A painter of large wild African animals from portraits to panoramas, he was born in China and as a child was fascinated by books and photographs of wildlife on the African continent. His father was African, but he only met him once when he was age 7 and his mother left her young son behind to move permanently to Africa.
He was raised by a grandmother and had an unhappy childhood in Mou Ming. He was forbidden to draw in school because that was reserved as an upper class activity. His formal education ended when he was banished for six years to a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution. He met and married his wife, Mun Yum in the camp, but he made a daring escape to Hong Kong with four other men and nearly drowned in the South Sea.