In the early 1950s, Lee Man-ban was a clerk in Hong Kong's Inland Revenue Department. He recalls, "The Commissioner was an Australian, and he asked which young man in our team would like to become an accountant, so I applied for a training programme sponsored by the Australian government." Through distance learning, Mr. Lee finished his studies in accounting and passed Australia's professional accounting examination. He then worked in an accounting firm during the day, and taught cost accounting as a part-time lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic in the evening. In 1962, Mr. Lee started his own accounting firm.
This big leap forward in his career was exciting, but he soon encountered an illness which he could not articulate. "My back pain lasted for quite a while. In the beginning, I thought it was caused by overwork. Later, after an examination, a radiologist diagnosed it as osteoporosis related." Mr. Lee could not figure out why his back kept bending, until Professor Sir Harry Fang Sin-yang discovered why.
In October 1961, Mr. Lee went to visit Professor Fang after reading an announcement of his new practice in the newspaper. Prof Fang realized that Mr. Lee suffered from the chronic illness ankylosing spondylitis.
"I learned a lot from Professor Fang. He got me involved in the management of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation, and my perspective gradually expanded from regional to global. My biggest reward has been getting to know Mr. Deng Pufang, Chairman of the China Disabled Persons' Federation. We hoped that 60 million people with disabilities in China would benefit through him." HKSR had trained more than 2000 people in mainland China by 2000.
