Our Founders

Wong Chun-wai was born and raised in Shenzhen, China. In 1930, he graduated from Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, formerly known as Guangdong Chinese Medicine Specialty School. He assumed clinical practice first at the Kiang Wu Hospital in Macau, and subsequently moved to Wan Chai and Cheng Chau in Hong Kong, where he was a general practitioner for the citizens. Patriotic and loyal, Wong returned to the new China in 1950 and established a union clinic, where he taught aspiring students and practiced clinical Chinese medicine.

A true devotee to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Wong actively and strategically assisted the establishment of the Shenzhen TCM Hospital, formerly known as Bao’an Yun Hospital. In 1975, the hospital was instituted and he became one of its enthusiastic founders. Wong gained valuable prominence and recognition in the Shenzhen area and in 1978, he was designated as the only top qualified Chinese medicine practitioner in all of Shenzhen, the highest distinction in the field of TCM.

With over 60 years in clinical practice and training, his reputation was well-established throughout the Shenzhen (Bao’an county) and Hong Kong regions. A renowned expert on internal medicine, gynecology and pediatric, his expertise was well versed across coronary heart disease, hypertension, gastroenterology, diabetes, and infertility. Wong has performed thorough research in analyzing and providing rehabilitation and preventive measures for sufferers of chronic and tumor diseases. He also acted as an ambassador for the Chinese Medical Society and had collaborated with physicians of Western medicine to further encourage and broaden the integration of Chinese-Western medicine. 

Wong also devoted his life to educating and training young Chinese medicine practitioners. Since the 1950s, he had fostered training in TCM and brought up three leagues of apprentices. In the 1970s, he was a professor for a three-year professional TCM degree program. The well read professional inspired many; not only did his extensive clinical experience markedly benefited fellow students and trainees, but he also evidently raised the standards in the TCM discipline.

In 1991, at the age of 85, Wong Chun-wai retired from his 61-year career as a Chinese medicine practitioner. He will forever be remembered for his meticulous attention to detail and his significant contributions to the field of TCM.

In Memory of Dr. Wong Chun-wai
By Chen Furu (Pictured above with Wong Chun-wai)

Though it has been twelve years since the passing of Dr. Wong, I still feel deep grief as I remember him.

I could not express Dr. Wong’s earnest devotion and great kindness even if I filled a hundred pages, but I still hope that these partial and incomplete remarks, born as they are of sincere emotion, may serve as a lesson to those who come after.

Dr. Wong was a theorist deeply versed in the ways of Chinese medicine. He graduated from Guangdong Chinese Medicine Specialty School in 1930. At that time, the number of Chinese medicine practitioners who had received such high-level training was very small, whether in Guangdong or all of China; Dr. Wong was truly one of the original elders of Chinese medicine. He tirelessly pored over The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, Medical Treasures of the Golden Chamber, the Treatise on Cold Damage, Studies of Heat-Related Illnesses, and the works and case studies by many other masters, in this way establishing a foundation for him to becoming a leader in the field. Dr. Wong's knowledge was like a deep well or the roots of a great tree; his road to achievement is a model for students of the discipline.

Dr. Wong was also a clinician of rich experience, which he accumulated through 60 years of treating all manner of cases. His accomplishments were not only revered in the field of Chinese medicine but also helped to convince Western medical doctors of Chinese medicine's effectiveness, and a number of doctors of Western medicine referred difficult cases to Dr. Wong for treatment. He achieved favorable results each time, including cases of Japanese encephalitis and measles complicated by pneumonia or cardiopulmonary illness, and his skills were noted by Western medical doctors. He considered improving clinical effectiveness to be the life's blood of Chinese medicine, so he emphasized clinical practice and the earnest rendering of medical opinion. Such a clinical spirit is all the more impressive for its dependence on the accumulation of vast amounts of experience. As the ancients said, you can learn even more from treating patients than reading the medical classics. We, of the younger generation, can stand to learn quite a lot by studying Dr. Wong's path to success.

Dr. Wong was an expert in the art of diagnosis. He often instructed young practitioners to refine their basic diagnostic skills, pointing out that it is in the techniques of diagnosis that a practitioner's clinical ability can be seen - that diagnosis is the acid test of a clinician. Dr. Wong's talent for diagnosis gave him the resources to treat even illnesses whose causes were not apparent. His rigorous research possessed the qualities of Chinese medical diagnostic practices and can serve as a model for the field of Chinese medicine.

Dr. Wong was also an outstanding educator. He knew that the key to developing Chinese medicine lay in fostering young talents, that the key to maintaining Chinese medicine's status lay in its academic achievements. In the 1950s, he began training apprentices, teaching medical specializations, and conducting comprehensive medical courses, nurturing a great deal of young talents in the process. Many of his students went on to become leaders in the field. Dr. Wong's promotion of education - his willingness to work on behalf of younger generations - is something which deserves our admiration, and something that Chinese medicine should strive to continue.

Wong Sin-kun, also known as Wong Tai-fu, is the son as well as former student of the renowned Chinese medicine practitioner Wong Chun-wai. A registered Chinese medicine practitioner in both Hong Kong and China, Wong was born in Hong Kong and brought up in China. Being raised by a Chinese medicine practitioner, he was naturally exposed to TCM at an early age.

Once he graduated from secondary school in 1968, he was sent to farm in the countryside. At that time, Chinese medicine was in an upsurge. Aside from farming, Wong studied intensively the TCM courses taught by his father. After four years of arduous labor and farming, as well as living the simple life of a peasant, he had developed the perseverance to study medicine and cultivated high tolerance to bear hardship and affliction.

In 1972, the People’s Government of Bao’an in Guangdong province approved his apprenticeship as a trainee practitioner. Wong then followed through the mentorship of his father; devotedly and diligently studying medical records and associated TCM courses. After achieving outstanding academic results, he became a registered Chinese medicine practitioner in 1976. Subsequently, he practiced and undertook clinical duties alongside his father at the Shenzhen TCM Hospital (formerly known as Bao’an Yun Hospital).

During his practice at the Shenzhen TCM Hospital, Wong was blessed with the opportunity to work with his father and other practitioners on providing diagnosis and treatment to patients who suffered from complex, seasonal, or chronic illnesses. Day after day, he sharpened his ability to identify syndromes in different diseases, a crucial skill for Chinese medicine practitioners. He was also able to broaden his knowledge in Western medicine and its ways of diagnosis and treatment.

Wong has been in practice for over 40 years, in which over 20 years were under his father’s mentorship. Through the strenuous clinical practice and training, he has learned to draw sound decisions from each of the clinical cases. Chronic diseases, he concluded, can be treated by restoring a harmonious relationship between the yin and yang organs. Wong also has vast experiences with patients having skin diseases, asthma, cough, allergy, gastrointestinal diseases, coronary arteries disease, arthritis, tendons and bones degeneration, insomnia, women’s diseases and infertility, as well as cases of tumor.

Today, Wong continues to practice TCM in Hong Kong, providing diagnosis and treatment to patients from all parts of the world.