Edward Bunker doesn’t have a problem explaining his disability to children. It’s the adults, desperate not to offend, who can be difficult. “In the gym people see I have a problem, but they don’t know how to go about asking me whether I need help,” says the 45-year-old. Occasionally, he overhears a child asking their mother: “What’s wrong with that man’s hand, arm and leg?” The parent will usually try to shush the child, concerned about causing him embarrassment. “I go to the kid and say, ‘Yes, I do have a problem, here’s my arm, my hand and my leg, here’s what’s wrong with it,’” Bunker says. Born two months prematurely in the English county of Kent, he was rushed from the maternity ward to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for children in London. It wasn’t until he was six months old, however, that he was diagnosed with hemiplegia, a condition caused by brain damage or spinal cord injury that leads to paralysis of one side of the body “Basically, I had a stroke when I was born – it was a lack of oxygen to the brain. This condition has affected the left side of my brain, so the right side of my body,” Bunker says. The people teaching special needs yoga and making it accessible to all He moved to Hong Kong when he was four years old with his parents and older brother in 1979. His parents practised what he calls “tough love”. “Nothing was ever made easy for me. ‘If your brother does it, you can do it,’ [was the attitude].” Schooling was a challenge because although he was able enough to attend mainstream classes, he needed additional support physically as well as with aspects such as organisation and maths. He started at the Matilda Child Development Centre and then moved to Bradbury Junior School, where he alternated between the mainstream school and the special needs unit. However, he struggled to cope with Bradbury’s large class sizes so later moved to Kellett School, a smaller primary school, where he thrived. From there he went to Island School for two years. “I was bullied a bit and taken advantage of, but I’ve always been fortunate in that I’ve had a couple of good friends to back me up,” Bunker says. Moving to West Island School, he had a handful of teachers who battled for him to make sure he got the grades to study Mandarin and French at the University of Westminster in London. After a first year in halls at university, he was expected to move off campus, but hadn’t got around to organising accommodation. When he asked the housing office for a second year in halls, they turned him down. Then he told them he was a disabled student, and they fell over themselves apologising and rolling out the red carpet. “With disability you can get away with murder. Once you say you are disabled, people lower their expectations and don’t question it. It comes back to this not wanting to offend you or hurt your feelings,” he says. “It can make people lazy. I call it enforced dependency: we’ve decided for you what you can and can’t do rather than giving you the benefit of the doubt.” In airports, he says ground staff see him coming and ask to carry his bags. Although he is quite capable of carrying them himself, he sometimes takes them up on the offer. Why not? No one much enjoys hauling luggage around a busy airport, he says. His first job after graduation was as a translator for the then head of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, Christopher Hammerbeck. Bunker was by then an excellent linguist – he spoke English, French, Mandarin and Cantonese – but struggled with some of the job’s administrative aspects. “The work environment was challenging. It was a matter of education. They didn’t know how to take me, or cope with me, or how far to help me. It was very difficult,” he says. My mum was all about getting out there and doing it. Don’t say you are tired or you’re lazy. Just because you are disabled, you can’t use that as a crutch Edward Bunker Hong Kong has come a long way in terms of attitudes towards the disabled since he arrived in the city in 1979, he says. In those days, disability was often considered a curse and disabled people frequently hidden away. But there is still a long way to go, he says. He applauds the push to integrate disabled people into society but says this should be done smartly. There is little value in pressuring someone to do something they cannot. The government’s monthly stipend of HK$2,500 (US$320) he receives is not enough to live off, but Bunker is fortunate to be able to support himself. After trying reiki – an alternative treatment that involves energy healing – and discovering that it eased his condition and helped relax his right hand, which used to spasm a lot, he trained under reiki master Rosina Arquati. For the last 10 years, he has worked as an advanced reiki practitioner at Balance Health in Central. As a child, he had the support of physiotherapy and occupational therapy to minimise the effect of his condition. But it is his parents’ tough love and can-do attitude which he credits with his drive to experience life and achieve things – he is an advanced scuba diver and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. “My mum was all about getting out there and doing it,” he says. “Don’t say you are tired or you’re lazy. Just because you are disabled, you can’t use that as a crutch.”