Wong How-man is a strong believer in being in the right place at the right time. As an intrepid explorer and fervent conservationist, his work is all about timing. 'A major obstacle at one particular point in time can turn out to be very smooth at another. Timing is really very important,' says the founder and president of the China Exploration & Research Society.
Known as 'China's greatest modern explorer', the former National Geographic photojournalist started exploring China in the 1970s and led six major expeditions for the magazine. In 1985, Wong and his team of scientists discovered a new source of the Yangtze River. Two decades later, he found another tributary that led to a new source 2.4km further along.
He also led teams that discovered the sources of the Mekong and Yellow Rivers in 2007 and 2008, respectively. He had always been curious about other parts of the world, but he realised that one of the biggest areas in which he could contribute was on the mainland because of the language, and it was a country that had rarely been explored before.
'As explorers, we have to move like guerillas and sometimes we have to move faster than the bureaucracy can catch up with you. I feel that explorers who move into conservation have a huge advantage. We make a discovery before something disappears and if you have to conserve it, you have a little time to do so before confrontation sets in,' he says.
In many ways, his work also presents him with a unique time travelling experience. As he turns back his clock 90 minutes when flying from the mainland to Yangon in Burma, for example, he can feel the years melting away. 'You turn back the clock 90 minutes, but in terms of lifestyle, you are going back about 50 years,' he adds.
'As an explorer, you move backwards in time, but you also move forward in time because these days we can use the latest space technology. We have a much larger bandwidth of operations.'