Missing Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo ‘doesn’t do evil things’, friends insist
One associate insists the missing Hong Kong native is an ‘upright man’
While mystery looms over the disappearance of bookseller Lee Bo, more details are coming to light about the quiet, 65-year-old Hong Kong native who, as his acquaintances remembered, was a “low-profile, intellectual-looking” figure, along with his writer wife.
“The last time I saw Lee Bo, I remember, was when he visited our bookshop over last Chinese New Year and gave us packs of chocolate as gifts,” said Paul Tang, owner of People’s Recreation Community, a book cafe also selling banned books. “He was friendly, and not high-profile.”
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Compared with more well-established publishers of banned books, such as Mirror Media which traces its roots to the 1980s, Lee’s Mighty Current was new on the scene, said Tang, adding: “And there is little reason for it to be extraordinarily outstanding or insightful among its more than a dozen peers.”
A news stand vendor near the Causeway Bay bookshop that was taken over by Lee’s publishing house around three years ago, who gave his name only as Billy, said he would have occasional chats with the missing owner.
“He was slim, often wearing a pair of glasses,” he said. “He was not talkative, and looked like a typical intellectual.”
“As a friend of Lee, I would say he is an upright man, and doesn’t do evil things,” said Ngan Shun-kau, former chief editor and now senior adviser to Cosmos Books.
