RTHK Hong Kong Museum of Lifestyles: Hong Kong Experts Interview Series 3 Transcript (06/05/2026)

Recently, I was invited to an interview for RTHK Radio 1's "Hong Kong Living Museum," which was broadcast in three parts. I'm grateful to the hosts for asking such insightful questions, leading me to share many behind-the-scenes stories I'd never discussed in previous interviews or online. These include my first job experience working at a convenience store, and the struggles I faced a few years after graduation when deciding between entering the legal profession or starting Re Pillow. If you're interested, you can revisit the full interviews on the RTHK website via the links below:

https://www.rthk.hk/radio/radio1/programme/yolo/episode/1096427

https://www.rthk.hk/radio/radio1/programme/yolo/episode/1096694

https://www.rthk.hk/radio/radio1/programme/yolo/episode/1096931

I understand that sometimes it's inconvenient to listen to programs or that online replay links may expire after a while. Therefore, the content of the third episode is provided below in text format:

RTHK Hong Kong Living Museum - Hong Kong Expert Interview, Episode 3 (Text Version) (06/05/2026)

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: Alright, it's Wednesday. So, Leung Lai-kan… is interviewing Ryan Leung Lai-hang. I'm Tam Wai-kuen, and… (Source: Daniel Chan Ho-yuen is here).

Leung Lai-kan: Wait, let me ask a bit more, something I haven't asked in the past two days. Ryan, (Kuen: Are you asking about family matters again?) who gave you your Chinese name…? Who gave you your Chinese name?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: My parents gave it to me.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: You can tell her that your parents really enjoy listening to Leung Lai-kan's show, so they gave you a similar name.(Kan: It really is, anytime… ) (Kuen: I wanted to ask you, didn't you just say you have a younger sister? Is your sister also Leung Lai-… )

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: No… because my family has a generational naming system. So, the males are all Leung Lai-something, Leung Lai-something.(Oh… )

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: So, Leung Lai- means male…

Leung Lai-kan: So I'm Mr. Leung Lai-kan, always like that.Anyway, I accept it.For the past two days, we've heard from a guest who, I personally feel, is more mature than his actual age and cares deeply about those around him. Could you reveal your age?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: I'm 28 years old.

Leung Lai-kan: 28 years old. But with such a mature mind! I truly think it's rare, especially nowadays.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: And he got married very early. Another eligible bachelor off the market for all you female listeners.

Leung Lai-kan: Exactly, eligible bachelors like to think about many different things, and then pillows appear, ones where you can change the filling inside…

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: …the filling, yes, could you describe it more concretely for us…

Leung Lai-kan: Because when you say that, it means if there's too much stuff inside the pillow, I'd take some out. I'd imagine lots of cotton flying around and making a mess everywhere, but how is it actually?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: The original version was a very simple cotton-filled pillow, but it wasn't sealed on all four sides. Instead, one side had an invisible zipper. After you unzip it, you can take out some cotton. And the cotton isn't flimsy; we even include airtight bags in the packaging, so you can…

Leung Lai-kan: So you can store it directly.

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Exactly, we give you extra cotton. For example, we fill the pillows to 130-140%, and you can remove some cotton as needed. If you prefer a lower pillow, you can remove more. If you prefer a higher pillow, you can add more cotton. In fact, everyone's needs and preferred pillow height are different. So the idea was, since that's the case, you don't need to decide at the store. You can go home and slowly adjust it to get a suitable pillow.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: I'd like to ask Ryan, how much cotton to remove or add is a very abstract thing. Among your customers, there must be some older ones who might have this need. Do you have instructions or guidelines? To let them know what effect removing or adding a certain amount, say grams, of cotton will have. Because when Ah Kan mentioned removing cotton, my first thought was, won't it just collapse?I'd have many questions like these. Do you have an instruction manual or a tutorial?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Yes, we do. The pillow packaging includes an instruction manual explaining the height adjustment. We also have staff at our stores whom you can ask directly about how to adjust it, and you can try it out at the store. Sometimes, some customers come in and say they want to buy it and then have us adjust it for them. We can adjust it for them,but pillow height is sometimes also related to the mattress. The firmness of the mattress also affects how you perceive the same pillow. So we can only adjust it to an approximate level, and then customers can fine-tune it at home according to their mattress. Exactly, it might take a few nights of sleep. Honestly, trying it for five, ten minutes, or even half an hour in the store isn't enough time; you really need to sleep on it for a few nights to gradually get a feel for it to adjust it to the most suitable height.

Leung Lai-kan: Because having a bed in the store for people to try pillows is very important. I remember when I was a child, going to a Chinese department store to buy a pillow. They'd put the pillow on the counter, and you'd bend over, stand there and pretend to sleep, then straighten up and try it. Is that okay? Yes.But I don't know why I'd say yes, when I actually didn't know.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: You just wanted to leave quickly, that's all…

Leung Lai-kan: So, having a bed is very important. But I also feel that if you put a bed there, it might be fine for men, but for ladies, asking them to lie down on a bed to try a pillow in full view of everyone seems a bit awkward. I want to ask, would there be any kind of privacy screening to allow customers to try it out comfortably?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: If some of our stores are more open, using screens for privacy would be good, it would be a bit better. But if it's like a department store, because there are so many people coming and going, I also feel it's really a bit lacking, very awkward. At the time, when I thought about this adjustment process, it was because I had also experienced it in department stores, so I thought it would be better if the trial process could be done at home, and then slowly adjusted at home, which is always better than trying it in a store. If a pillow cannot be adjusted and cannot be tried out clearly, the cost is actually quite high, not only wasting time but also having to buy a new pillow.

Leung Lai-kan: No reason to throw it away.

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Exactly. So I thought, why not create a pillow with adjustable height, and the adjustment process can be tried for several nights or even several weeks? Because sometimes when sleeping, under different circumstances, whether it's exercising or something else, I need a flatter pillow. Or after a while, I might feel it's too flat, and I can adjust the height. There's really a need for this. Because I've been operating for a while now, some physiotherapists have bought our pillows. They bought them as regular users, and later found them quite good, so they started ordering from us to provide to their patients.

Leung Lai-kan: Oh… so it's for patients.

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Yes, it's for their patients. One of the therapists told me, actually, more than one physiotherapist told me this. It turns out that sometimes when we sleep, our needs for pillow height change. You might think the pillow has changed, but actually, your own needs have changed.

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: That's how I sleep too. I usually sleep with a pillow of a certain height. After sleeping for a few days, I want it to be a bit higher, so I have to prop up the pillow with my arm while sleeping. My arm gets compressed, and then it's numb all night. I want to ask if your pillows have standard sizes, like specific centimeters by specific centimeters, and you just add or remove filling?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: The current version is, in addition to being able to adjust the filling, there's also a cylindrical neck support bolster whose thickness can be adjusted. It's placed horizontally to support the neck. Because my pillow itself can already be opened, and I can appropriately remove some cotton and put it into this bolster, which also has adjustable thickness, it's like a Russian doll, you can add or remove layers to adjust the thickness. (Kan: Oh… ) Everyone's neck curvature is different, but unfortunately, there might be memory foam neck pillows on the market where the curvature and height are fixed. Or they might come in S, M, L sizes. But you have to decide which size to buy at the moment of purchase. What if I buy an M, but I actually need an L (Kuen: Exactly… ) I originally wanted it to be adjustable, and secondly, if you're buying online, being able to adjust it gives you more… (Kan: Yes, yes.) You'll have more confidence.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: After more than a decade as an athlete, my shoulders have gotten bigger with training. Because I mean, the bigger an athlete's shoulders, the closer they are to the neck… (Kan: Closer, right?) Yes, so the pillow needs to be higher. Because when you sleep on your side, the bigger your shoulders, the more space there is between you and the pillow. So, from the Tokyo Olympics to the Paris Olympics, I had to raise my pillow by two levels. So imagine, I actually changed two or three pillows. Also, sometimes for patients, as their cervical spine changes, having different fillings that can make them comfortable actually helps many people.

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: But you don't need to worry about this, because in the first episode, Ryan said he used himself as an experiment. You see, we can clearly see that he's more muscular than you. So basically, if he's tried those products, it's fine for you to use them.

Music…

Leung Lai-kan: You're actually a little inventor, tell us what else you've invented.

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: I've also made two other products. One of them is a zipper-changeable bed sheet. Because normally when we change bed sheets, many times they're just a piece of cloth, with an elastic band at the bottom to secure it, and then you put it on. But the problem is that in Hong Kong's bedroom environment, we often put the bed against a wall. (Kuen: Right, how many spaces are there on three sides?…) They're all against the wall. When changing the bed sheet, you actually have to squeeze your hand into the gap between the mattress and the wall, which makes changing the bed sheet very difficult. Especially if the mattress is thicker, a double mattress is even harder. Actually, a mattress is already considered a heavy item at home, but you have to lift it up like that every time you change it. Can't it be smarter? Even if you want to build muscles, you don't do it this way, right? (Everyone: Haha… Do you often play… haha.) So I thought, can't it be smarter? To find a way to change the bed sheet without having to tuck your hand under the mattress. So I tried different materials like snap buttons, Velcro, zippers, etc., and created this new bed sheet. The other product is a duvet cover. Normally, changing a duvet cover is also very troublesome. Yes, it has an opening on one side, and whether it's a zipper or snap buttons, you put the duvet inside. But the duvet core and the duvet cover need to be aligned at the corners, and the corners are opposite the zipper, in a far-off location. So you almost stick your whole head inside and use your hands to pull the duvet corners to align with the duvet cover corners. It's very troublesome, very laborious. Can't it be smarter? So I thought of a method for a duvet cover: a duvet cover with openings on two sides. Imagine a normal duvet cover, with an opening on one side, and the opposite side also has an opening. When you put it in, you can pull it out from the other side. Because it has openings on two sides, all four corners can be seen and aligned, and the duvet is like a tunnel. When you put it in, you pull the duvet out from the other side with your hand, and it's easy to align when changing. Things I thought of, but why hasn't anyone made them? So I might as well try to make these things myself.

Leung Lai-kan: Ryan, the bed sheet you mentioned, when I was little, of course, mattresses weren't as high as they are now. But that bed sheet was very big, and you'd fold the corners of the mattress, and just put it on. The bed sheet didn't even have an elastic band. So sometimes when my brother and I played on the bed and fought, after the fight, the bed sheet would come off. Later, when elastic bands were invented, it got much better, but how did you change it into a zipper style? Tell us about it.

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Our bed sheet consists of two parts. One is called the base frame, which is used to cover the edge of the mattress, and there's a drawstring at the bottom. Why a drawstring instead of an elastic band? Because I found that if the bed sheet is washed many times, the elastic band becomes looser and looser. Secondly, everyone's mattress thickness is different; my bed might be a bit thinner. Then the elastic band would be loose. If you can use a drawstring, you can adjust it according to the mattress thickness, and it won't get looser with washing. So the bottom of the frame is a drawstring. After the mattress is fitted with this frame, there will be a zipper around the edge of the mattress. And there's a piece of fabric, called the bed surface, which is the same size as the surface of your rectangular mattress. The zipper on the base frame can be matched with the zipper on the bed surface, and then all four sides are zipped together. When you want to change it, you just change the bed surface part, without having to change the frame.

Leung Lai-kan: So if I want to wash the bed sheet, I just unzip it, take off the top part to wash, and that's it. (Hang: Because the main part that gets dirty from sleeping is the bed surface.)

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: Ryan, when you were talking just now, I saw Gary-gor's eyes light up. He must do a lot of housework, right, Gary-gor?

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: It's not that I do a lot of housework normally, it's that I'm the only one who does it. (Kan: Haha… ) Especially changing bed sheets, because these heavy-duty tasks, there's no need to make my wife suffer. But I'm telling you, it's very tough. I'm not as strong as Ryan. When I change the bed sheet, my mattress is six inches thick. I lift one side of the mattress, put the bed sheet in, then *thump* I put the mattress down, then walk to the other side, lift it again and change it. Furthermore, putting duvets into those duvet covers, you say it's easy like going through a tunnel now, but for us, it's not. We stick both hands into the duvet cover, pull and tug, then tie all four corners firmly, and then… (Kan: And then realize it was wrong, haha… ) Isn't it? But, practice makes perfect. I've been doing it for so many years, it's okay now. (Yuen: Now it can completely help you… ) Yes, so I want to ask, how many threads is your bed sheet?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: We have two types of bed sheets. One is 100% cotton with 1200 threads, and the other is a collaboration with another large bedding brand, which is 1600 threads. Why collaborate with a large bedding brand? Because our company is still relatively small, and we have limited technology. I also want to, in addition to easy-to-change bed sheets, incorporate some of the best technologies in the industry, high-quality fabrics, technologies that we don't have. Can we collaborate with them? Can they provide these fabrics? They are a very good company and are very willing to support this.

Leung Lai-kan: Alright, it's today, and looking at Ryan, many things are actually already on track. You continue to diligently research many different things, and everyone sees your sincerity. Although this isn't the harvest season, you're still in the midst of cultivation, but there are still achievements to be seen. So, what's your parents' reaction?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Actually, my dad has a… I think he was a bit more conservative at the beginning. Later, one time a colleague of his told him that they bought a pillow and it was very good. Then that colleague said, is this your son? The colleague didn't buy it because he was his son. I think after that incident, he became even more supportive of what I'm doing.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: It's just like the first time you said your friends praised your startup, and you didn't believe it. But when a mother introduces an auntie who praises your pillow, you'll believe it. Now, it's like when your dad's colleagues or friends praise you, other people's recognition feels especially genuine.

Leung Lai-kan: I think this is something particularly valuable.

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Actually, ever since I was young, I've wanted to thank my dad. He gave me a lot of freedom to try many different things, including this entrepreneurial journey. Why was I bold enough to try so many things? It's because my family really doesn't overly restrict me with "you can't do this, you can't do that." If you want to try, just go for it. But you have to distinguish priorities, like studying well and so on. After doing my part well, he gave me the freedom to do my innovative things, which is why I am here today.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: Freedom is certainly important, and he also taught such a mature son to always prioritize people.

Leung Lai-kan: Alright, what about your mother?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Perhaps it's a more traditional Chinese family matter, where my father is the head of the household. So my mother didn't have too many opinions on these matters, and I've always felt that she's quite supportive. If I can do things well and make them proud, that's already very important.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: Also, will you provide them with free custom-made pillows for life? (Hang: That's definitely not a problem.) That's very important…

Gary Tam Wai-kuen: What about your other half?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: I feel that, even now, I'm very engrossed in my work, and sometimes I neglect the people around me. Because I genuinely love doing this, I spend all my time, all the time, planning how to do it better. Actually, sometimes, you might be out with others, but your mind is still thinking about other things, which isn't very good. I feel very grateful to her; during that time, we actually experienced this together. I hope things will get better and better in the future, so as not to disappoint anyone.

Daniel Chan Ho-yuen: I think this man's promise is very sweet, and ending with it is truly perfect.

Leung Lai-kan: We will definitely broadcast this promise, because your dad, mom, and wife will all hear it, you can't escape. (Everyone: Haha… )

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: Alright, no problem.

Leung Lai-kan: Yes, thank you very much for Ryan coming. And one more question, for example, when you're walking on the street, do you have an occupational habit of sizing people up, wondering which pillow would suit them? Do you do that?

Ryan Leung Lai-hang: I think I did it more when I first started. Now, much less so.

Leung Lai-kan: No worries, after we finish the interview, we'll let him see. Exactly, we'll let you see our three different head shapes. OK, thank you Ryan for these three days. In the future, we hope you continue to work hard and create more good products to benefit more people.

(Everyone: Thank you! Thank you very much! Thank you! Thank you!)