'I am not an early riser. I normally get up at 10 o'clock and by that time, my wife, Winnie, has already taken my 10-year-old son, Leighton, to school. If I am in a good mood, I will do some voice exercise. I've been in this field for 20 years now, so I don't need to practise every day.
Breakfast is usually just a cup of coffee and two spoonfuls of bird's nest. I then immediately check my e-mail to see if anything has happened since I went to bed. I have agents in New York, Beijing, Paris and Germany who handle my performance schedules.
My home in Mid-Levels is not too far from my office in Wan Chai. There's another reason I don't eat much in the morning - most of my lunch hours are saved for meetings with various sponsors, artists and associates. Ever since I founded Opera Hong Kong, the first non-profit opera company in the territory, I've had to do a lot of networking and entertaining. I've spent the past 20 years of my career in the arts as a singer, which has been quite simple as I just concentrate on giving a great performance. But since the founding of Opera Hong Kong, I have also spent a lot of time asking people for money. We need roughly $10 million a year for our administrative costs and putting together our three productions. The government gives us $200,000, which is 2 per cent. The rest I have to raise.
When people ask me why I do this, I say that cities like Tokyo and Seoul have opera companies, but Hong Kong, which is such a powerful financial hub in Asia, doesn't.
I think a world-class city needs a world-class opera company, the same way we have a great philharmonic and a ballet company. When I approach artists overseas, many of them like to come to Hong Kong because they know there's great shopping and food here. They are also surprised that we have only been around for three years, many people simply assume Hong Kong has always had its own opera company.
I usually spend about six months travelling, either to perform or in research as artistic director of Opera Hong Kong. I am also the artistic director of the Macau International Music Festival, so I am always on the lookout for new talent. One of the benefits of being an artistic director is you can go to performances for free, but on the other hand, there's a lot of pressure in managing such grand productions with a staff of just three. My wife, whom I met in Taiwan, now runs a travel agency in Hong Kong, so she's the one who plans my itinerary around the world.
I do about six engagements a year and, in addition, I may do some one-off performances in China, which take only a few days. For each opera I participate in, I am away for three weeks to a month [to allow time for rehearsals].