His name is Zhang Zhen Hong, although I’ve always known him as Chong Kuok-Peng. He is a childhood friend of mine from primary school whom I still keep in touch with. He studied law in the UK, and his day job is that of a corporate lawyer in KL and yet he somehow managed to hide his singing and song-writing talent from many people including those of us who grew up with him, and managed to release an EP recently.
I had caught up with him together with Phil only in December, and not a word about this was mentioned. Not even Phil knew. The sly bugger.
So how did I find out? I received an SMS one day last week asking me to check out this blog by a guy called “Zhang Zhen Hong”. Firstly, I didn’t recognise the number and I didn’t know who Zhang Zhen Hong was. When I landed on the blog out of curiousity, my first thought was “gees, it’s some Chinese singer” and my second thought was, “Heyyyyyy….I know him!”
The Star newspaper did an interview with him, and there’s also a video clip of the interview on his blog.
His story about being expected to study and get a respectable degree in law, medicine or commerce really resonates with me, as I’m sure it does with many other Asians. But he was lucky enough to finally being able to explore his creative side and his first love of singing.
However, he has no plans to quit being a lawyer and he is going to take things one day at a time. This whole feat is bloody impressive and I’m still smiling about it.
Below is a sample of the 5 Mandarin songs on his EP and I loved all of them, especially “Beautiful Lady”. Pity I’m not in Malaysia to pick up the EP myself. All the best Kuok-Peng/Zhen-Hong! Hope the EP sells really well. 
22 Responses to “The Singing Lawyer”
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He’s really good looking. Is this shallow of me? Oh well.
attractive intelligent people = drool
erm… i think he looks gay.
sorry. =(
OMG U got such a hot frend why never intro???????
*drools
love the dimples
shelly: no, not shallow of you at all. The brains does add something to it, doesn’t it?
BM: hahahah, did you know he teaches salsa as well? And he does have a lot of female friends because of that. Perhaps he knows his market.
His last girlfriend was a Japanese flight-attendant.
sourrain: because you are married. Hahahahaha!
I like the guitar riff of “beautiful lady”, it sounds really good. although I couldn’t understand most of the lyrics obviously as they weren’t in english!
isn’t it cool when you find out someone you know has done something like this?
and yes, he is quite attractive although I think being not only intelligent in the traditional way (being a lawyer) but being musical and creative definitely adds to his attractiveness. and he can dance too? haha, you KNOW what they say about guys that can dance!
All the melodies are very pleasant, as is his looks. Thank you for sharing this! It`s always fun to see where your friends go in life (as long as our mums don`t compare us hehe)!
girlstar7: yeah it’s very cool and was VERY suprising. Yes, guys who can dance get the chicks???
Yuuka: haha I showed my mom this post and she’s impressed by his feat as well.
i think i heart him…
Seriously, As compared to singapore, there are tons of vocal talents in Malaysia.
sourrain: wah lau, so brazenly confessing to it somemore.
lupin: well, the population is bigger so that’s a given.
moo: hahahaha.but this one u can’t stalk him for me seeing hat he’s so far away.And I listend to the clips yesterday; he is good.
bacon ask how come got random english words wan…blablabla beautiful girl bla bla bla wo ai ni
I also wonder.how come chinese songs are like that (i.e. alex to).Can ask him ar, seeing that he is your celeb friend?
sourrain: not only Chinese songs, but Japanese and Korean ones too. Erm that kinda question is too silly to ask: it just is! Or better idea, how about you go and comment on his blog with that question?
[...] on my story about my lawyer friend who is now also a singer, if you had read through the newspaper interview or had watch the video of it, then you would know [...]
if i call him uncle would he get angry and don’t reply?
ahhahahahahahaha
by the way, my stalking is done secretively ok..if I straightaway ask him he will know i stalking him..cannot!!
if you call him “uncle”, it means you are calling me “uncle” too! bee-yotch.
hahaha, Mooiness “upgraded”.
hey! Your friend can sing very well!
Lawyer cum nice voice cum cute. Guess lots of gals will heart him. LOL!
arh yes.. I forgot to add “cum talented” as well.
An: I think he already has a lot of female fan base from the salsa classes that he teaches.
OMG, I didn’t check your blog for a couple of days and then spotted this! Can’t believe he kept this soooo quiet! I’m well impressed – I so want to pursue my dream of being the rocker dentist now! NOT! Anyway, I’m so spreading the word to all our M.C friends in England. BTW, do you keep in contact with Kai Ming ? Been trying to get in contact with him. Hoong Sern lost touch with him too.
Lynn: yeah it’s a bloody good secret ain’t it? Definitely spread the word. I think everyone would be surprised by it.
As for Kai Ming, unfortunately not. Heck, you are the only one amongst the MC ppl that I keep in touch with.
[...] Zhen Hong read that I wished I could get his CD but couldn’t because I’m not in KL, he was kind enough to air-mail a copy to me. The songs definitely [...]