If you ever Google Dongfang Billy, you would think that he's dead. Apparently, so many concerned fans have searched for 'Dongfang Billy Death' that the search engine decided to make it a suggested search term.

But the former Love 972 jock is alive, well, and absolutely thriving. The 56-year-old has just kept a very low-profile for the past decade or so because he was recuperating from leukemia, which he was first diagnosed with in 1993.

He survived his initial diagnosis after a bone marrow transplant in the US, though the cancer returned in 2008. He underwent a second successful bone marrow transplant, and is now relishing his third chance at life by living a healthy lifestyle. In 2012, he moved to China, where he became a calisthenics coach who also teaches people how to eat healthily.

It explains why Singaporeans haven’t seen or heard of Billy for such a long time — he’s busy shuttling around six Chinese cities, where he works with a team of “happy uncles and aunties” to impart the joy of calisthenics.

So we were very surprised when Dongfang Billy unexpectedly popped up as a surprise guest — looking swole and tanned, his signature floppy hair now in cornrows — at a local event at gourmet supermarket Taste in Holland Village. The event, which was held to launch the revamped Taste as the competitively-priced Taste Butchery & Seafood Factory Outlet, also involved a charity ‘cook-off’ between Ah Ges Li Nanxing and Christopher Lee, who both whipped up savoury dishes with ingredients from the supermarket.

And for dessert, Dongfang Billy served a healthy dried fruit-topped cheesecake made with his own homemade kefir, the fermented milk drink that’s touted as a nutrient wonder source. Plus refreshing jars of lemonade (he’s well-known for his health recipes, which are so popular that his fans once cleared stores of their entire lemon supply). Oh, and he partnered with the folks behind Taste to create floral arrangements for their in-store florist too.

Here 8days.sg sits down with the much-missed Dongfang Billy for a catch-up chat before he flies back to China, and finds out just how he became the ultimate renaissance man.

8 DAYS: We haven’t seen you in a long time and here you are looking fantastic.
DONGFANG BILLY: There’s a change in me and people noticed. I’ve more strength and more hair now! But I worked hard for it. All this didn’t happen to me by luck. I won in life through hard work. Leukemia makes your muscles unable to develop but I’m okay now. I calmed down and started to change my lifestyle, and it changed my health.

What brought about this change?
I had a bone marrow transplant in 2010, and my blood type changed from A to O. It really disturbed me, so I started researching on my blood types. For the past seven years I have been researching a lot. I just want to be healthy and stay young. I used to be a vegetarian, but I started learning more about healthy food in 2012, ’cos a lot of my friends passed away [from health issues]. It made me wonder why. Before they passed, they frantically did research on every fad treatment out there. So I live a quiet life these days. I spend a lot of time figuring out why a person has a certain ailment. Now, I can tell you what you should be eating based on your birth date.

What’s your lifestyle like now?
For the past 15 years I’ve been rising early, and I eat my three meals on time. Nobody could believe how determined I was to learn how to be healthy. But I pursued all this because I wanted to survive. After my transplant, I developed back problems. I’m like an encyclopedia on solutions to my bodily ailments now.

Why did you move to China in 2012?
My [late] father was an army general in Zhejiang who moved to Taiwan, and it’s my mother’s last wish for me to go back to his hometown. She’s 95 and blind now, but when she touches me, she can feel that I’m healthy and she’s at peace that I as her youngest son have fulfilled her wish. She likes my job now. Li Nanxing visited me in China and said, “Wow, you’re spending so much time baking cakes and teaching people how to exercise and arrange flowers.” I move from city to city in China — Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhejiang, Yunnan and Hunan, where my mother is from.

Would you ever return to radio?
No. I used to have a lot of friends and fans [when I was a radio deejay], I lost sight of myself. I feel that I need to show people what I do now — they can’t just listen to me over the radio. It’s more meaningful this way. I was offered a radio contract in April this year, but being a deejay [restricts] me to just talking into a microphone. I can’t interact with people and they can’t learn from me in person. I’ve lived through so much in life and went through so much, so I want to help people directly now.

PHOTOS: AIK CHEN