Talk Shows and Political Movement
In 2003, Wong converted to Christianity during the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. He was attracted to liberation theology after his contact with the least-privileged in society during the crisis. He was active in mobilising support for the Hong Kong 1 July marches.
In 2004, he took a sabbatical from his talk show "Close Encounters of a Political Kind", after being beaten up by gangsters allegedly paid by the Chinese Government, citing "political pressure". Following a self-imposed three-month exile in Canada, he returned to Hong Kong where he was sacked from his weeknight political phone-in radio programme, and moved to a late Saturday night slot (with significantly fewer listeners). In less than a year, the programme was cancelled and Wong was effectively and controversially taken off-air. This event was significant for Hong Kong as it meant that there was no longer any outspoken and critical radio talk show host on any Hong Kong radio station. During his time off-air, he continued to run his beef noodle restaurant in Mongkok.
In 2006, he co-founded the League of Social Democrats, an uncompromisingly pro-democracy, pro-human rights, anti-Big Business political party in Hong Kong. In 2007, he made a comeback to phone-in radio talk show, hosting a weekly political radio programme "Wong Yuk-man Channel" on MyRadio. The show quickly gained popularity and some videos of his broadcasts – captured by a studio camera and uploaded to YouTube – have become some of the most-watched videos in Hong Kong. "Wong Yuk-man Channel" has subsequently become a twice-weekly radio programme, now extended from one hour to 1½ hours. In 2008, he was appointed a trustee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Read more about this topic: Raymond Wong (politician)
Famous quotes containing the words talk, shows, political and/or movement:
“Orlando. Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
Jaques. Nay then, God buy you, and you talk in blank verse.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“An artist is an artist only because of his exquisite sense of beauty, a sense which shows him intoxicating pleasures, but which at the same time implies and contains an equally exquisite sense of all deformities and all disproportions.”
—Charles Baudelaire (18211867)
“My father was a statesman, Im a political woman. My father was a saint. Im not.”
—Indira Gandhi (19171984)
“Women, because of their colonial relationship to men, have to fight for their own independence. This fight for our own independence will lead to the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in this country. Only the independent woman can be truly effective in the larger revolutionary struggle.”
—Womens Liberation Workshop, Students for a Democratic Society, Radical political/social activist organization. Liberation of Women, in New Left Notes (July 10, 1967)