NINE-YEAR-OLD Luk Hon-man only has eyes for insects, but education experts are confident he can turn his hand to anything.
Hon-man is one of the children the Education Department has tested as gifted. He is also one of the 30 children which Hongkong Baptist College's Centre for Child Development hopes to send on a programme at the Gifted Education Resource Institute of Purdue University in the United States in July.
Hon-man's mother, Mrs Luk Lee Yin-Shan, first thought her son was exceptional when he was two years old. He would watch educational television programmes and count rapidly aloud from one to 100.
By the age of three, he was singing along to Cantonese opera.
Six years later, he is excelling in all academic disciplines at Lok Sin Tong Chan Cho Chak primary school and is estimated to have the intelligence of a 14-year-old.
His great love is insects. ''You only have to be patient for a few minutes,'' he explains, before one of them comes within striking range.