This is the 85th instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.For lovers of Cantopop music, Wyman Wong Wai-man is a pre-eminent architect of modern Hong Kong’s emotional landscape.Through the classic songs he has written for top singers from Eason Chan Yick-shun to Miriam Yeung Chin-wah, the 57-year-old has chronicled the loves and heartbreaks of a generation. Yet to define him strictly as a lyricist is to ignore a sprawling, multi-hyphenate career.Born on May 21, 1969, Wong showed a remarkable linguistic proficiency from an early age and consistently achieved high marks in literature. As a teen he started writing freelance fashion and lifestyle columns for newspapers and magazines – work he continued even as a social science student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Wong works at Commercial Radio’s studio in The Peak Galleria in December 1994. Photo: SCMP“Writing is an instinct to me,” he told HK Magazine in a 2008 interview. “I sit down and I write. It’s not a hard job for me.”In his final year at university in 1991, he won a Commercial Radio Hong Kong pop quiz contest, impressing producers who offered him a part-time DJ role on the spot. Upon graduating, he transitioned directly into a full-time radio position, marking the beginning of a new era for Cantopop.