) — Starting from delivering 80kg of seafood daily in March last year, a doctor who helps his mother run a seafood business, now delivers 800kg of seafood to elderly homes, underprivileged families and the poor on a daily basis, except Sundays.

Gu Jun Song, 47, a plastic surgeon who runs a hospital in Thailand with his mentor, was back home in 2019 to celebrate the new year.

He was unable to return to Thailand due to the movement control order implemented by the Malaysian government and ended up helping his mother run her 40-year-old seafood business in Johor Bahru.

With a group of friends, Gu visited an elderly home in Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, Skudai on March 26. He delivered 100kg of fish to the home during the visit, which started the regular contribution of seafood to elderly homes. 

Gu said that in his conversations with the elderlies, he discovered many lacked love. They were lonely and conveniently forgotten.

"They told me they may not even get to taste fish during Chinese New Year after knowing that I brought fish for them. I also found out that they miss prawns," he said.

Gu later delivered prawns to the home. He also attended their birthday celebrations.

"They were elated that someone actually remembered what they had said earlier and kept saying thank you to me.

"Their way of expressing gratitude is different from other people. I felt sorry for them. From then on I decided to continue delivering seafood to them," he said.

Initially, Gu said he delivered 80kg of seafood on a daily basis.

He later realized that those in need of seafood was getting larger in group and the delivery of seafood thus increased from 100kg to 200kg, 500 kg, 800kg and now 1,000kg each day.

Starting from northeast of Johor Bahru, the seafood delivery extended to northwest of the city, other districts in Johor and even to Kuantan.

Gu said the delivery was divided into three different groups.

He delivered to old folks home, orphanages and disabled centers providing them seafood enough to last for a week.

The second group is made up of single mothers and underprivileged families. Each household is given 4kg of seafood, enough for a family to last for one week.

Volunteers would interview the beneficiary families before delivering fish and prawns to them.

Gu estimated that he had helped around 800 families.

For the third group classified as open group, his team would deliver seafood to the flats. Each recipient is given 1kg of seafood.

"To give to more people, the team would return to the flats after one or two weeks to deliver the seafood," he said.

Gu said he witnessed people weep for not getting the seafood as they had not had fish for a long time.

As more people have come to know about Gu's seafood delivery, more support keeps coming in.

Some have become volunteers helping him deliver the seafood. Some join him to contribute. Some fishermen offer him the unsold fish to be given to the needy while transport companies provide the delivery service.

With the support from these partners, Gu said he did not incur huge losses. Occasionally, he would use the profits from his business to make up for the losses.

His supply of fish comes from Kuantan, Pangkor, Kuala Sedili Besar, Kota Tinggi, Endau, etc.

To ensure that fresh seafood is delivered, workers spend five to six hours cleaning, cutting and packing different types of fish such as tenggiri, senangin, black pomfret and various types of prawns a day before delivery.

Fish delivered to elderly homes, orphanages and disabled homes would be vacuum packed with fish bones removed.

"The fish can be kept longer and the elderlies will not need to worry about fish bones," he explained.

Gu hired more than a hundred people to process the fish. The workers also help him sell the fish in live stream. These workers are the ones affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Gu is providing them meals.

Through live stream, the seafood is sold 30% to 50% cheaper than market prices so that the needy will be able to afford seafood.

He said this would help people who are shy to ask for help.

The homeless are not forgotten too.

For two days in a month, Gu will supply 600 packs of lunch and dinner boxes, including 200 packs of rice to the homeless and another 400 packs to the poor.

The fish shop receives four to five calls a day seeking help, mainly asking for food.

Gu said his staff would take down the particulars and hand over to the volunteers to verify.

"For those who qualify, we send them rice and dried food, apart from seafood," he said.