Media veteran Lawrence Cheng delighted and entertained everyone present at Youth.gov.hk’s first function on 15 March, as he shared tales of his struggles in the competitive world of the radio industry to become one of Hong Kong’s top DJs in the 1980s. The charismatic Cheng, who walked into the room at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in chic denim jacket and sneakers, gained rounds of applause and many laughs with his signature brand of humour, while also inspiring the audience creatively.

Challenges only made him stronger
Having created the well-known radio drama character “Ah Fuen” who represented the typical middle-class yuppie of 1980s Hong Kong, Cheng went on a successful cross-media journey and brought “Ah Fuen” to life in television series, novels, films and even drama. Before all that glamour, he did have his moments of despair and frustration. Shortly after he started his career as a DJ, he was assigned to a morning music radio show of his own, only to be yanked off it after two months to work on late-night programmes. Feeling the urge to quit, he recalled asking himself a question: how much did he love his job, on a scale of 1 to 100?
His honest answer to the question, however, was 300. His passion for the job made it impossible for him to give up, and he realised the show must go on. Cheng made use of the long air-time every night to experiment with new ideas, which in turn impressed his supervisors who brought him back to prime-time radio. Even today, he is still grateful he asked himself such a good question.

Be inspired; open your eyes to the world
In the second part of the seminar, Cheng shared his tactics on creativity. Ideas, he said, come from careful observation of the world and things around us. If we pay enough attention, we can find inspiration on the streets, buses or in train compartments, because every face carries a story of its own. Cheng staged a little experiment and invited two strangers, Kay and Long, onto the stage. The two of them were asked to observe each other, and try to figure out the other’s personality and background. The aim of the game was not about “making the right guess”, but to help us build profiles of characters that might, some day, appear in the stories we create.

Q & A
Throughout the seminar, the audience was given plenty of opportunities to ask Cheng questions; the cuter ones are printed here:
Q: How did you first join Commercial Radio?
A: After I graduated from high school, which was a boys’ school, I continued my studies at the Faculty of Communications of HKBU. It was the first time I had a chance to sit next to a girl, so I was naive enough to think she was actually my girlfriend, and secretly had a crush on her. Apparently, she did not feel the same way towards me, and later dated somebody else. I was so heartbroken that I wrote all my feelings down and sent the articles to the school newspaper. A producer from Commercial Radio read my articles and invited me to write radio dramas for him, and that was how I started as a part-timer there.
Q: What do you do when there are copycats of your work?
A: It is inevitable in this industry. Copycats can copy all they want, but have faith in yourself! Trust that you can always come up with even better ideas, so you couldn’t care less. On the other hand, if you have really unique ideas, it is quite impossible for them to copy!