Benny Chia Chun-heng is the director of the Fringe Festival or, as we must now refer to it, the Star Alliance City Festival. The festival, which runs until the end of this month, has been part of the Hong Kong landscape for 18 years, and as often happens with a coming-of-age, has spruced itself up in quite a remarkable manner.
It is now possible to loiter in the Fringe Club reception, flanked by a row of translucent iMacs on one side, and a noticeboard listing events in the Montblanc Gallery, the Nokia Gallery and the Star Alliance theatre on the other. Indeed, the current glossiness of the enterprise, especially for those who remember dingier days, can be faintly overwhelming.
Whether Chia himself has become more glossy over the years, I have no idea, but for the several hours that we talked in his office, his conversation was about such unglamorous things as Tolstoy, gardening and poetry translation. What with his fine, worried face, his Yixing teacups and his overflowing bookshelves, it was like sitting in a scholar's study while another world glittered beyond his door (which incidentally stayed ajar the whole time).
I deliberately use that image of the inside connected to the outside as Chia constantly referred to internal and external worlds during our conversation. When I pointed this out, he thought about it for a while (he is an exceptionally restful person to interview because he spends so long pondering each reply), and sounding surprised said, 'Yes, you're right.' I can't believe that no one has ever mentioned this before, or that he hadn't analysed himself in that way. But Chia is perhaps the kind of man who keeps such things to himself. Either that or he was just being politely agreeable. He struck me as a very private, public man.
A psychologist would say that sprang from his childhood. He was brought up by a single parent: 'My mother never read a book in her life. At least not in front of me. My mother did not want me to read anything other than school books. She'd find that objectionable, actually. She was very strict, bedtime lights out, no encouragement.' So reading was forbidden fruit? 'A lesson for overachieving parents,' Chia murmured wryly.
Naturally he became a compulsive reader. I liked the idea of this strange duplicity: pretending not to read while haunting the stalls which rented out books in the days before Hong Kong had many public libraries. Of course that was when he first discovered that he could incorporate new worlds within himself, which evidently became vital to him. Years later he went to Paris and when asked why he didn't choose London instead, he said, 'I enjoyed the insulation. If you didn't speak fluent French, living in Paris ...' (and here he gave a sudden laugh) 'could be quite wonderful.' Wasn't a longing to swaddle oneself a bizarre reason to travel? 'Well, you have the external experience of the city but you can limit the interaction. That had something to do with Hong Kong where the outside world impinges on the inside world. In Paris I was selective. I took in what I decided to take in.' Chia lived in Europe for three years, working as a gardener in Belgium ('I didn't want to wash dishes'), doing translation and adaptation for Oxford University Press while internalising a love of art and literature.