Leung Man-tao, a Hong Kong-based writer and cultural critic, decided last year to spend more time north of the border to write columns for mainland publications and give lectures in the hope of reaching a wider audience. The spectacular success of his columns and books with mainlanders proves he made the right choice.
Leung is among a recent batch of Hong Kong writers and cultural personalities who have successfully staked out new turf on the mainland. Armed with overseas exposure and cosmopolitan life experience, they are helping the mainland's rising social class learn about the metropolitan lifestyle to which they aspire.
The three books Leung published on the mainland this year, which compiled his commentaries, prose and film and music reviews, have become best-sellers, with sales of 360,000 - an inconceivable tally in Hong Kong, where it is a pleasant surprise to sell more than 1,000 copies.
Leung, formerly director of Commercial Radio's Channel One, is a talk-show host with Phoenix TV, which broadcasts on the mainland.
Apart from making a modest fortune writing articles for mainland publications, Leung and other Hong Kong writers who earn fame north of the border also succeed in 'exporting' Hong Kong's values and cosmopolitan experience to the mainland.
Leung, who received his secondary education in Taiwan and graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, started contributing to Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily in 2003 and became a columnist in Nanfang Weekend in 2006.