He is the most protected and the most mysterious person in China. Perhaps we should not even address him as a 'person', because to many he is more than that. The Panchen Lama is a reincarnation, a revered spiritual figure, and one of the two highest spiritual leaders of Tibet, together with the Dalai Lama.
Little is known about the 11th Panchen Lama chosen by mainland authorities, and his visit to Hong Kong, where he gave the keynote speech to the Third World Buddhist Forum last Thursday, was the first time he has left the mainland. For that reason and because of the controversy surrounding him as well as the recent events in Tibetan areas, the South China Morning Post asked for an exclusive interview with the person his followers call the Master.
On short notice, I was told he would meet me and my photographer at 9pm on Thursday. I rushed out of the office, jumped into a taxi and headed to his hotel in Wan Chai.
I knew Hong Kong had been carefully chosen as the ideal stop for his first trip outside the mainland, all the more carefully because of the controversy surrounding him and the self-immolation of protesters in Tibetan areas.
The 22-year-old man I was to meet, Gyaincain Norbu, was an ordinary Tibetan boy before being anointed by Beijing in 1995 as the reincarnation of, or the successor to, the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989 after a tumultuous relationship with China's leaders. Beijing says a lot had been drawn from a sacred golden urn in accordance with Tibetan Buddhist rituals.
But the Dalai Lama, in exile, had picked a different boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, and remains in dispute with Beijing about who is the real successor. The Tibetan boy he chose disappeared on the mainland shortly after, aged six.
Norbu - the name means 'holy streamer of triumph' - was more fortunate. Away from the world for 16 years, during which he was carefully educated, the boy has emerged to make his first public appearance outside the mainland and his first one-on-one interview with outside media. I was told I had only 15 minutes, due to his tight schedule.