As the 2024 Paralympics in Paris begins on Aug 28, we have Jenny Fung, president of China Hong Kong Paralympic Committee, as our guest on Straight Talk this week.

Fung talks about the early struggle of our disabled athletes and how to change one question disabled people often ask "Why me?" to "Why not me?"

Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Dr Eugene Chan’s interview with Jenny Fung:

Chan: Good evening! I'm Eugene Chan, and welcome to Straight Talk. Tonight, we are honored to have with us President of Hong Kong Paralympic Committee, Jenny Fung Ma Kit Han. Fung has been a longstanding, passionate advocate for disability sports in Hong Kong. Jenny is also the president of the Hong Kong Sports Association for the Physically Disabled, having been with them for 38 years, and is currently the vice chairman of the Sports Commission. She was awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star Medal last year in recognition of her leadership and dedication in advancing the course of disability sports in Hong Kong. Welcome, Jenny!

Fung: Thank you!

Chan: Jenny, many Hong Kong people were glued to their television during the Olympics, which finished about two weeks ago, especially when the Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland teams were playing. We are soon to be having another opportunity to raise the Hong Kong flag, I hope, this time for the Paralympics, which will be held from tomorrow until the eighth of December. I'm sure many of our viewers will be following our para athletes’ performances and wishing them all the very best. We must thank you, Jenny, for this fantastic work you have done, devoting your time over the last four decades to our para-athletes, and you have really been pivotal in securing a long-term future for the people in Hong Kong. So, perhaps we can start with the background of the development of disability sports in Hong Kong. How did it all begin? And is there a founder for disability sports in Hong Kong?

Fung: Yes, actually, the Sports Association for Physically Disabled was founded by Dr Harry Fang, a very renowned orthopedic surgeon, in 1972. He had the idea to use sports to help the rehabilitation of his patients. So, he founded the association. And then from there we began. So at that time, when he first started, we were actually defined as an NGO rehabilitation. The Social Welfare Department gave us some money with little funding for sports, so that when they had to go out for overseas games, they had to go cap in hand everywhere to ask for funding. So, that was how I began my engagement with them, as a sponsor. That was in 1986.

Chan: Could you share with us an overview of the current landscape of the disabled population in Hong Kong? I mean, not many people have talked about that before, and what is the level of their participation in these Paralympic sports?

Fung: Well, Hong Kong is actually quite a happy place, in that we don't have army, we don't have injured soldiers, and we don't have super highways, so we are not having a big disabled population, and this is a good thing. But we actually had some difficulty in finding new blood, because we have good medical attention, not many prenatal deformities. However, we try very hard to recruit disabled athletes, disabled persons to become athletes, because we feel that we can change their lives.

Chan: How has this evolved over the years? I mean, you mentioned that we don't have a very high population. But it seems like I mean, for people who do watch the news, we see that the Paralympics, we always have very good results, which we'll talk about in a minute. So, how does all this evolve since, I mean, you were participating since 1986? How has that evolved? Has there been more and more people or fewer and fewer people?

Fung: More and more people give us attention. But we are forerunners in the ’70s and ’80s. So, we don't have a lot of competition then, because we are in Asia, we are among the first, and even the mainland hasn't even started. And we, I don't know, I don't know how to say it, but just that, we don't have many disabled persons, and that's why we don't have a lot of disabled athletes. However, as the attention grows, we actually can recruit quite a number of special school students and get them to get interested in sports, because they know that if they work hard and they train well and they excel, they can represent Hong Kong and go places.

Chan: I think a lot of viewers will be, I mean, very respectful of the work you've done. I mean, nearly four decades, 38 years isn't a short time by any standard. What is your motivation and what keeps you going for 38 years? Quite some time.

Fung: I actually love watching them. Actually. I know that … I go to most of the overseas competitions, and when I go there and I watch them, I feel very touched by what they do. I cry a bit when they win. I cry a bit when they lose. It is just that I feel that we can change lives. Many disabled persons I come across tend to ask one question “Why me?” So, I think my mission is to lift them up from the mire of self-doubt and self-pity and then engage in sports, prove themselves, and then share the limelight on the world podium, like Vivian Kong, like Cheung Ka Long, like Siohban. So, I enjoy doing it, so that's why I keep doing it.

Chan: It's a very rewarding experience, I'm sure.

Fung: Very rewarding experience.

Chan: I can feel your passion even by talking with you. I'm sure the viewers would feel that as well. Do you… I mean, you're now telling us very good stories of what you've been. Has there been any specific challenges that you find that have let you down, or you can be disappointed over the last 38 years?

Fung: No, I have been happy all along. I'm the kind of person who only enjoys what I do. If I don't enjoy it, I won't do it.

Chan: So, it's been a very enjoyable experience for you all these years, and you mentioned to me earlier, one way of helping the para athletes is making them feel that nothing is impossible, and then, can you share it with the audience ... I mean, you told me something about the logo of the Paralympic, maybe you can tell them how you see it.

Fung: Okay. Now, if you look at the Olympic logo, they have like five rings, which represent, like five continents trying to bring sports together, bring the nations together. And then for the Paralympic logo, you have three coloured crescents. It's blue, green and red, and that represents the colours of major national flags, again, it’s to bring nations together in Parasports. But for me, personally, I look at the questions and it reminds me of the apostrophe, apostrophe that we can put into the word impossible, okay, you put the apostrophe between I and M in the word impossible, you break it into two. You break it into two and become "I'm possible". So, our disabled athletes can actually do something which they thought wouldn't be possible before. So, I think the apostrophe, the crescent, is “I’m possible”.

Chan: Thank you, Jenny, for sharing this with me because. Viewers, keep in mind that this is the first time this has gone public. So, thank you very much for giving Straight Talk the honor…It's like there's no interpretation, okay.

We often talk about, I mean, the mainland. We like, I mean, all our athletes from the able Olympics, they go to train in the mainland. Do our Paralympics also go to work in the mainland as well?

Fung: As I said, we’re the forerunner in Asia and the mainland hadn't even started. But I think Deng Xiaoping's son, Deng Pufang came to Hong Kong to visit us. That was in the late ’80s. And then he was very impressed with what we did, what we are doing. And when he went home, he started the Paralympic movement in the mainland. And you know, once China starts to do something, they are unstoppable. I would like to say that we had a little bit of contribution. First, we let him know that sports can do rehabilitation and make people ask a question: “Why not me? Why can't I have the limelight?” And then we share the experience with the mainland, and we share the equipment too. You know, wheelchair fencing, unlike Cheung Ka Long, that can go like getting ballet, and doing the advance and retreat, if you're doing wheelchair fencing, you have to fix the wheelchair on plates, on steel plates on the floor, and fix the wheelchair there, because if you attack and you defend, you will topple the wheelchair. So, you have to fix the wheelchair firmly onto the floor. And we actually send some of our steel plates flooring to the mainland. So, we help them with experience, and then we also help them with physiotherapy. My company sponsors physiotherapy costs, we send lecturers, physiotherapy lecturers from the Polytechnic to go to Wuhan University to train the physiotherapist so that they can go back to their hometowns or cities to be physiotherapists. So, we have on one side sports, on the other side, we make a little bit of contribution.

Chan: Jenny, let's take a short break now. But viewers, stay tuned. We will be right back.

Chan: Thank you for staying with us. Jenny Fung, president of the China Hong Kong Paralympic Committee, is with us this evening, to explore with us the question “Are our Paralympic athletes getting the recognition they deserve?” Jenny, we will talk about that question as we go along in the second part. And thank you very much for sharing your passion, your rationale for doing all these. And I can feel the enjoyment that you have, and I am sure you have many happy and not so happy tears in your life. So, let's talk about the game that is happening tomorrow. Can you give a brief rundown of our Hong Kong Paralympics team? Because I am sure not all the viewers are as familiar with our abled Olympic team in Hong Kong. I mean that's something that … I am sure we will improve that from this Olympics. I mean how many sportsmen are going this time?

Fung: We have 23 athletes in the delegation, and they will take part in 8 sports, including like table tennis, boccia, wheelchair fencing, swimming, and even riding.

Chan: I see.

Fung: And yeah, it is not a big team but we do have a lot of like doctors, physiotherapists and carers for our disabled athletes. So, all together, 70 something in the delegation, the whole delegation.

Chan: What will be our strongest sports? Like our Olympics, we know that our fencing will do well and luckily we did well coming back, and swimming, and table tennis is not too bad.

Fung: Yeah.

Chan: What will be our strongest sports?

Fung: We are good in swimming, we are good in boccia. Boccia is, you know what is boccia? It is like, you know, on the floor, you serve like lawn bowl.

Chan: Lawn bowl, right.

Fung: A little bit like it, but not exactly the same. And then we have wheelchair fencing, of course, which is one of our strong sports. Swimming also, and then table tennis also.

Chan: So, what will be your expected sort of performances? I mean I know that we shouldn't be asking that question. Earlier, we asked our Chef de Mission of the Olympics Team how many medals should we count before we start? But I know that for Paralympics, we know that we will have medals because we have done all the time. Do we expect just as good results this time or it is getting more competitive?

Fung: It's getting very competitive now. Talking about history, when we first started, as I said when we went to Indonesia in 1986, when we sponsored them, they had like 120 something medals.

Chan: Wow.

Fung: Because there was not much competition. Last time, last year we were in Hangzhou, the Asian Para Games, it was like we had 47, which is already very good. So, if you talk about medal count, we are getting less medals, but as the competition grows, we have less medals, and that's understandable. Yeah, competition is very, very keen, getting keener every time. So, I don't want to predict how many we will get. We will get some, I am sure, but how many I don't want to put pressure on our athletes. Even Mike Stevens won’t be able to answer the question for you, right?

Chan: He was saying that a lot of the athletes actually thrive on performing well, just like Minnie Soo said to us. And also they will fight for the medals, this is a natural instinct, isn’t it?

Fung: Of course, otherwise, I mean, they have been training so hard, and they all want to sort of like to share the limelight, you know.

Chan: Yes. Maybe can you share some stories with us about some of the Paralympic athletes who have overcome significant obstacle to achieve success over the last few decades? Any good stories to tell, to share with us?

Fung: A good story to tell, of course. I mean people talk about So Wah Wai, our wonder boy. Actually he went to like, I think 5 Paralympics, and he won 6 gold medals, 3 silver, and 3 bronze.

Chan: Wow!

Fung: So, actually talking about him, you may have seen the Cantonese movie made about him, it is called ‘Zero to Hero’. He suffered from cerebral palsy, so when he was younger, his mother had to bring him to school on her back. And he couldn’t walk properly, he had a little bit of hearing impairment, cannot coordinate, had speaking impairment, and he couldn’t walk well.

Chan: Right.

Fung: But the thing is that we went to see him run in a school sports day, and he could run very fast. And the coach said that he's a very potential runner. And we recruited him and trained him, and he began to do very well. So, he was a very good success story. And then he actually helped our fundraising. You believe me. You know about Chartered Marathon.

Chan: Right.

Fung: In 1996, he won a gold medal, he broke the world record as the fastest 100 meter runner. And of course, he was like kind of famous, a boy wonder. And around that time, the Standard Chartered Bank had marathon, and my brother-in-law worked in the Chartered bank. And so I told him, I said, “Look, if you are Chartered Bank, and you want to get … you can't get runners from the Citibank, and you can’t get runners from the Hong Kong bank. But if you can use the fame of So Wah Wai, he is a star runner and he is athletic, you know. So, if you run for Paralympians, for disabled athletes, then you can attract. If people run for a cause, they will be very excited, they want to do something for the community.”

Chan: Right.

Fung: So, that is how they started so. From that time on until now, the Standard Chartered marathon gave us like donations and contributions. So, we are doing quite well.

Chan: Right. I think So is one of our outstanding young person …

Fung: Oh, yeah, oh yeah.

Chan: … and we treasure him. And I must take this opportunity to share with the viewers that he's a man of a very good heart as well because you told me earlier when you had this unfortunate accident, that he actually gave you his bouquet of flowers after he won the 200 meter gold medal.

Fung: Oh, yes, it was a very unforgettable experience for me. I think in 2004, that was the Athens Paralympics. I was the Chef de Mission, so I went there. And then during the time, I had a terrible car accident, with a bleeding liver, with a concussion, and fractured ribs. So, I was very, very sick. And So Wai Wah just lost his gold medal in 100 meters run, and he looked very sad. And he came to the hospital to see me. And he was standing at the end of my bed looking at me, and told me that “I just lost 100 meters”. I was very weak, and I looked at him, I said, “Oh, you can win the 200 meters, okay?” And at that point in time, my husband came from Hong Kong to see me. And when he came in, and he saw me, and he saw So Wah Wai’s face looking at me like that, it was like death bed, you know? And he said, “Am I too late?”

Chan: To be there.

Fung: But there was like … and I said okay … of course he was very scared, I know that I am still alive.

Chan: Right.

Fung: Anyway, after that I went to the … I was out of the hospital, and I was resting in the hotel because I had to let my liver get healed itself. And the coach called me and said that So Wah Wai wanted you to come and see him run in the 200 meters. So, I had to … my husband helped me and I had a crutch, and went to …

Chan: So you were actually like a disabled person.

Fung: Yes. He won. He won the gold medal, and then he rushed to give me the bouquet. So, I took the bouquet and went back to the hotel, and you had to go through security. And the lady who mend the security, she said “Oh, congratulations, which sport did you win?”

Chan: Because you were like a disabled person.

Fung: Yes, I looked very much like one.

Chan: Thank you for sharing that very memorable experience. I am glad that you are still alive and well …

Fung: Still alive.

Chan: … supporting the Paralympic Games. Right, our title of the show asks us “Have we given enough recognition to our athletes?” I mean I was doing some homework and I have to say that I am truly impressed by the fact that since 1972, we have won a total of 40 golds, 39 silvers, and 52 bronzes. I mean that is many times more than our Olympic Team. I mean we shouldn’t be comparing, but you have done very well. So, are they getting the recognition they deserve? That is my question to you.

Fung: In the early days, we didn't get that attention. But as we won medals after medals, the government sort of like made us a sports association, and we got enough funding from the sports associate … from the government, as an NSA, National Sports Association. I think they have recognition, especially after the Tokyo Games.

Chan: Right.

Fung: Because of the direct broadcast, the broadcasting right, which the government bought. And a lot of the people who didn't really know about us before, came to us, “Ah, it’s so competitive”.

Chan: Right.

Fung: And because usually they thought that they were like fun and games, you know.

Chan: Right. So Jenny, I want to ask you because we are coming to the end of the show. You know, in the normal Olympics, we have events like breakdancing or skateboarding because we want to introduce to the Olympics, so that more attracted to the younger generation, and then these are not capital intensive. Are we going to see that in the Paralympic games as well?

Fung: Not really because of the athletes, because how can they do breakdance.

Chan: No, I am saying that are there any sports that are more appealing to the younger generation?

Fung: We are starting wheelchair dance in the special skills.

Chan: Really?

Fung: Yeah, we tried to go to the special schools, like So Wah Wai, our ambassadors go there and inspire the students to engage in sports.

Chan: Right. So, my last question for you tonight, I mean I wish I got more time to share more with the viewers. What message would you like to send to the public about the importance of supporting the Paralympic Games?

Fung: Paralympic Games is not a game changer. As I said, it's a question changer. If we support the athletes, we support the disabled persons, to change the question from “Why me?” to “Why not me?”. So, if they understand this, and support us, then they can change the lives.

Chan: Okay, good. Hopefully, more of our viewers will contact you after our show tonight.

Fung: Yes, please.

Chan: Anyway, I am afraid that is all the time we have this evening. And thank you, Jenny, again, while our community supports our para-athletes, we can do more to ensure they receive the recognition they deserve. It is about celebrating the spirit of perseverance, and the extraordinary achievements of those who overcome significant challenges to represent our city on the global stage. Once again, best wishes to our Paralympic athletes. Thank you for joining us and have a good evening!