'Isn't that funny?' laughed Pak in an unamused fashion. 'They must consider us worthwhile but they suspend us with pay. But we didn't do anything wrong. If anything, we should get prizes and trophies; we are an asset. There were two demonstrations on the streets for us to resume the programme, with a thousand people every time. I can show you the videos.' She's been a Hong Kong agony aunt for almost 20 years. Before that, she studied broadcasting and communications in San Francisco and before that she was a sort of roving ambassador for TWA, a position which has a certain poignancy now, given her current reputation for being so undiplomatic. 'I think that was the most wonderful time of my life. I went to all these cities to be treated nicely by the mayors and the tourist boards. I got a badge for travelling two million miles. I met Moshe Dayan in Israel and Richard Nixon in Paris.' Perhaps these gentlemen gave her an insight into troubled psyches but she says no, that came from growing up with an uncle who used to organise 10 tables of mahjong every day. In the United States, she became used to hearing taboo subjects being discussed on the airwaves and decided that Hong Kong needed to be prised open like a deeply reluctant Confucian clam. 'That thinking has ruined us for thousands of years. I want to wake up my own people. This city is sinking in two ways. It can be like Pompeii, all of a sudden. Or like Mexico or Cairo - faded glory, step by step, the quality of life gone forever. You see corruption and dirtiness in China, a lot of Chinese people don't comb their hair. I ask them about it and they say, 'Why should I?' ' And Pak, who looks like a Canto film-star and obviously takes much care over her own crisp appearance, sighed with exasperation.

I wondered whether, given this propensity for asking personal questions, she had ever been thumped in reply and she looked amazed. 'No, no. And why should I care? If they say something bitchy or nasty, their purpose is to make me angry and why should I satisfy them?' The word for this sort of language, of course, is feisty, and Pak talks up a great storm, eg, 'In the States, I would be Oprah Winfry but people in Hong Kong television think I'm too famous and out-of-control. I'll do it in China pretty soon, I know 10 dialects fluently.' Then she looked at me shrewdly and said, 'You think I'm bragging, that it looks like I'm a very confident person'.

Actually, I didn't think that at all. I liked her tremendously but, even without the benefit of growing up under 10 mahjong tables, I could see that she wasn't terribly happy. She kept on urging me to talk to Tse about his ambitions to be the Larry King of Asia but when he went off to do a television interview about euthanasia (which, when you think about it, is an ironic topic for a man who's just had his own plug pulled), a little light died in her pretty face as if she'd been putting on a good show for his sake.

Does he make her happy? 'Hmmm, happy sometimes,' she said. 'He makes me feel secure. For him, this thing is difficult because he's never faced failure before, he's always been taken care of. I'm not too confident, you know, I face a lot of failure in Hong Kong. I do have fear, not about money because someone like me, even if I have to live in a drain, I survive. But I've feel trapped and cheated and it was my own mistake. I was stupid, I'm not smart enough to learn by observing. That's why I want to do the radio programme, to tell people to be alert and independent.' Then she unexpectedly produced two little presents: a tea-set and a key-ring with a condom attached. 'Just for fun,' she said roguishly. 'Look, here is how the men hide the condom with photographs of their wife and then go and sleep with women in mainland China.' Doesn't that make her cynical? Pak shrugged. 'Half a husband is better than nothing. If you trap yourself in a situation, you have to live with it.'