Ordinary Gweilo

I’m afraid that I can’t say anything meaningful about the death of Anita Mui. Both Ron and Phil have paid tribute to her, whilst George Adams took the opportunity to print a very dubious obituary on his website. The dead can’t sue, I guess!

I have to admit that in spite of living in Hong Kong for several years, I still don’t have much of a clue about popular culture (by which I mean pop music, TV, films, etc.).

There are a number of reasons:

1. Language – I don’t understand enough Cantonese to know what they saying (though I suppose this might work the other round – listening to music and watching local films would probably do wonders for my Cantonese).
2. It’s all so different from British pop music, TV, etc.
3. Perhaps I’m a bit old and set in my ways.

I think it’s mainly number 2. Whenever I watch the local Cantonese language TV stations in Hong Kong (TVB Jade and ATV Home) I really feel like I am in a foreign country. The period dramas, the contemporary dramas (soaps) and those variety shows. Actually, in a way it reminds me of TV in the UK about 30 years ago. Upstairs Downstairs, The Brothers, The Cilla Black Show. Weird!

Pop music in Hong Kong seems much more manufactured (though I realise that with ‘Pop Idol’ this seems to be making a comeback in the UK), and the music again seems to be stuck in a bit of a time warp. I’ve never had much time for pop stars who simply perform someone else’s songs – I’d rather have an Elvis Costello or a Bruce Springsteen who writes their own material.

So, as a result of this, I’m afraid I can scarcely recognize most of the big stars in Hong Kong. A few perhaps, such as “Fei Fei” because I was amused when one of my Cantonese teachers explained her Chinese name (at the time she seemed to be on TVB almost continuously).

This has certainly been a rather bad year for the entertainment business, with the deaths of two top stars (Mui Yim-fong and Cheung Kwok-wing) and song writer (Lam Chun-keung), and following on from the death late last year of Tam Pak-sin.