Meet our longest standing member Dennis Fung at Brisbane Table Tennis! He is also a life member and you will find him attending most days one of our sessions and giving players a chance to improve their skills playing against long pips! Here is his story…
Dennis was born in China and taught by his mother to play table tennis using a home made table and bat from the age of 9. The local school had one table to be shared by over 100 children so it was slim picking to ever get to the table! All this changed when a relative brought a real bat, a Butterfly bat with sponged rubbers, from Hong Kong to give to Dennis as a present. Dennis was good at sharing his bat with other students, so he also got more time at the school table! Apart from table tennis Dennis was also good at basketball in those days.
Later on, when the family moved to a bigger nearby town, there were more tables and players available and he entered a training squad at 11 years of age. In 1958 Dennis went to Hong Kong and from there to Australia in 1960 when he was 14 years of age. As he couldn’t speak any English he was put into grade 3 at school and was definitely the oldest and biggest kid in class. He learnt to speak English and over a year later became an apprentice cook at a Chinese restaurant.
In those days in 1960 Brisbane Table Tennis Association was located near Central Station, then moved to Margaret Street, then later to Albion and finally found it’s current home in Windsor.
For many years while working at his restaurant Dennis had only Mondays off and he never missed table tennis at the club on a Monday night!
In the 1980s Dennis organised a group of about 10 Chinese players to come to Brisbane and play against local players. While they were staying in Brisbane, Dennis cooked all their meals in his restaurant and did sightseeing with them.
Another noteworthy occasion for Dennis was going with Mr Kim (who was once No 8 in the world) to his home country Korea about 10 years ago. Apart from being treated to many great games, Dennis and Mr Kim were also invited to dinner by the top male player of Korea, Kim Taek-soo at the time.
Dennis met his wife in Australia who came in fact from the same village he grew up in China. They have three children and three grandchildren, all living in different parts of the world now.
Apart from his talent for table tennis, Dennis is also an accomplished artist and has won prizes for his paintings of landscapes, still life and more.
Dennis has amazing reflexes bringing back on the table ball after ball. It’s hard to beat him even at 78 years old! He uses pen-hold grip and only switched from short pips to long pips when the new ball was introduced in 2014.
Over the years many Christmas handicaps were sponsored by Dennis. If there is a new player from China coming to our club, Dennis is always there to help with any communication issues. He is a very friendly and familiar face at Brisbane Table Tennis! Dennis gained Life Membership at BTTA in 1993.
