Beloved feline icon dies

Celebrity cat Brother Cream, who used to watch over a newspaper stall in Tsim Sha Tsui East and enjoyed citywide popularity for eight years, passed away yesterday.

Cherished as an iconic figure of Hong Kong, the British Shorthair died at the age of 14 from stomach cancer, according to its owner Bee Ko Chee-shing.

"The departure of Brother Cream only means that it will be guarding us in another place . . . [It] will live forever in our hearts," Ko wrote on social media, informing Brother Cream's whopping 37,000 Facebook followers.

"Thank you Cream for letting me learn to love cats," one netizen wrote, among over 3,600 responses to the post.

The beloved pet, named for the color of its fur, was adopted in 2006 by Ko, who was running a newspaper convenience store at the time. It soon became the store's mascot, gaining a level of fame among customers. When the creamy-color cat went missing in 2012, cat lovers searched the city before it was found 26 days later.

Making headlines, the cat met over a hundred visitors daily at Ko's store during its peak fame.

Fans were devastated when Ko closed his newspaper stall in 2016, but Brother Cream later reappeared that year at Ko's new pet products shop in Yau Ma Tei.

Over the years, the feline has been the subject of four books, with Ko establishing a foundation to support animal charities in its name.

All these may explain why Brother Cream's fans took its death so hard, as one lamented: "Hong Kong has lost yet another icon."

mandy.zheng@singtaonewscorp.com