“I don’t mind people calling me [Ghost King] but it’s definitely not something I would call myself,” says the usually nocturnal Poon, when we meet one sunny afternoon in the city. “Maybe they just feel more camaraderie referring to me as that. I just take it as reward for more than 20 years in the business.
Poon sees himself first and foremost as a programme host; his ghostly niche is one that he fell into by chance.
Poon began his broadcasting career doing the graveyard shift from 2am to 6am at Hong Kong radio station Metro Radio. When the host of Horror Hotline – a paranormal show where people called in with tales of their spooky encounters – left, Poon was asked if he was interested in taking over.
We caught the sound of a woman crying on the opposite bank and one of the sifu’s disciples said the ghost started communicating with her
“I was already doing 2am to 6am anyway, another two hours didn’t make much difference. So I said yes. To me, a ghost programme was no different from any other show; as a professional host, you should be able to tackle all subject matters.”
When Shiu closed the station in 2013, Poon began broadcasting Twilight Online on his own website. The programme, which started as an audio channel, soon adopted a live format, with Poon in front of a backdrop with a microphone and a string of guests who shared their spooky experiences and tips.
It has since become the go-to for people seeking late-night chills or wishing to share their recent supernatural encounters.
Besides Twilight Online, which airs from Monday to Friday at 11.30pm, Poon can be seen on ViuTV’s Talker: One Beside You on Friday nights, heard on the revived Horror Hotline on Metro Radio on Saturdays, hosts Fat Choi 88 on his website, and revisits the stories behind some of Hong Kong’s reported hauntings on YouTube.
Instead, he works with people like YouTuber “AP” who, armed with ghost-hunting paraphernalia and apps, will check out “haunted” locations in Hong Kong and around Asia. The segments are aired live on Twilight Online, with viewers adding their own comments and alleged sightings.
Poon says it made sense to diversify his content on a show that runs five nights a week. “To be honest, there’s no guarantee that the stories shared would be good. I’m lucky if I get one or two really good ones a week.”
People also think that the ghosts of our family members won’t harm us – that’s not true
“AP had gone there with a sifu to see if they could communicate with her,” recalls Poon. “We caught the sound of a woman crying on the opposite bank and one of the sifu’s disciples said the ghost started communicating with her, telling her she was trapped there. The disciple had a flash of an accident and some numbers.”
Wanting to help the trapped spirit, but not knowing her identity, Poon and his team began researching what little they knew or guessed at. They discovered that there had been an accident and a woman and a man believed to be her boyfriend had been killed there when their bike crashed into a pole.
“It just so happened that the uncle of one of our colleagues had been the police officer in charge of the case and, when we asked him, he confirmed the case,” he says.
A short time later, Poon was at the opening of a friend’s boxing gym when a man approached him.
“He told me he heard my show on the Bride’s Pool case and said the girl who died there was actually his girlfriend – the guy who died with her was just a friend giving her a lift home. Because she had no family in Hong Kong, no one performed any rites for her and she was stuck there. The hairs on my neck really stood up when I heard that,” he says.
One of the biggest misconceptions that people have, Poon says, is that the spirits are only out to harm us – sometimes they just want our help.
During a visit to a derelict temple, rumoured to be very haunted, an excited Poon had run around taking photos when he suddenly became violently sick. He had to return to his hotel and, when he was struggling through his live session that night, his viewers in Hong Kong told him they saw two spirits behind him in his room.
“I couldn’t see or feel anything so when they told me they can see two figures behind me, I had to believe them,” he says. “I think I was really too excited when I got to the temple. I didn’t have a cameraman with me and had to do the filming myself and also narrate at the same time. So I neglected to pay my respects properly.”
Poon is able to broadcast live from almost anywhere as long as he has Wi-fi, and he has capitalised on that by taking his show to places such as Taipei, where he has set up a studio. He has also travelled to Vietnam and Malaysia to explore urban legends and haunted locations and held social events for his fans.
He is not sure if these trips will pay off financially but they allow him to continue building his community of followers and keeps his content fresh and interesting.
“I don’t see many programmes doing this at the moment. Even in our chat room, you see the same people talking to each other every night; it’s a habit they have before they go to bed and it builds a small community,” he says.
“So it’s important to have travels and social gatherings. Having this community will allow me to spin off other things to do for them.”