Hong Kong human rights lawyer and charity founder Patricia Ho explains how The Dive, by New Zealand-born Veronica Green, continues to empower her years after she fell in love with it at an art fair.

Ink artist T.K. Chan, a co-founder of Hong Kong’s Blink Gallery, explains how Chinese artist Water Poon’s innovative ink paintings, especially Get Together (2015), changed her life.

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s 2009 book Half the Sky opened the eyes of Natalie Chow, co-founder of Hong Kong-based sustainable and ethical shoe brand Kibo, to human trafficking and slavery.

I.M. Pei’s distinctive, angular Bank of China Tower, in Hong Kong, was a heavy influence on architect and artist Raymond Fung, who recalls seeing it under construction and later working for Pei.

Tabla founder and creative director Tania Mohan talks about her love of Genesis’ album Invisible Touch and going to Australia to present Phil Collins with an award on behalf of the Hong Kong people.

Barry Quek, head chef at Hong Kong Michelin-star restaurant Whey, talks about the impact cooking competition TV show Top Chef had on him, from teaching him techniques to the importance of ‘a plan B’.

Lucy Lord MBE, a decorated obstetrician who is also the founder and executive chair of mental health charity Mind HK, reveals the Jane Austen book that she has read over and over again for 50 years.

Ida Lam worked on the first Festival of Arts with the Disabled, in 1986, and was moved by the way it championed people with mental and physical disabilities, who often faced discrimination in the city.

Omega, famed for its elegant Constellation and De Ville collections, and Seamaster dive watches, continues to innovate with 2023’s Speedmaster Super Racing and the Coaxial Master Chronometer Calibre 1932

The founder of Splash Foundation, a Hong Kong charity that provides swimming lessons to people in low-income communities, reveals how the iconic 1961 photo ‘Muhammad Ali Boxing Underwater’ inspired her.

Flora Yu, executive director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, explains how the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the world’s great works of literature, changed her life.

Tim Yu, founder and director of Hong Kong contemporary art space JPS Gallery, explains how Banksy’s so-called bemusement park Dismaland in the UK transformed his view of exhibitions.

Hong Kong poet-professor Belle Ling explains how Summer – a 2001 collection by Anglo-Australian poet Martin Harrison that is ‘an adventurous and bold exploration of the quotidian’ – changed her life.

The Black Bay and Royal models are much sought-after classics that make ideal gifts for discerning loved ones, presented in auspicious Lunar New Year colours

Nicolas Chow, chairman for Asia and worldwide head of Asian art at Sotheby’s, explains how French poet Charles Baudelaire’s book Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) changed his life.

Peggy Ho, research fellow at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Art Museum, explains how an ink rubbing of the ‘Stele for Xia Cheng’, attributed to Chinese calligrapher Cai Yong, changed her life.

Gillian Howard, Hong Kong-based co-founder and global fair director of the Digital Art Fair, explains how selling a piece of video art to Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher put her on a new path.

Christine Chow, co-founder and creative director of Hong Kong sustainable fashion label Tove & Libra, explains the impact F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first book ‘This Side of Paradise’ had on her young self.

The Heritage BiCompax Annual Hometown Edition is a tribute to cities across the world, with their most recognisable features on the caseback

Hong Kong Sinfonietta music director and conductor Christoph Poppen explains how a concert by famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin and his pianist sister Hephzibah opened eyes to the power of music

Widely acclaimed as one of the best concert movies ever made, ‘Stop Making Sense’ – about rock band Talking Heads – changed the way Richard Tunbridge listened to music.

Cardin Chan, general manager of Tetra Neon Exchange, which rescues and preserves Hong Kong’s disappearing neon signs, reveals how the Wufeng Lin Family Mansion in Taiwan changed her life.

When Konstantin Bessmertny made a study copy of a 16th century painting, Legend of Saint Eustace. Burglary, while studying art restoration, it opened his mind to new ideas for his own work.

Kate Jones, a Hong Kong-based entrepreneur and founder of creative agency At Liberty, explains how the town of Marfa, an art hub in Texas, taught her how something could be made out of nothing.

Hong Kong-born cellist Trey Lee had been struggling with a movement in Robert Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style. Seeing a famous 17th-century vanitas painting suddenly made everything clear.

Brian Lam is a director of the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, but he started out teaching history. That was when he came across a pictorial history of 19th century Hong Kong that proved to be an eye-opener.

Carla Martinesi, co-founder and CEO of Chomp, which works to reduce food waste in Hong Kong, explains how Chef (2014) starring Jon Favreau opened her eyes to new career possibilities.

Reading Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy’s novel of ‘immense beauty’, taught Lynn Fung, director of a Hong Kong museum founded by her father, lessons about family dynamics and what others expect of you.

Listening to Carl Maria von Weber’s German romantic opera Der Freischütz at the age of 18 opened Perry So’s mind to the possibilities of music, and inspired him to pick up the conductor’s baton.

Laura Williamson, founder of Hong Kong-based sustainable fashion marketplace Plantdays, is going back over the complete works of Shakespeare because it ‘really forces you to think’.