Why pro-democracy star Albert Cheng left Hong Kong – again – and returned to Vancouver
- The celebrity democrat, broadcaster, media tycoon and ex-legislator returned to Vancouver to live for good eight months ago
- But he promptly ended his 26-year Vancouver radio show amid the Hong Kong unrest, tired of trying to win over patriotic Chinese he fears find him ‘disgusting’
In the closet of his Vancouver home, Albert Cheng King-hon now has 100 ties that he never wears.
The once-dapper Hong Kong broadcaster, media tycoon, ex-legislator and nemesis of the establishment fingers the frayed buttonhole of a comfortable-looking grey shirt as we sit in a Gastown coffee shop, surrounded by oblivious hipsters and tourists.
“Look at me. I wear this every day,” he laughs at the state of the man known to Hongkongers as Taipan. “Maybe I should start wearing my ties again. I should try to look respectable. Like a businessman.”
Cheng, a self-described lifelong “radical” who has tormented Hong Kong and Beijing authorities for decades, is still settling in to life in Vancouver, having quietly moved back in January to the city where he first immigrated in the 1960s.
The former aircraft engineer returned to Hong Kong in 1984 and became a polymath phenomenon. A leading voice of outrage over the Tiananmen Square massacre and one of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy voices, he found fame as the city’s top radio talk show host, and made a fortune as a media baron in his own right.
He became a directly-elected legislator in 2004. He mixed with the city’s elite, even as he berated them on his TV and radio shows, and championed grass roots causes.
