Polo Buns & Hong Kong's TVB Studios

I am still undergoing my cancer treatment but life still goes on as usual for me. I cannot sit still as Idle Mind is Devil's Workshop. So I do meet many friends and closed sales with new far sighted customers for the bereavement packages. Yesterday I dropped my wife off at her educational centre and hopped opposite to eat my favourite Polo Bun and HKG styled coffee for my tea break.

I love to sit there alone at the same table and face the wall of framed photos showing all the famous actresses from Shaw Brothers and TVB studios. I like the feeling to be immersed to the happier memories of my younger days spent in Hong Kong when planes still flew in and out of the old busy Kai Tak Airport in Kowloon City. My sister and her ex husband used to live in a 4 storey Mediterranean styled resort homes that overlooked the ocean in Lantau Island. That was in the 1980s and it was truly the earliest eye opener for me to see so many foreign expats living there. They had not built the Tsing Ma Bridge yet that connects Hong Kong Island today with the Chek Lap Kok Airport in Lantau Islannd. Those days I had to take boats daily to commute to Hong Kong and Kowloon. My ex brother in law was holding such a high profile job that he often hired 6 door Grand Mercedes to attend functions. I had the opportunity to sit inside once to go to the airport before flying home. I felt like a movie star with my head swelled like pumpkin. Life is just an illusion.

As you might recall that I was once hired by a HKG advertising which is based in Kuala Lumpur. Let me recap that it was founded by the popular HKG Canto Pop singer/actor named Eric Kot Man-Fai who is closest buddy with actor Stephen Chow and they both teamed up well on stage and movies. I was being head hunted after weeks and months by the Hong Kong bosses for the right candidate with much TV commercial experience background. They thought I was a bonus as I appeared on RTM's TV daily for few years instead of just doing the production team work in the background. Fast forward to my over a decade working with them, I learnt so much from my immediate great boss who taught me all the ropes and tricks of smartest advertising which greatly helped me to be the salesman today. I am proud that there is nothing I could not sell from million dollar homes, factories, private antique collections until funeral packages to burial plots. I might sound like blowing my trumpet very loudly but I have come a very long way with my own sweat and tears. Phew!

So, what's so special with that HKG advertising agency I worked for? They were the first in HKG to only handle property advertisements where they often hired movie stars from TVB to endorse the high end projects in Hong Kong, Macau and China. With my founder boss Eric Kot's position, all the stars were his buddies. That's where I heard lots of gossips and jokes. In the above photo, the actress Carol Cheng Yu Ling was the most respected by the film crews as the best professional and thoughtful actress who was always punctual and made things very easy for everyone! They loved her because "Time is Money" in Hong Kong's culture where they count our working time by the minutes and seconds. That's how the work stress contributed to my cancer today. I am not kidding on this stress facts.

I never planned to share the above photos as I had to be discreet and treat them with some confidentiality. However, I have changed now after staying in the hospital so many times recently on the brink of deaths while battling my complicated colorectal cancer. If I die tomorrow, all my photos and memories would be perished forever. I think I should share some stories for knowledge and entertainment after all Laughter Is The Best Medicine.

Photo (Top Left) My boss, colleagues and I posed outside the TVB studios at Clearwater Bay where we were given very special permit to tour every production room & watch all the private filming in real life actions. 

(Top Right) I was posing alone at their TVB studios where all the props of China old scenes were cleverly repeated and recycled for every shoot!! Unlike the Universal Studios, they would make new props for every movies. Who is smarter?

(Bottom Left) The fleet of luxury cars belonged to Eric Kot who loaned them all to fetch us around like VVIPs!! We all posed outside the luxury homes at the peak of Hong Kong's Mid Levels (Bun Saan Keui 半山區)

(Bottom Right) My colleagues and I posed with the HKG bosses. The guy behind me in white cap was a handsome TVB actor and brother of Eric Kot.

Hope you enjoyed reading my Polo Buns gossip.

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