Born and raised in rural villages in Kowloon, Pang Yuk Man grew up playing in barren fields, grass paths, and ditches, making friends with insects and fishes. In primary school, he read Yip Linfeng’s Hong Kong Naturography and became interested in natural history. In secondary school, he read The Great Outdoors magazine and began imitating columnist Lee Hin Kwan’s (李衍坤) nomadic lifestyle of camping. Afterwards, he became a primary school teacher and read the works by Taiwanese natural writers like Liu Renxiu (劉仁修), Liu Ka-shiang, and Wang Jiaxiang (王家祥). He began collecting field guides on animals and plants, logging his own field observations. He also introduced ecological observations and outdoor adventures into his lessons.

While studying for a master’s degree at the University of Hong Kong, he had the opportunity to read Geoffrey Herklots' work, and was surprised to learn that his childhood idol Yip Linfeng had referenced many of Herklots’ work for his own. Noting a lack of information on Herklots, a major contributor to Hong Kong’s natural history, Pang decided to translate The Hong Kong Countryside. He recalls, “While the translation is relatively simple, annotation takes time." In the preface, Herklots mentioned that, due to the printing costs and the loss of artwork during the war, he was unable to include visuals for the book. Pang took the initiative to take photographs all over the wilderness, and included annotations on the old information written by Herklots. But the most difficult part, says Pang, is the British humour: "I know it is a joke, but I don't understand why it is funny!" He worked on the translation for ten years, deciphering Herklot’s piece as if solving a puzzle. In 2018, the Chinese edition of The Hong Kong Countryside was finally published. Today, Pang continues to write column features on Hong Kong’s natural history, history and geography on websites, local papers and magazines.