HE runs two art galleries, has called himself after Michelangelo's famous sculpture David and, for the past nine years, has posed naked more than 1,000 times. The reason: his love of the arts.
As a co-owner of art galleries in Kuala Lumpur and Vancouver, David Wong believes the chance to draw nude models is vital to artists and would-be artists. He's willing to give them that chance.
Wong, 30, casually dressed in jeans and denim jacket, speaks slowly, even shyly. Yet he is not at all bashful when talking about his debut as an artists' model: 'It was 1986 and I was studying an extra-curricular art course organised by the Hong Kong University,' he says.
'At the last lesson, I told the teacher that the models were not professional enough as they kept moving. I said to him I could do a better job.' Determined to offer the students the chance to draw a model as he believed they should, Wong took his clothes off, posing for the teacher in his next course three months later.
Wong's official nude modelling career had begun. Nine years on, he works for Hong Kong University, the Academy for Performing Arts and private courses. And his early fears have completely gone: 'What I used to fear the most was, would I embarrass myself in front of the whole class? You know, I was only 21 at that time.
'But later I knew that when I was concentrating there should be no other thoughts, no matter what they were, in my mind,' he says. Though he's no longer worried or embarrassed, Wong's career - unusual at the best of times - has taken some odd turns. Perhaps strangest of all, he says, came during a visit to Australia.