Six degrees of separation from Hong Kong-born Tobias Reeuwijk

Tobias Reeuwijk’s documentary, 1000 Hands of the Guru, will be screened this afternoon at the Asia Society, all being well. The Hong Kong-born Reeuwijk grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, and spent much of his childhood honing his storytelling skills with the family's video camera. Last summer, he launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to fund his documentary, which is set in Bhutan and tells the story of four monks, a royal scholar and an American art conservation master as they work to restore holy relics. That conservation master is Ephraim "Eddie" Jose …

Jose has restored all kinds of Japanese, Chinese, Korean paintings and thangkas (Himalayan Buddhist devotional works on cloth) for museums and collectors. After getting his university degree in economics, he spent 11 years in Japan undergoing training in art conservation. In the mid-2000s, he joined the Honolulu Academy of Arts (now called the Honolulu Museum of Art). According to Jose, he was attracted to Honolulu by the museum's Richard Lane Collection, which belonged to the American-born scholar of Japanese art. One of the earliest paintings in the collection is a Chinese hanging scroll on silk depicting Guanyin …

As a bodhisattva, the goddess of mercy postponed her attainment of nirvana and buddhahood in order to spend more time saving the suffering beings on Earth. It is believed that Guanyin originated as the Sanskrit Avalokitesvara, a male bodhisattva, although in modern times the deity is more often depicted as a woman; some people believe that Guanyin is androgynous or without gender. Hong Kong has the world's tallest bronze statue of Guanyin, standing at 76 metres and looking out over Tai Po from the Tsz Shan Monastery. Guanyin has also been the subject of a song performed by local singer and actor Andy Lau Tak-wah …

The Canto-pop heartthrob has starred in more than 100 films, and is considered by some to be the hardest-working celebrity in Hong Kong. When he was 20, Lau signed up for an artist training programme offered by TVB. He had wanted to be a screenwriter, but was told he should be an actor instead. In 2012, Lau gave up a role in Iron Man 3 in order to spend more time with his daughter. That role would have had him star alongside Robert Downey Jnr …