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Hong KongEducation

Former pupils of first Hong Kong woman to summit Mount Everest recall inspiring teacher who never quits

They describe someone who challenged them to achieve even before she made history

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Ada Tsang Yin-hung became the first Hong Kong woman to summit Mount Everest on Sunday. Photo: Handout
Naomi Ng

From biking 2,000 kilometres across the Tibetan plateau to trekking Hong Kong’s hilly terrain, school teacher Ada Tsang Yin-hung had embarked on countless journeys to teach her pupils life lessons that went beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Former pupils recalled how Tsang had begun to inspire them to achieve lifelong goals long before she went down in history as Hong Kong’s first woman to conquer the world’s highest peak on Sunday.

Tommy Ng Chun-lun, who was one of the first batch of pupils Tsang taught in 2000 at CUHKFAA Chan Chun Ha Secondary School, said she was the main reason he was able to finish biking 2,000 kilometres across the Tibetan plateau in 2008.

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“We were in our early 20s at the time and the high altitude and scorching sun were really hard to adapt to,” he recalled. “We thought about all these other alternatives. We wanted to give up so badly.”

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“I remember her telling us that we’d made this decision to bike 2,000 kilometres together so we needed to finish this together. We couldn’t just give up so easily.”

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