THE DOOR SWINGS open to reveal a woman gazing adoringly at photographs of a handsome man. His picture, in all sizes, fills almost every available space in the tiny room: they are plastered all over the walls, the door, the sides of the TV, even the fridge. In some of the photos, smiling sweetly, is the woman before me.
He is Canto-pop singer Alan Tam Wing-lun, 50. She is 39-year-old Lam Chor-ping, although everyone calls her Fat Ping or Ah Ping. And for more than 20 years they have enjoyed - or perhaps, endured - a strange relationship in which she has demonstrated she will go to extraordinary lengths to meet him.
She lives with her brother and his wife in an old flat in To Kwa Wan, but says they haven't talked to each other for years. Her mother died a few years ago and since then Lam has lived an isolated life. But inside her 50-square-foot room, she is not alone. Her man is with her. A man with whom she has been obsessed for 26 years: the former Wynners singer Alan Tam or Ah Lun to his devoted fans.
She used to shut herself away in her room every day listening to his songs for hours on end. Now she prefers to look at his photographs and admits to feeling unrequited love. 'In the dreams I love him, but it is only one-way,' she says. 'I have never dreamed that he loves me.'
Lam's daily ritual begins with telephone calls to her 'contacts' to find out where the singer will be. 'Sometimes she won't let Mr Tam's car leave by holding on to the door until he talks to her, even though the conversation lasts for only seconds,' says Isabel Man, a promotions staffer at Universal Music, the singer's record label.
The encounters are often fleeting glimpses of her idol, but Lam is satisfied. 'Though short, the moments are enough for me to go home and recall for several hours. Only that way do I feel life is fulfilling and I'm not wasting my life,' she told a Chinese magazine recently.