Where did you go? Who have you met?

I didn’t have too much time to explore, mostly met up with family and friends in a few areas close to where they work or live or hangout: Kowloon City (which I lived), Mongkok, Causeway Bay, Central. I met up with some old high-school friends, some college friends…mostly eating and drinking at places in around Causeway Bay and Soho (in Central). Christmas Eve was spent at an surreal little outdoor bar on a little island in Shek O, Christmas was spent checking out the lights on Hong Kong harbor from Tsim Sha Tsui, and a most unforgettable New Years Eve was spent at C Club in Lan Kwai Fong and a variety of other places (it got to be a blur towards the end). And there was that night that I met you on Boxing Day at the IdN Christmas party in Soho. What else… I didn’t even buy that much stuff on this trip, the most I bought (weight-wise) was on a trip to Cat Street where I bought a stack of 80’s Hong Kong pop records and some old Hong Kong magazines which thrilled me beyond words. I really gotta thank my friends Patrick and Miu for their hospitality.

Who is your favourite HERO from H.K. and how did he/she impress you so much?

Favorite hero from Hong Kong, hmm… there are people that I like and admire, or am inspired or impressed by, but as far as true heroes go its hard to name any. This will sound corny but my mum and dad have never ceased to impress me, so I’ll have to say that its them!

Do you think what you see in H.K. inpsirates your thinking on doing design or any design based project?

What I do in my work is largely inspired from my own life experience, and since I grew up in a Hong Kong-Chinese family, speaking Cantonese, being brought up with the values associated with this culture, watching HK TV shows and listening to HK music, then yeah, I would have to say that a lot of that has informed my creative work, some consciously and mostly subconsciously i think.

Are there any designers from H.K. you would like to co-operate/work with? What makes you interested in working with them? What would you do with them? (for example, publish a book, build a web site, just shopping and have a beer… etc)

I haven’t met that many designers in Hong Kong yet, but yeah, I’d love to try to meet more and just kind of see how they like living and working here, how they like working in Hong Kong, how they find the design industry here, stuff like that…maybe talk a little shop and find out how people deal with clients, how they charge, etc… the culture is different and its still kind of a strange place to me… there’s probably different mannerisms and nuances to that side of the business here. If the conversations actually lead to doing work together then that would be even better! Usually its rare because I feel that its not enough to have common interests (almost a given among designers), its also about sharing common goals, values, appreciation of the process and expectations with the outcome. That’s kind of how Eric So and I ended up working together.

What are you working on recently? What will be your next project for DHKY?

Well I’m working on planning on moving to Hong Kong later this year! I’ve wanted to for a while, but then on this trip back, all of a sudden the opportunity kinda threw itself into my face and made itself clear that it was the next logical and obvious step. The last time I felt that compelled by a decision was when I moved to New York from Vancouver, and that turned out pretty good, so hopefully this will be a move in the right direction too, personally and professionally. As far as projects for DHKY go, it will be whatever it ends up being, that’s kinda how its always been… it’s never really planned, it usually just kinda happens.