CUHK Lives and Legends

24 A household name as a popular TVB news anchor in the 1990s,  Jo Ngai  attracted loyal followings among local audience with her polished and presentable image. In her current capacity as executive director of The Nonsensemakers, she continues to win applause from audiences. Her training in journalism, her initiation into drama, and the founding of her theatre troupe can all be traced back to the same origin—The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Growing up in a grassroots family, she and her three siblings have lived variously in squatter settlement, cubicle flats, and Government temporary housing. To support her family, Jo had initially planned to become an air stewardess after graduating from secondary school. But one day, out of the blue, her class teacher put away the textbook to share his personal memories of CUHK with the class. Jo was inspired and her desire for university life kindled. That also sealed her determination to enter CUHK. c c Between the plush position and the theatre, Jo Ngai chooses the latter After a year of burning midnight oil, her dream came true when, in 1985, she was admitted to the then Department of Journalism and Communication, and was affiliated with New Asia College. Energetic and outgoing, she joined the College’s Drama Club and CUHK Drama Society, starting with moving props backstage, sewing costumes, and doing stage make-up. In the second year, she played bit parts and, by the fourth year, she finally got her first lead role in the musical  Twilight Fantasies . ‘After trying my hand at all the different roles, ranging from lighting, make-up, costume, screenwriting to acting, I came to realize the diversified nature of the theatre as an art form. It requires combining the passion and wisdom of dozens of people on stage and backstage to give the audience a two-hour extravaganza. This is right up my alley.’    Throughout Jo’s four-year campus life, drama was virtually her second major. In one particularly over-the- top instance, to prepare for a poignant scene as a heroine searching for her family in the dark hours, she went along with the choreographer Daniel Yeung ’s (see page 10) suggestion to go to the open space outside Sir Run Run Shaw Hall in the middle of the night. Without a soul around, she rehearsed singing and dancing under the dim light from the street lamp to get a firmer grasp of the emotions. ‘Pretty romantic, wasn’t it?’ she said with a nostalgic look on her face. To keep their passion for the theatre alive after graduation, she and a few like-minded friends joined hands to set up the theatre troupe The Nonsensemakers. Despite the hectic schedule of journalism and news anchoring, she managed to squeeze rehearsals in during her free time. After 15 years in the news business, she left to join the Airport Authority as a PR professional in 2005, and was soon promoted to senior communications manager. ‘But I was on call round the clock. Basically I