It was 2002 and Adrian Cheng Chi-kong was in Kyoto studying Japanese art and culture as part of a Stanford University overseas studies programme. There, the fresh-faced grandson of property tycoon Cheng Yu-tung and heir to the New World Development and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group empires had a profound 'artistic experience' that would change the way he looked at art forever - and it had nothing to do with a painting, or a performance, or a piece of music.
'Our school is right next to the famous Zen Buddhist temple and landscape garden Nanzenji and, every day, at certain moments, you would hear nothing around but the Nanzenji bell - boom, boom, boom - it was both a spiritual and artistic revelation,' the 32-year-old Cheng said.
'That moment was very special. You'd be inside a classroom studying, but when you heard the bell you started to lose your entire attention and, listening to that sound for 10 to 15 minutes, you get lost in that world. Every day, when I finished school, I walked around Nanzenji and enjoyed the architecture, serenity, tranquility and the landscape.
'This artistic experience is not so much about looking at, and liking, an art piece; it's being surrounded by art, enwrapped by this art world created, or curated, by the Japanese.'
After another thoughtful pause, he adds that art for him is like a mystical experience in which he loses control and is pulled into another world created by an artist. 'Everything around me disappears and I totally lose myself in the work. For me, that's very powerful.'
His K11 Art Mall in Tsim Sha Tsui is not exactly Nanzenji, but the Harvard University graduate is trying to create that same kind of engaging experience for his customers with art.