YANG, Fung

Fung grew up in the Northern part of Kwai Chung district but learned to sail in Little Palm Beach Sailing Center in Sai Kung at the age of fourteen. The sailing center is far away from home. It took him 2.5 - 3 hours of multiple bus rides to get there. He learned to deal with it and kept going there almost every weekend to sail. The young sailor was determined to become a better sailor. 

He had a small success in sailing career at an early age by winning the Hong Kong Youth Championships in 1985. Fung had also competed in many international sailing events including the 1986 Asian Games. However, he was not satisfied with his results at the international competition level. Most of Fung's results were poor and very disappointing. He was frustrated and wasn’t sure how to get to the next level of sailing. 

Eventually, Fung ended up putting his sailing career on hold and went to the University in Hawaii to pursue a degree in Meteorology. He figured that the sport of sailing got him interested in weather forecasting and becoming a Meteorologist will ultimately help him become an even better sailor.

After the 1st year in University, Fung accidentally discovered that there was a competitive sailing program in the University. He managed to join the sailing team there and then became one of the traveling team members. The sailing team trained 2-3 times a week after classes and traveled to different sailing venues in US Mainland to compete with other teams from different universities. After graduating from the university, he returned to Hong Kong and committed myself to the 1996 Olympic Games campaign. The Olympic Games were always in the back of Fung's mind, but he had no idea exactly how to get there. While I was in Hawaii,  Fung got the second wind of his sailing career and also figured out the exact path to get to the Olympic Games.

Upon returning to Hong Kong, Fung was lucky enough to be able to find a fulltime job and trained almost full time prior to the Olympic Games. The support from his employer was paramount to his campaign. Fung believes “The journey is the destination”. The journey that he took to get to the Games was very challenging but rewarding at the same time.

Soon after the Olympic Games was over, Fung moved to the United States to start a new life and new job. He learned many skills and met many people during his Olympic campaign. Most of the skills sets he learned were applicable to almost any career of his choice. He enjoys the freedom of making his own hours and believe in taking calculated risks to improve personal and professional life. Fung chose to become an entrepreneur and start his own businesses. He had many failed business endeavors but each and everyone of the failures were lessons learned. Now, Fung is the owner of an organic farm and also a small recycling company in Hawaii. Nowadays,  he still enjoy competitive racing on the water.