He likes sex. He likes alcohol. He likes to talk about sex and liaisons while he drinks. In the right mood, he can even be heard talking about himself having sex and liaisons while he was drunk.
Chua Lam - one of the highest-paid columnists in Hong Kong - writes about, among a great variety of things, men and their mistresses; about rough-faced women driving men to their mistresses; about women needing to turn a blind eye to their men having mistresses. He preaches that sex does not necessarily belong within marriage.
The $10-a-word writer, who is also vice-president of production at Golden Harvest, has endless tales of how far women will go to succeed in the money-making world of movies. He once used 2,000 words to describe how a new hopeful from the mainland, seeking fame and fortune (and a role) threw herself at him (he is 54).
He apparently told one such hopeful that in her case it was not so much A Star is Born but A Star is Porn. He suggested she took up a role in hard-core pornography and she duly obliged.
So who does he think he is? A man paid handsome fees to trash women in popular magazines and newspapers and whose readers include women? Or more? Answer: he is a Renaissance Man, whose talents include calligraphy, wood-carving, pottery and language (he is Singaporean Chinese and fluent in Japanese and English); a connoisseur of fine food, wine and tea (he has his own tea company and is a restaurant reviewer); a bon vivant (he travels the world for shooting locations, and chooses a country largely for the cuisine it offers).
Chua is a man of guanxi, but there is more to the word 'connection' in his case. He counts many stars and personalities as his friends and confidants, among them Jackie Chan (he is currently shooting a movie in Melbourne with Chan playing a chef), fellow writer Ngai Hong and television personality James Wong. Chua once hosted a talk show with Ngai and Wong. The trio were always drunk on air, and their idea of good fun involved interviewing a Japanese striptease artist with Chua as interpreter.
His readers may have the distinct impression that he is sexist and chauvinist. But one does not need to read between the lines to discover his prose on women, men and mistresses is really well-packaged and well-meant lectures on how to maintain a good husband-wife relationship.