Media-savvy he was not, though he was positively bursting with enthusiasm at being interviewed. He was full of suggestions for possible angles for this article ('Analyse me as an intellectual'), and he did not hesitate to give me tips on how to become a better reporter ('You should read more and research more, that way you can write with more depth'). Then he announced with pride that he had been featured on ABC's Nightline on June 30 as part of the American network's handover coverage ('They showed me reading my own poetry too!').

But apart from public relations skills, Bei sets himself apart from other dissidents through his somewhat unorthodox agenda.

'I am not trying to change the regime,' Bei explained. 'I want to change people's hearts. What I want to achieve can't be attained by yelling all day like the democrats in Hong Kong do. You can only change people's hearts through literature.' Bei has a long history of using literature to try to change society. But he is now bringing his work to Hong Kong by establishing Tendency Quarterly, a one-time underground literary journal in Beijing, in the SAR.

Working on Tendency has not been an easy task. The journal began as an underground magazine in Beijing in 1988. It later began to publish publicly, but its Shanghai office was forced to close in 1992. Since then the journal has drifted from country to country.

Tendency 's editors and contributors - who include numerous Chinese dissidents, both on the mainland and overseas - have been regularly harassed by public security officials on the mainland. Bei himself was taken into custody last month when he tried to enter Beijing, and Chen Dongdong, the journal's poetry editor, has not been heard from since he was detained by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau in May.

Bei has not run into any trouble so far for trying to set up the journal in Hong Kong, but he admits that he is taking a gamble on Hong Kong's post-97 freedom of the press.

He has been involved with numerous underground journals since he started writing poetry and literary analyses for Today, a journal published during the Democracy Wall Movement.

He went to the United States in 1988 on what should have been a brief scholarly visit, but he ended up staying there after the Tiananmen massacre.

'The first five years of my exile were very damaging to my writing because I felt lost and helpless. But after a while I learned to face it. I realised that though I had lost my motherland, I had gained another piece of sky.' This other 'piece of sky' was a new way of looking at China.

'I think today's society is horrific,' he sighed, shaking his head.

'People have lost their sense of integrity, and they have lost their culture. China is now a commercial society under a totalitarian regime. The Government is deliberately pushing people in this direction.

'It's bad enough that there's no freedom of the press and no freedom of speech. But worse still, people don't even seem to need these freedoms anymore.

'At least in the 80s people were striving for freedom, now people only need money.' In spite of this alleged obsession with materialism, Tendency is eagerly sought after in China. The journal has a circulation of 3,000, but a third of the magazines are shipped directly into China. According to Bei, the few copies that make it past the public security bureau are snatched up quickly by avid readers. Because of the scarcity of the journal, each available copy is ripped apart. Readers take home one article at a time to read, then exchange the article for another, and so on. Bei sees this as a sign of how much journals like his are needed on the mainland.

'China doesn't need just one of these magazines, it needs 10, 20, or more. And I think it's not just mainland China that needs them, they're needed by Chinese society as a whole - Hong Kong people, Taiwanese people, Chinese living overseas in Europe, America and Canada.' Moving Tendency to Hong Kong has fulfilled Bei's dream of publishing the journal on the motherland, in 'the only part that still has its freedom'.

But freedom or no freedom, Hong Kong seems like an unlikely place to start a Chinese literary renaissance. The average Hong Kong citizen seems unlikely to want to curl up with a literary journal that features articles like 'The Door Leading to Internal Silence' and 'The Necessity of Solitude: Cultural Critique in Modern/Contemporary Chinese Literature'.

Bei agrees that 'there really isn't much culture in Hong Kong'. But to him, the freedom to engage in cultural activities is more important than whether or not these activities are widely appreciated.

'Yes, the society is too commercialised. But at least Hong Kong still has a space for intellectuals, writers, and independent thinkers. It's not a big space, but at least it's there.' Tendency has been distributed to bookshops around Hong Kong by Teen Yuen Bookhouse, which is handling publication and distribution on Bei's behalf. The editorial department - presently based in the United States - will soon move to Hong Kong as well.

But this move is not final: Bei hopes to use Hong Kong as a launch pad to strengthen ties with the mainland and hopes eventually to move the publication back there.

Surprisingly, given his views of modern Chinese society, he believes the handover will be in large part beneficial to both Hong Kong and the mainland.

'I think the handover will bring increased communication between Hong Kong and China,' Bei explained. 'And that may bring new hope for Hong Kong because the territory will be reunited with its culture.

'But Hong Kong will also teach the Chinese Government and the Chinese people the importance of patience and tolerance. The Government will have to learn to tolerate democracy and freedom of speech in Hong Kong. And the mainland people will have to learn to endure their status quo in the hope that they will one day enjoy the same freedoms as Hong Kong.'