For those of us who are shy, walking in public with Cherie Chung Cho-hung would surely rank as one of the most unnerving of experiences. Although she retired from show business nearly 15 years ago, she still attracts stares, as people wonder whether they've just seen who they think they have. Some reach for their camera phones, eager to capture that rare moment when a star appears in their midst.
'I'm well past the point of caring, so don't worry,' says Chung, having proved her point by arranging to meet in one of Hong Kong's most public places: outside the conservatory in Hong Kong Park. If she's feigning nonchalance, she does it well, gliding with ease through gaggles of star-struck passers-by while contemplating aloud the fate of the park's aviary in the event bird flu breaks out.
'I'm always so much happier outdoors - wherever I can feel the sun is fine. To be close to nature is what does it for me,' she says, sipping a hot fruit tea and settling into her chair in the park's outdoor cafe. Chung claims she has no time for the five-star hotels of Admiralty, which rise into the sky behind her. 'Why do people choose to sit in concrete, air-conditioned spaces in cities when they could be out here in the open? I don't switch on my air conditioners that much anyway - they do so much harm to the ozone layer.'
At first, Chung's enduring image - one of glamour built on an impressive range of film roles in the 1980s - appears at odds with her commitment to environmental protection. She is keen to point out, however, that she has spent more time working for local green organisations (13 years) than she did making movies (11 years, book-ended by Johnnie To Kei-fung's The Enigmatic Case in 1980 and Ann Hui On-wah's Zodiac Killers in 1991).
Chung, 46, seems to have disowned her glamorous former self. She sounds clinical when articulating her frustrations concerning the shackles of stardom and the bad films she was forced to make at the pinnacle of her career. When the conversation turns to urban regeneration and nature conservation, however, she comes alive, describing the government as 'primitive' for closing Oil Street's arts village and Wedding Card Street (Lee Tung Street). The fencing in of willow trees in the Yung Shue Tau garden on Temple Street brings her close to tears. 'With the roots fenced in, the trees can't even breathe,' she says.
Chung's latest cause has taken her to the rural hinterlands of Shaanxi province, where she has visited villages in which farmers - mostly women who have been left to tend the fields while their husbands work in the cities - are testing a biogas project: animal waste is processed to produce methane, which is used to generate electricity for both cooking and lighting. Known as the Sunflower Project, the programme is organised by the Shaanxi Mothers Environmental Protection Volunteer Association and has provided power to 1,144 households in 26 villages since it was launched in 1999.
