DRESSED IN A light pink suede jacket and baby blue trousers, former Phoenix TV anchor Tanya Liu Hai-jui was a picture of confidence as she walked unaided into the Harbour Plaza Hotel in Hung Hom, flanked by her sister and a friend.
Her movements are slightly jerky and there's an obvious stiffness to the right side of her body, but the fact that she's walking unaided is worthy of mention. Some might describe it as nothing short of a miracle. Liu has another explanation.
'This is the result of the doctors and the therapists setting down recovery goals and me just following the regimen they had drawn up for me, step-by-step, until I am what you see today,' she says. 'I don't think it's a miracle.'
Liu was pulled unconscious from a train wreck in Hertfordshire, England, in May 2002, so mangled that, in the words of her sister, Emily Meng, 'you couldn't tell where to start healing her first'. Liu and two friends had been on their way to Cambridge for some sight-seeing when the train derailed. Her friends and five other passengers perished in the crash, with another 76 people injured.
She's now preparing to go back to work. 'I'm ready,' she says. But it's clear that life will never be the same. Liu tires easily, and one of her biggest frustrations on returning to Hong Kong is that she hasn't been able to go shopping. 'I've been looking forward to coming back to Hong Kong to shop, but I haven't been able to because I need to rest so often,' she says.
The Taiwan native looks alert and healthy. She has put on some weight, but the only noticeable difference is a heavy scar on the right side of her chin. As the conversation progresses, the muscular stiffness in the right side of her face becomes a little more obvious and she tends to repeat herself, like a young child reciting rehearsed lines.