1998 Late Autumn

His mother's death and the publication of the photo book

After the meeting of Leslie at the Conrad Hotel, my image of Leslie changed a lot. The image I had about him was a person who was such a stoic that he didn’t accept others easily. However I think it was just an unreasonable image which I made up from his roles or performances in his movies, such as “Days of Being Wild”, “Farewell My Concubine” and the emotional and critical articles by the reporters of the show business world in Hong Kong. Besides having contact with Leslie was much more difficult than we had expected. We also got the information that though there were some offers to make his photo book, he refused all of them. So I thought he must be a very difficult man.

As we were afraid, I got the same answer every time, everywhere; “Leslie? It will be impossible.” “Leslie doesn’t belong to anywhere and doesn’t have his office or manager. As for the movies or songs, you can go and ask at the music or movie companies. However the photo book is a very private request, so you have to contact Leslie directly, and it will be impossible.”
Gradually we began to think this plan would be impossible and decided to give up. It was the beginning of 1998.

A few months later, however, this plan was resumed. I told the plan of Leslie’s photo book to one of my friends, Y from Hong Kong. To my great surprise, one of Y`s friends from college is a close friend of Leslie. My friend’s friend was Leslie’s friend’s friend. For us Japanese, this relationship is almost nothing, but in Hong Kong it is different. People in Hong Kong consider the friendship much more important than Japanese. It is not too much to say that from daily lives to business, the most important thing is each other’s relationship. So if you betray your friend, it means you betray the Hong Kong society.

“Please don’t betray Leslie! I do trust you, but if you should betray him, I would lose all of my friends.” Y said half jokingly, but I guess she was quite serious.

Thanks for the introduction from his close friend, Leslie was happy to accept me as if we were a long term friend at the very first meeting. I have to say I was so lucky. When we began to talk about the photo book, I felt this was a destiny. I guess he had the same feeling.

Leslie lost his mother a few days before our meeting. When I heard this, I thought we should postpone our meeting. However he thought differently. He said, “I have been asked to make a photo book several times, but I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel anything which pushed me to go forward. Besides, I published a photo book once 10 years ago and I love the book very much. So I wonder if I could make this book better than that book.”

Leslie started speaking frankly and showed me the photo book, 'Stark Impressions' , which was made 10 years ago. It was the last copy he had with him. There were a lot of photos of a young and sprightly Leslie in the book, which made me a bit shy. The book was made not for self promotion but for expressing his thanks and farewell to all his fans from Leslie, who had decided to retire and immigrate to Canada.

“Ten years have passed and my mother passed away, then you asked me this project with my revered friend’s recommendation. So I feel this is some kind of fate.”

When this plan was made known to him from his friend, his mother was already on her deathbed. His mother’s death was, I think, the biggest event in his life. On the other hand it also meant the end of the days he had lived with the mixed feeling of joy and sorrow.

“The previous photo book was a commemoration of my farewell to myself as a pop idol. This one, I may say, will commemorate my new life, as my mother’s death made me free from a lot of complex feeling I had had.”

What he said surprised me.

While speaking about his mother, Leslie’s face was very calm and he seemed as if he had some spiritual awakening. At that time I didn’t know anything about the complex relationship between his mother and Leslie, so I was surprised at him when he talked about his mother’s death without deep emotion.

However, when I asked him about his mother in our interview for the book later, he showed me his overwhelmed feeling for his mother, because we became close to each other. While talking about his mother, he was sometimes moved to tears. After that, whenever she became the topic of our conversation, I could see that his thought to his mother was so deep and complicated that he became sometimes cool, sometimes hot, and sometimes resentful and above all, he loves his mother deeply. The especially touching part of his confession was when he became successful in his career and bought a nice apartment beside a beach. Then he finally made his dream come true and started living with his mother. However both of them felt uneasy and there was no conversation between them. So Leslie bought a present for her every day and took her to expensive restaurants, but she felt daunted by that and started to behave with an air of remoteness towards him.

After talking about that, Leslie said with a sigh, “I realized I could not buy love.”

When I heard his words, I was almost moved to tears. Where in this world can we find a child who tries to buy his mother’s love? I thought he would rather be loved by only his mother than to be loved by tens of thousands of fans, and I was moved with pity by his words.

Well we had better get back to the main subject.

At the first meeting of him, I observed him through our business talk. I could see he was also trying to see through what I am. I also wanted to know what he is as a long term business partner. Leslie was full of expressions. His features changed at a dizzying pace. He once was nasty like a small boy, or was playing a baby like a spoilt girl, then suddenly became very manly. But what impressed me a lot was not his outward appearance but his quick decision and his management ability. He was very smart, had a good memory and made the decision on the spot. During our work, there were a lot of things which required our decisions, but he had never said, “Let me think for a while” or “Give me some time” He always considered the matter and made the decision on the spot. However his prompt decision was not always a good thing. In fact he also changed his mind and plans without any previous notice, which surprised and confused us.
Anyway, my image of Leslie has totally changed since the first meeting. He was neither protective nor hard to be pleased but was a very friendly and cute person who loved having a chat and laughed very often.

On the other hand he also had a different facade.

Our first meeting took about 3 hours and I saw his unfriendly face only once. Our table was in the innermost part, which was not seen by the other guests. When our meeting was over and Leslie stood up to walk, two young girls, who noticed it was Leslie, came running towards him with a loud cry. I could not understand their words, but it seemed that they were screaming, “Give me your autograph!” Leslie hesitated for a second and stood there to wait for them. While standing, he was staring forward with surprisingly expressionless eyes. After signing his autographs without a word on the paper they handed in, Leslie left the shop quickly.

I have seen the same expression several times since the first meeting. His eyes were so peculiar and it could be said they were sorrowful rather than cold. They were out of focus; certainly looking at something but seemed as if they were not seeing anything, the sorrowful eyes were one of my unforgettable features of Leslie as well as the friendly smile. It can be said that it was the most 'Leslie-like' expression.

Leslie’s house and the people around him

The interview and photo shoot took 3 weeks. Leslie also had another project to make the movie “The Kid”, so we also went to the film set to report it as well as our own interview and photo shooting.

The biggest change of the plan was the new chapter, “Leslie on Holiday” At first he said, “I don’t want to disclose my private life to the public, so don’t take photos inside my house.” However after working together for several days, he changed his mind and offered to us,” Let’s take pictures in my house!”

His house was near Kowloon Station and was in an exclusive part of the city. The area is owned by a famous rich person in Hong Kong. The houses of Andy Lau and Tsui Hark are also in this area and Karen Mok lives in an apartment near his house.

When we visited his house for the first time, he together with his pt dog, Bong welcomed us. Then an unexpected incident happened. I still remember it very clearly.

Though I don’t dislike dogs, I have never had a pet dog and I wasn’t used to dealing with a dog. When Leslie introduced Bingo to me “This is my pet dog, his name is Bingo.” While patting his head, I also tried to reach out to him saying “Hello, Bingo!” carelessly. Suddenly Bingo started barking at me and bit my hand. He didn’t bite seriously, so my wrist only turned a little red. But Leslie took it very seriously and was terribly upset. He asked me” Are you OK? Oh, what should I do!? ”He asked me again and again while anxiously stroking my hand.

Then he scolded Bingo and beat his head several times. I felt very sorry for both Leslie and Bingo, so I tried to calm Leslie with saying “I am OK; I am not hurt at all!” However Leslie called a maid and had Bingo taken away. He never allowed Bingo to come into the room until midnight. I must admit that the encounter between Bingo and me was not a very happy one.

In Leslie’s house, two maids and a chauffeur were living with Leslie. The maids come from the Philippines, one of them was in her 50`s and the other was in her 30`s. It is very common for the affluent in Hong Kong to hire maids. Both of the maids in Leslie’s house were very diligent. I was always impressed by their good manners and care. However what surprised me most was Leslie’s attitude towards the maids. As they didn’t understand Cantonese, Leslie always spoke to them in English. His English was always very polite. To hear them speak, the conversation didn’t seem to be one between a master and his maids. Leslie’s English was the Queen’s English learned in England. His pronunciation was very beautiful and his usage of words was very refined. However in friendly pleasantries, he spoke in an intimate way using casual words. However when he speak to his maids, he always used “Gentleman’s English”.

I wanted to ask him the reason, but had no chance. I guess in order to show his maids how to speak nicely, Leslie, the master himself, tried to use the refined English, as he often invited a lot of important guests to his house.

The chauffeur was an elderly man. He was always in Leslie’s house washing cars (at that time Leslie had 2 cars, a Range Rover and a big Mercedes), taking care of Bingo or doing some carpentry work in the garage. I am not sure whether he was living in Leslie’s house or not. Maybe he just came to work every day.

Leslie used each car depending on the occasion. He seemed to make it a rule to drive the Rover when he drove himself and to use the Mercedes when being chauffeur driven. When we met at some restaurant or a hotel, he would drive his Rover to the meeting place. If he drank, he would call his chauffeur to come pick him up. I think the chauffeur also returned later to drive the Range Rover back home afterwards. Leslie gave me a ride several times. In spite of the reputation about his driving manner, he drove his car very safely. I said to him “I heard you drove a car roughly.”

“Ridiculous! I am a very good driver! My driving is a lot safer and more comfortable than a taxi!!” He answered half seriously and half jokingly.

There was one more young man who came to Leslie’s house to work every day. His name was Man Chai. He was around 20 years old at that time. He had been working for a film company as a part-time film making assistant. After the term of his contract ended, Leslie hired him as his private assistant. Though Mai Chai was a nice and cheerful boy, he was still very childish and didn’t possess good manners. Leslie was taking care of him all the time. Leslie was redressing every movement Mai Chai made. So I would tease him, “Both of you look like a father and a son!”, then Leslie laughed and replied jokingly, “Yes, to tell you the truth, he is my illegitimate son I had when I was 20!!”

Before hiring Man Chai, Leslie had had several assistants and he told me about them. He said, “As for the assistant, I think a female assistant is better. Actually my very first assistant was a woman. She was an extremely competent assistant and I liked her very much. However the mass media began fabricating a lot of rumors (fake stories) about us and it became impossible for me to keep her in my employ any more because she was a single woman. I have had enough!! So I decided to use a male assistant but then they started making up scandalous stories about us again. After all they want to write something about me regardless of the sex of my assistant! I gave up.” Leslie said scornfully with a wry smile.

Concerning about Man Chai, he was really not the target of the mass media gossips; instead he seemed to provide a very safe shield against the mass media gossips. But in my eyes, Man Chai was too unreliable as an assistant for Leslie, who was working in the international world of show business.

When I saw Leslie translating the menu one by one to Man Chai who couldn’t understand English, it made me wonder which of them the assistant was. Leslie might feel as if Man Chai were a younger brother or a son and wanted to teach him how to behave nicely.

Well let continue with the topic of Leslie’s residence.

Leslie was especially cautious and extremely sensitive about disclosing his privacy but it didn’t bother him one little bit to have pictures of his previous house being published. In Leslie’s words, “It is not my house any more so it does not matter at all” He was very fond of a moving house. After this interview about two years later, he moved to the house again, so I think Leslie would allow me to tell the details of the house in which he was living when we made this interview.
As I wrote before, the whole area was the property of a wealthy person and the all houses in that area belonged to him. So Leslie rented the house from the owner. The house had 3 stories and the layout of the house was a little bit complicated. Seen from the front door, the room which had the entrance door was the ground (First in American English) floor, but once you entered the house, went upstairs into the living room, you would find that the room faced the yard and that you were on the ground floor. It seemed that the height of the roads were on different level between the front and the back of the house. But I am not sure, as I didn’t see his house from the back road to confirm this. There were the entrance, a garage, and the rooms for housework on the ground floor.

On the first floor, there were a living room, a dining room for guests, a small private dining room for Leslie, a kitchen and a toilet. The main dining room was quite large, as big as about 130. It was a very cozy room with a uniform color scheme throughout and had floor ceiling glass windows facing the south. The big yard facing the south was surrounded by a high fence and trees. There was a small pond in the yard with several carps swimming in it. Leslie said that his elder brother, who was a feng Shui master, recommended him to keep them.

On the second floor, there were a private bed room, a bath room and a study for Leslie. The private pictures of Leslie’s awaking in “Leslie’s Holiday” were taken in these rooms. This photo shooting began in the early morning, so the pictures of Leslie brushing his teeth, shaving or eating break fast were quite similar to his real private life.

The series of pictures, which were named “Kitty Leslie!” and loved by Japanese fans, were also taken in his bedroom. Our first plan was just taking photos of Leslie’s awakening. We didn’t have any other plans but as the shooting went on, the friendly mood led Leslie to offer “Let’s take the photos in my bed!” Leslie went into his bed with only his underwear He began to make many poses with the quilt, which was so sexy and my heart began pounding fiercely.

During this photo shoot, there was one more memorable incident on that day which I cannot forget and it was Leslie displaying his culinary skills by cooking for us.

Accurately speaking, it was the maids who prepared the dishes with Leslie’s help and according to his instructions. That day the photo shooting began in the early morning. Leslie decided to invite us to have lunch in his house. He said, “I will cook a light lunch, so let’s have lunch together! It will just be ordinary dishes which I often make. Is it alright with you?” Then he went into the kitchen and began to cook lunch with the maids.

He came back into the living room every now and then while cooking, but he seemed to be concerned about the cooking and went back to the kitchen. After about one hour, Leslie and the maids cheerfully brought the dishes to the dining room. The menu was rice gruel with chicken and scallop, chow mien and some other dishes which regrettably I could not remember. To tell you the truth, the rice gruel was so delicious that I asked for another helping sometimes, which made me too full to have other dishes.

When I said to Leslie, “This is the tastiest rice gruel I have ever had!” Leslie was very pleased and he personally refilled my bowl immediately each time he noticed my bowl had become empty.

I am not a food gourmet, so I am not confident in my own sense of taste for the gruel. But the hair artists and the make-up artists from Hong Kong as well as the camera man, Mr.Shimuzu, all asked for a second helping and they were full of the highest praises for the gruel so I think the dish was really delicious! The praises made Leslie happy and he talked a lot about cooking while eating.

Leslie went to England to study when he was very young, so he had a lot of experiences in cooking. He said, “I can cook almost all dishes and the rice gruel is one of my prides! When I hired the maid, I taught them this recipe from scratch firsthand. However I am still worried about leaving everything in their hands. I am more relieved if I do the last seasoning by myself!” Leslie said happily.

I have had rice gruels many times since then, but still the Leslie’s rice gruel is the number one for me!

An unexpected intruder and Leslie in a blue mood

Several days later when we visited his house again, Leslie had a stern face. He was opening and closing the windows and he was also checking all locks in his house with Man Chai. I asked him the reason for doing this and he answered that a woman fan had sneaked into Leslie’s bedroom the previous day. There were some big trees in the back yard which faced the living room. One of them was very big and some big branches from the huge trunk almost reached to Leslie’s bed room. The girl seemed to have climbed the fence from the back road and then she had climb up the branches, opened the window and had sneaked into the bedroom without being noticed by the maids.

Leslie came home at night from work. After relaxing in the living room for a while, he went up to his bedroom. The bedroom was in complete darkness and there seemed to be nothing wrong but when Leslie turned on the light, he caught sight of a girl’s eyes. She was crouching at the corner of his bed. She seemed not to have any knife or such kinds of weapons, but she was fixated on something with an obsessed look in her eyes. From past experiences, Leslie knew it was no good to raise an alarm. So he started to talk to her calmly. As he had expected, she with her bloodshot eyes began to cry out, “You are a liar! You promised me we would get married!!” After shouting for a while, she began to weep. Leslie listened to her rattling on in silence. When the girl became calm down a bit, Leslie persuaded her not to do like this any more and let her go back home.
I asked Leslie, “Do these incidents occur frequently?” He answered, “Yes, occasionally. Last night’s case was not so dangerous, but during the days when I was an idol, there were such incidents in which I felt that there were possibilities I could have been killed on several occasions.” And he shrugged his shoulders.

The devoted fans are very important for the idols because the support of the fans sustain their popularity. However these overzealous fans are sometimes scary. For someone like Leslie who had maintained his states as a superstar for 20 years, the behaviors and actions of the different type of fans were nothing new to him. Although at times these experiences could be dangerous and life-threatening, he also knew it was these fans that had made him what he was. I felt that he had a complicated feeling for his fans as well as for his mother. On that day, I had an interview with Leslie in his house for half a day. Leslie was slow in his speech. This could be due to the incident of the previous night still weighing heavily on his mind or because it was too hard for him to tell me about his memories of his childhood. Especially when we talked about his parents, Leslie became silent for a period of time as if he were self-examining his thoughts on what he should tell me about his parents.

“What are the happy memories when you were a small child?” I asked him. Then he replied coldly, “I have no happy memories at all!” I tried to say something, but words failed me. How many people are there in the world who can declare that he or she had no happy memories in his or her childhood? I sensed the memories of his childhood were not pleasant. He seemed to be depressed on this day and his comments tended to be very negative and pessimistic. So I started to worry that the chapter on this interview would be a very gloomy and dreary one.

That day we finished the interview well ahead of time. What Leslie said at the end of the interview was so sad that it was painful to listen to his words. He said “I sometimes think I cannot love anyone. Considering my life, perhaps I might not have loved anyone seriously. I thought I loved the person at that time, but once I became calm, I felt I was alone.” I asked him “How about now? Don’t you have anyone whom you love? Are you still feeling lonely?” He answered, “No, I don’t have anyone. I have always been lonely, even now.”

Obviously Leslie was feeling very low on that day.

The tracking report of the movie “The Kid” was proceeding smoothly synchronizing very well to the movie shooting schedule. On the first day of the report, we witnessed a very heart warming scene while we were waiting him in a small park in Square Street. Two boys of ages around 5 or 6 years were playing on a swing when they sighted Leslie. They immediately dashed towards him when director Jacob Cheung and Leslie were walking past the swing discussing the script and making various arrangements. The two boys frantically dug into their back pockets of their shorts but they could not find anything appropriate. They looked at each other rather awkwardly. Right at this moment Leslie had pulled out some tissue papers from his pocket and unfolded two pieces of the papers neatly. He burrowed a pen from the director and autographed his name on the papers on the stone carefully, then handed them to the two boys. They ran away happily waving the papers.

The people in Hong Kong are very fond of getting autographs of stars. Of course there is also the same kind of people in Japan, but to my eyes, they seem to be crazy to get the autographs. Because of this, we sometimes became victims when we were with Leslie. It seems that they are oblivious to everything in the surrounding except the star when they spot their idol. One of our female staff literally had been taught a “painful lesson”. One day we went to Discovery Bay during the tracking report and we went into Mc Donald’s restaurant. Leslie and I were seated near the wall at the corner of the shop and the staff was sitting opposite us. The fans, who didn’t expect to see Leslie eating a hamburger in such a place, discovered Leslie with their sharp eyes and let out a loud exclamation. Then the whole shop was in an uproar. The girls began to rush towards us with pieces of papers and pencils. In a second, the female staff was thrust by the elbows, pocked in the ribs and pinned down on her head. She gave a cry of pain. On seeing this, Leslie’s face grew pale with fury and he shouted something sharply to the fans. Then other staffs members who were seated near the door came over in a hurry and got rid of them saying “Well, well, go away!” I still don’t know exactly what Leslie had yelled out earlier. However I remember his face was so fierce that the people around him were frightened to come near because of his menacing expression.

A Conflict of Opinions over Leslie’s Beard

As you have already been aware that the photos in the first half of the book “All about Leslie” were Leslie with a beard and those in the latter half was Leslie without his stubble. There is a long story behind this and I cannot avoid not explaining this episode when I write the inside stories of this photo book.

When I first met Leslie, he had a beard because of the film shoot of “The Kid”. He had intended to play the role with his beard all through this movie. When you see the finished film, you would notice that Leslie had a beard after losing his job. So you might have thought, “Well, after losing his job, Wing became indifferent to his appearance and that’s why he had unshaven look.” But originally Wing was supposed to have a beard when he was working as an elite stockbroker. Actually before our interview, some scenes or pictures of that part had already been shot. Leslie himself was fond of his beard and he demanded that all pictures in this photo book should be taken with a beard. But I wanted to take pictures of Leslie without a beard, with that smooth skin by all means. Of course Leslie with his stubbly look was not bad, but many of his fans would not be happy if the all the pictures in this book were Leslie with a beard. So I decided to insist on behalf of many Leslie fans that some pictures should be taken without a beard. However Leslie was not easily persuaded. He was unexpectedly stubborn and persisted in having a beard. I thought I could persuade him but Leslie was hard to be persuaded. So I insisted on my opinion again and again. But every time I asked him closely “Why?” Leslie evaded the point and said “Because it is cool!” “Because I like it!”, “It looks sexy!” or “Because it looks manly!” As for me, it was true that I also didn’t have much persuasive power. If he had asked me “Why not?” I would have answered in a similar fashion just like Leslie did. “Many fans may prefer you without a beard”, “I love that.”, or “It looks nicer!” So the battle with his beard continued.

Every time I saw him, I kept saying “I think you look nicer without a beard!” and Leslie also kept insisting on the merit of the beard saying “Why? It is cool! I look sexy, don’t you think so?” Leslie might have thought that he looked soft and childish without his stubble Leslie hadn’t aged in these ten years as he looked very young for his age. Perhaps he might have wanted to make a clear difference between this book and the one he had made 10 years before and to create some manly sex appeal in this book. That was why he had been trying to persuade me, who wouldn’t say yes to him, to agree with him. While both of us didn’t give way to each other, our interview period had passed its halfway mark. As we were fed up with the argument about his beard, the topic seldom came up in our conversation. I still wanted to convince him, but it would be impossible for him shave his beard during the film shooting of “The Kid” So I thought I would talk about it with him after filming has finished.

One day, when we were discussing the place where the second interview would be held, Leslie asked me whether he could call on my room in the hotel. I was staying a twin room in Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong Island with my female staff. I told him that our room was not big enough to have guests but then he said, “A small room will be better, as I can relax. And also I would like to see the room of the Grand Hyatt. If you don’t mind, I would like to visit your room!”

For the entertainers in Hong Kong, hotel rooms are a kind of like their living rooms. Usually they have meetings at the coffee shop in a Hotel, but they often use hotel rooms when they need some privacy or concentration. As Grand Hyatt had just opened for business, Leslie seemed interested to check out the rooms in this hotel.

I said OK to him and Leslie visited my room the next evening. The day became “the day to remember” for our photo book!

On that day we made an appointment to meet at the hotel lobby at 5:00 pm in the afternoon but somehow I misunderstood about the time and had come down to the lobby 30 minutes earlier. Wondering if I should go back to my room, I casually looked up at the center staircase. There is a magnificent spiral staircase in the center of Grand Hyatt’s lobby. It is a large and magnificent staircase similar to the one in the mansion in Tara in the movie “Gone with the Wind”. In my memories, there was a red carpet on it at that time. Standing in the middle of the staircase, Leslie was smiling at me a bit embarrassingly. Man Chai was standing at a short distant from Leslie. “Oh!” I ran towards the stairs expressing my doubt. Though he had never been late for an appointment, but he had also never come earlier. When I went up stairs towards him, he questioned me with a sulky look on his face, “Why did you come down earlier?” I replied “That is what I would like to ask you too! Why did you turn up so early?”

“I wanted to surprise you but you have found me!” he said with a comic look on his face. Then he went up the stairs saying “Well, wait here for a while. I have something which will surprise you!” Man Chai turned around and showed me the ‘V‘ sign and smiled. I was standing there feeling quite puzzled.

Leslie came back in less than 10 minutes. He smiled at me a bit embarrassingly like a mischievous child who had played a trick. To my great surprise, his beard had disappeared!
Man Chai pulled out an electric shaver and pointed at it with other hand. I asked him, “Oh my! Did you shave your beard in the washroom over there?” Leslie answered “Yes, sorry. I had decided to shave my beard off while on my way here, but I wanted to do it a little bit dramatically!” He also assured me as he knew I was worrying about the film shooting. “The entire scene on `Wing after losing the job` finished today. We are going to film the scene of Wing working as a stockbroker from now on. I asked the director to film this part without a beard. The part we have already finished can be filmed over again so don’t worry!” How wonderful it was! I was deeply moved by his wonderful planning and production. I also reflected upon myself and felt sorry for Leslie as I had been saying behind his back “How stubborn!” or “What an obstinate person he is!”

The second interview - we enjoyed off the record talks

On this day our interview was totally different from the previous interview. Our discussions started from the touching events which I had written in the previous chapter and this time our interview was conducted in a harmonious atmosphere. Leslie was also very courteous, maybe because the interview was held in a lady’s room. When Man Chai tried to sit on the bed, he told Man Chai not to sit on the bed of other people. (I guessed he said so, as he spoke in Chinese, which I couldn’t understand!), and ordered him to sit on the sofa.

As we had to jot down notes and record on tape what he said during the interview, we decided to converse over the small wooden table which was set in the room. The table was very small so we sat extremely close to each other and I felt as if we were playing a game of endurance to see who could out-stare each other. We had already finished with the topics on his childhood, his family, his studies in England and his debut as a singer, so we started this day’s interview focusing on the topic of his days as a pop idol. Before starting the interview, Leslie asked me, “I want to amend a little bit about my statement I gave you at the previous interview.” Just as I had expected, it was about his last statement, “I have never loved anyone!” He said, “I went too far, I think.” and he went on to explain, “It might come from my selfishness, which means that I am always not content with the present situation and tend to seek something better and more acceptable.” And he continued, “Now I reflect on my present situation, I think it is quite satisfying. I have a lot of good friends and I am able to love others. My problem is that when the other people can get 100% satisfaction, I can only get 76%. I don’t know why, but that is what I am.”

Of course I don’t know whether his troublesome nature was stemmed from his pessimism because of his unhappy childhood or from his arrogance because of having been spoilt too much as a superstar or from something completely different. What I can only say is that it seemed that he regarded such a nature as a problem by himself and yet he didn’t know what to do with himself.

Now I am listening to this tape after such a long time from the interview. His beloved voice caught my ear just at the beginning of the tape and I was moved to tears.
On that day he laughed a lot. I thought we had a kind of serious conversation, but I when I listened to the tape again this time, I found he had been laughing all the time throughout the interview. Besides the main topics, there were a lot of off record talks and I could hear the sound of his laughter intermittently.

Episode 1 - Talking about the title of this book

Leslie: “If you were to give me a catch phrase, what would it be?”

Me: “Well, let me see... (thinking for a while) Maybe, it would be “Oishisou na Otoko” in Japanese...?”

Leslie: “Oisou na Otoko? What does it mean?”

Me: “It means … (I explained in English)”

(Keiko's note - the meaning is a man who seems very delicious. In Japanese we use the word Oishii which means delicious not only for food but also for sex charm.)

Leslie: (My explanation made him laugh a lot) “Ha ha, you mean I will be eaten?”

Me: “It is a bit different…, but I think this is a nice phrase, don’t you think so? How do you think about this title, “Oishisou na Otoko, Leslie Cheung”?”

Leslie: (Still laughing) “It sounds interesting, but people might think the book is something strange…?”

Me: “Well, you could be right. People might think it is a kind of ambiguous book!!”

Leslie: “Ha ha….. ” (Just keep laughing)

Episode 2 - Talking about homosexuality a little bit further

Me: “Is the question on homosexuality a taboo subject?”

Leslie: “No, it isn’t taboo and actually I am not gay!”

Me: ……..???

Leslie: “I mean it doesn’t matter to me whether the person is of the same sex or the opposite sex. I am OK with either of them .What can I say, I mean, the scope of my acceptance is broad. If I come to like the person, the person’s sex doesn’t matter at all. Why do I have to choose between sexes? We should accept the broad cosmos of the universality of love!!”

Me: “Ummm. Cosmos…” (Being silent for a while)

Leslie: “Well it is very difficult to make people understood what I really want to say. But I don’t think I am gay. Do all Japanese fans think that I am gay?”

Me: “I don’t think it would be all of them, but there are many of those who think so.”

Leslie: “What can I say, well Japanese fans are too accomodating, may be! (Laughing) Some of these fans seem to be convinced that I am gay by their own judgment. At every event there would be some who would give me a big bag full of the books on homosexuality! I wonder what they were thinking about.” (Laughing)

Me: “Are those Japanese books related to homosexuality?”

Leslie: “Oh, yes! In addition those books were all very indecent (Laugh). Such kind of books published in Japan were excessive. They made me blush when I just flip open some pages. When I imagine the scene of a beautiful young girl buying these books just to please me, I feel embarrassed and also a bit uncanny.” (Laughing very hard)

Me: “Perhaps this is also a kind of deep love for you.”

Leslie: “They misunderstood me. I think they are obsessed by their own imagination!” (Laughing)

Episode 3 - Related to the topic of “Homosexuality”- An article about Leslie in some movie pamphlet written by a gay writer

Me: “From the homosexual point of view, it seems that you are also an attraction for gay people.”

Leslie: “I am pleased to be liked by anybody, but please don’t indulge in wild fantasies!” (Laughing)

Me: “It was a very serious essay on stars. He said you had a 'plus minus zero' charm, which means you are neither too much nor too little.”

Leslie: “Was he referring to my physique?”

Me: “What? I don’t think merely your physique only but he meant it in every aspect.”

Leslie: “No, I think he must be referring to my figure! No more and no less means that I am big bellied and have a body with no waist or curves, doesn’t it?”

Me: “Ha ha!!”

Leslie: “It is not a laughing matter! I have been taking quite good care. If you should meet the writer, please tell him that I don’t have a big belly!!” (Laughing)

The pleasant and funny off record talks, which I had totally forgotten, continued to play on and on in the tape. His laughter was so innocent! It reminds me of him and I am overwhelmed with grief. Leslie was very cheerful, open and honest in that meeting.

He drank some room service coffee plus 2 bottles of mineral water in the refrigerator. He opened a box of chocolate which was in the room asking if he could have it. There were 12 pieces of chocolates in the box. At first he made his selection carefully saying, “I like this, well I don’t like this.” But in the end he had eaten all of them by himself. Before we were aware of it, Man Chai had already fallen soundly asleep on the bed. Gazing at his sleeping posture, Leslie smiled bitterly with love as if he wanted to say, “I honestly don’t know what to do with you!”