NINE MONTHS AGO, this magazine ran an interview with Albert Cheng King-hon. Unless you listened to his Commercial Radio show Teacup In A Storm or watched his ATV Home television programme Hong Kong Affairs, you had probably never heard of Cheng. But among his fans - and his detractors - he was famous for his outspokenness. He liked being embroiled in disputes, the more public the better.
At the time of the interview, he was revelling in a spat with Joseph Wong Wing-ping, the Secretary for Education and Manpower, who had refused to appear with him on television. Cheng thought this was cowardly and said so. ATV's acting chief executive, Kenneth Kwok Wai-kin, had been obliged to issue an apology for Cheng's behaviour saying it was 'an unintentional mistake'. Cheng promptly declared on air that was not true, and he'd meant exactly what he said.
In every particular - the needling of a government official, the refusal to apologise, the immediate seizure of an opportunity to make things worse - the dispute was typical Cheng. He was also involved in two libel suits. In one of them, the Hong Kong Economic Times had used a full page to announce its impending litigation with Cheng. He had the statement framed and hung it on his wall. He seemed to find it vastly amusing if people disliked him.
When we had lunch at the China Club on the day of that first interview, a man stopped and greeted him on his way over to the table. After the man left, Cheng grinned and said, 'I like to see them smile. I enjoy it that this guy hates my guts and has to say hello.' A little later, when I asked him if perhaps he was a convenient tool for the Government, a perfect example of free speech of which any society might be proud, he thought about it for a while and nodded. 'Yes, I've become a tool. But now I cut their fingers. And we're getting too sharp for them. I raise hell.' Five months later, on August 19, it was somebody else who decided it was time to make sharp cuts and to raise hell.
'THE NIGHT before, I picked up my wife and kids and my mum, who came over from Vancouver, from the airport. We stayed up late, talking. I usually get up at 5.30 am, but because we had stayed up I was late that morning, maybe 6 am. I drove to the radio station, I parked the car. It was clear, daylight. I walked to the front door and I saw two men coming at me, holding something that looked like sticks and they were yelling at me.
'I ran, but in the middle of the lane I fell down. I think that's when they cut my back. I used my briefcase to protect myself, the police have it now, it's in pieces. That's why I only have one cut on my right arm, because I was holding the briefcase. I received more on the left.