A Ladin Saint in Imperial China

Father (later Saint) Joseph Freinademetz, seated, with fellow missionaries

From Abtei (now Badia) one of the five Ladin speaking communes in the Gardetal (now Val Badia), in South Tirol, to villages in China, Joseph Freinademetz, (1852-1908), canonized as a Saint in 2003. In 1879, he left Europe for Sai Kung, a fishing and farming community that was then part of Imperial China.  Many in the region never really took kindly to being handed over as part of a scramble for control by European countries after China was weakened in the first Sino-Japanese war. Another connection between the Südtirol and South China!  St. Joseph Freinademetz is still an example for the modern world, now rapidly disintegrating into racism and hysteria. But a true Christian should believe that all men are equal in the eyes of God. “The only language that everyone understands is the language of love” he wrote. "I love China and the Chinese. I want to die among them and be laid to rest among them.....In heaven I will be a Chinese.” In 1880, Father Freinademetz was sent to a much larger mission in Shandong (where this photo may have been taken), where he died, twenty eight years later, of typhus, in January 1908.

Tien Chu Tong, photo by Isaac Wong

Sai Kung was no backwater, even in the 19th century. The fishing community had links with other villages around Mirs Bay, further to the north, where Catholic missions were active from fairly early on.  To quote Catholic Heritage in Hong Kong "In 1864, the PIME priests, particularly Fr. S Volonteri and Fr. G Origo came along and started their evangelization and pasturing services amongst the locals. In 1866, 7 villagers were baptized in autumn by Fr. G Origo, while 33 members of the Chan family were baptized in Christmas by Fr. S Volonteri . Local Catholics donated a vacant site for construction of a chapel and school, dedicated to St. Joseph as their patron. In 1875, the villagers on the entire island were baptized".... "There were also three other active religious communities in Sai Kung during the same period, namely in Tai Long Wan, Che Kang and Shum Chung. Priests used to visit farmers and fishermen staying in remote village clusters to promote catholic faith and pastoral work." Father Freiandemetz regularly said Mass in Yim Tim Tsai, travelling by sampan or small junk.  He is commemorated in a statue in the parish church of St. Joseph's, (named after his patron saint) completed in 1890.  Though most of the villagers moved to the city or emigrated abroad (mostly to Ireland), its heritage is being preserved by the former villagers and the government. The Church is now a place of pilgrimage for Chinese Catholics. There are strict controls over building and restoration, to preserve as much of its former character. The saltpans, which gave the village its name still produce salt, sold as souvenirs.

Yim Tim Tsai played a role in my own life.  My father used to hike in the area, and built his own boat in our backyard in the 1950's so he could explore the area by sea. It's now a UNESCO designated Geopark, with unique geological formations, basalt cliffs and strangely shaped rocks, many of which you can't reach by walking and are too enclosed for larger vessels to approach.  when we were kids, we took it all for granted. We assumed all families snorkelled in coral reefs and kept live coral at home. Streng verboten today ! We used to visit Yim Tsim Tsai all the time. While my dad and uncle talked to the village elders, we'd play with the kids and dogs.  My uncle, who spoke Hakka,  told me that there was some connection too between the village and his father, who owned a boat (seized from the German Navy in 1914) and knew the area well.  By that time, a permanent priest lived in the village. In this photo, taken early 1970, my Dad is rowing to the island with his eldest brother. Photo by fifth brother on a bigger boat.  My Dad used to go shooting pigeons in the woods that cover the hills on the island. He used to make the traditional Macau dish, game pie.  He's taking his brother, to go look. Notice the kids who know who they are, esp. the kid grinning !  Where is he now ? And notice what might be nappies on the small junk, which looks lived in. The pier is still there, modernized but recognizably the same. 

"I learned revolution in Hong Kong" - Dr. Sun Yatsen

Sun Yatsen at Loke Yew Hall, 1923

"The people of Hong Kong think of Sun Yat-sen as great even though he failed more than hesucceeded. They will not go back to the time when only the winner is acknowledged to be king and the losers are declared as bandits. Their historical mindset has changed. Thus they will respect leaders not by success alone, but by their ideas, vision and personal qualities".

So wrote Professor Wang Gungwu, the historian and former Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University many years ago, but his words are totally relevant today.  Dr Sun, who studied medicine at what was later to become Hong Kong University, was the figurehead who drew together many different threads of reform and modernism, which led to the overthrow of the imperial system in 1911, and the foundation of the Chinese Republic. Dr Sun's San Min Ju I,  the "Three People's Principles"  are based on the unity of a nation of many different peoples,  on the principle of democractic participation in government, and the concept that the welfare of the people should be the goal of good governance.  But overturning four thousand years of feudalism in the largest nation in the world cannot possibly come without a price.  Sun wasn't able to contain the many factions that evolved, and China descended into decades of civil war.  Nontheless, Dr Sun, the "father of modern China" is respected by most Chinese, whatever their different affiliations.

In 1923, Dr Sun returned to Hong Kong University, and gave a famous speech " I learned revolution in Hong Kong".  For the full text and background, please follow this link.   Now that Hong Kong is facing great changes, way beyond the comprehension of the western media, those who care about the people and the region other than as pawns in global geopoltics would do well to remember what Dr Sun stood for.  The motto of Hong Kong University (where Dr Sun studied before it was incorporated as a university) is "Sapienta et Virtu" - Wisdom and Virtue ie Integrity.  Wisdom does not come in an instant : people make misjudgements,and  things go horribly wrong.  That's only human. but without "virtu", ie ideals, there's no meaning. Better to strive, even in wrong and self destructive directions, than to believe in nothing.  But at the same time we must not remember the extreme background behind the 1911 revolution. China was an occupied country, trapped in feudal poverty because that suited the rulers, whether they be Manchu or other countries which had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.  Becoming a true nation, to Sun and his followers, meant modernization and a new Chinese identity.  Just as people reach maturity through learning to rely on themselves, not others, nations needs to find maturity not shaped by what outside interests might prefer.  in the case of China, with 5000 years of history, extreme poverty and the largest population in the world, this process cannot happen overnight.

There have always been people in Hong Kong capable of public service and civic responsibility, but there was little outlet.  Dr Sun's words influenced my life. I heard about Dr Sun's visit to HKU and his famous speech when i was quite young, from my uncle and Dad, who heard it direct from their uncle, who had attended the speech.  Similar ideas shaped his life, too.  After graduating HKU Medical school in 1912, he was elected as head of the Sanitary Board in Hong Kong in 1916, at the age of only 24.  The Sanitary Board was the only public body with any form of elected representation. Later it evolved into the Urban Council, which also remained the only outlet for which people could vote in Hong  Kong until 1997.  Hong Kong never was "democratic" by any means.  The Sanitary Board was responsible for public health but social conditions were so appalling that its purview cold be stretched to social reform, working conditions and so on. Dangerous stuff, then and maybe even now.   My great uncle died young, not "successful" in the eyes of the world, but greatly loved. When he died, his funeral was attended by many big names in town, and the community raised money for the much photographed white marble gravestone in the middle of the cemetery that's now on the tourist trail.  "If they'd paid their medical bills", someone quipped, "He wouldn't have died young and poor".  
 

UNIQUE Christmas greeting from Uncle Nick

Utterly unique - a Christmas card drawn in the Prisoner of War Camp in Sham Shui Po, during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, sent to some of his family. The artist is Nick Jaffer,  Private, Service number 3177, in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, seeing action in Wong Nei Chong Gap, where 60% of some units were wounded or killed, including his brother-in-law, William Markham.  In 1943, he was shipped to Japan with many other prisoners and worked in a coal mine in Sendai.  He was born in Shanghai on 29th October 1908 to Abdul Hamoned Jaffer and Kulsoom Jaffer, who were"Chinese Parsees", Parsis who had been settled in China for many generations.  In the POW records held by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, he's listed as "Persian". This proved to be an advantage as the Japanese considered him technically Indian and gave his wife Indian rations, which were more generous than for Chinese people. Since she didn't eat Indian food, she swapped ghee and spices for extra rice.  His father died before the war and his mother died in the Red Cross Rosary Hill Camp for dependents of HKVDC POWs, during the occupation.  But at least she saw her grandson, born in 1942.  Prewar, he'd worked for Thomas De La Rue (security printers) and after the war worked for NCR in Singapore, when they still made cash registers.  He was a dashing man, very debonair and creative. That's why he was a Camp artist, constantly drawing, painting, and taking part in the social activities the prisoners organised to keep up their spirits.  The drawing above looks just like him ! He accumulated a huge cache of drawings, which were borrowed by someone in the 1960's and never retuned, which almost broke his heart.  He loved travelling, well into later life, and died in his 90's.  

Massacre at Christmas

On 25th December 1941, Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese. The Japanese had been at war with China on and off for fifty years.  For ten years they'd been sweeping through China : battle-hardened troops with a formidable military machine behind them.  Manchuria fell, then Shanghai, then Nanjing, then Guangzhou (Canton). British military strategists, to their credit, were realistic. They monitored what was going on, careful to preserve neutrality in the war between China and Japan, though they knew, as Churchill himself was to say, that there was "not the slightest chance " of  Hong Kong holding out.  Read Franco David Macri : Clash of Empires in South China (2012, 512pp)

The photo above was taken at the fort at Saiwan, overlooking the Lei U Mun strait, a few days before the first Japanese attack on 8th December (coinciding with Pearl Harbour).  It took four days for the Japanese to take the territory, seen in the hinterland. Notice how small the area is.  From this position, the men would have been able to watch the battle unfolding across the water and see where bombs were falling in town beyond. For a few days there was an impasse. A small island without resources cannot withstand a siege : no-one, not even the Japanese, wanted another Nanjing.  The war changed everything, for China and for Hong Kong : we're still feeling the effects today.  Many communities dispersed forever.  Hundreds of millions displaced : the biggest refugee crisis in modern times.  Millions and millions of individual tragedies. This is just one incident of many, many others, but it  is reasonably well documented since it was described in the War Crimes Trials in 1946-7.

In the photo we see the 5th AA unit of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. Notice the chair, for the British officer in command. Like so much else in colonial administration, Volunteer units were organised along racial lines. There were separate units for British  and Europeans, for Chinese and for the Macanese community. The 5th AA seems to have comprised a combination of men who for various reasons didn’t fit other categories, so most of these men knew each other socially from before the war. The week before the Japanese invasion began they had been on exercises with the other Volunteers in the New Territories, within sight of Japanese lines across the border.

At midday on Sunday 7th December, the local radio station broadcast the order for mobilisation. The 5th AA had to report for duty by 6pm that evening. Gunner John Litton drove Gunner Algernon Ho in his car. They lived next door to each other in Tytam, near the reservoir. Litton, though only seventeen years older, was in fact Ho’s uncle. Gunner Manuel Ozorio finished a family Sunday lunch, waving to his brother as he left, “Don’t worry, I’ll look after your friends!” His brother, being crippled, was unable to join up with the rest of their crowd, and envied them. Had he been able-bodied, he too would have shared their fate. While the fighting was in progress on the mainland, 5th AA was “shifted around other sectors, 2 days in Stanley, 2 days at Saiwan Fort”. Saiwan Fort was an old Victorian fort, a series of gun emplacements around a main building on high ground. It overlooked Lei Yu Mun Pass, the narrowest stretch of harbour, so close that the men could see across to the mainland with their field glasses. The hill opposite was Devil's Peak, scene of the bitterly fought last Indian stand on the mainland.  Then, on the night of 17th/18th December, a Japanese officer (a swimming champion) swam alone, across the bay, in darkness, to reconnoitre a suitable landfall. across the narrow strip of sea seen above, and the final onslaught began.

That night, unkniwn to the men in the fort, the Japanese landed in force, crossing the strait on small rafts and logs. They struck land at North Point, not far from where 5th AA were stationed.  Late on the afternoon of the 18th, the unit had received artillery fire, which continued without a break until late evening. It was an unusually dark night. Even had there been a moon it would have been obscured by the thick smoke from burning oil installations, and from ships blazing in the harbour. They could see light, from fires, in the direction of the city. Many of the men had homes and families in the vicinity of the fires, but had no way of knowing what was happening in the town.  And these were men with no illusions about what had happened in Nanjing and elsewhere. What they felt, as they sheltered from the relentless bombardment in the fort, has not been recorded, but one can speculate. These men still had the optimism of youth, and war might have seemed something of an adventure, for it was so different from their settled, sheltered lives. Brought up in a world where people still had faith in the British Empire, they may even have believed that somehow the Empire would come to their aid, perhaps in the form of reinforcements from China.  A Goumindang Army division was in the vicinity, but even if they'd have saved Hong Kong,  the political implications were controversial, to say nothing of the logistics.

At 2200 hours they heard shots from close quarters. This was the first indication some of them had that the Japanese had landed. Suddenly, a hand grenade was thrown in from the door, wounding two men. Some were able to escape at this point, including Sergeant  David Bosanquet, who was later able to escape Hong Kong altogether and go into Free China. Shortly afterwards, they heard some voices shouting “Surrender, Save you” in broken English. “Sergeant” George Bennett told his men to fix their bayonets and try to force their way out. Several men did get out, but three were killed on the spot. The men then went back into the tunnel below the main gun site where they had been positioned and shouted that they would surrender, and the Japanese told them to come out. Of the 40-odd men, and, intriguingly, some women, possibly servants (for this was Hong Kong where life without domestic staff was unthinkable), who had been in the fort that day, only 29 remained. They came out in single file.

At one stage, one of the survivors saw a Japanese whom he took to be an officer because the man had a long Japanese sword. It made an impression on him, because that was the first time he’d seen a Japanese sword; he would see many in the years to come. The men were then taken to a pillbox several yards away. One of the Japanese took a pack of cigarettes from someone and smoked them while he searched the prisoners. The Japanese had torches, but didn’t use them. Perhaps the light from the cigarettes was sufficient in that small and very crowded pillbox. Fountain pens, watches, even belts were stolen. Only a few of the Japanese took part in the search. Afterwards, they sat smoking while the others guarded their prisoners with fixed bayonets. Two or three hours passed. It was well after midnight when the men heard a shout.

Gunner Chan Yan Kwong, one of the survivors, describes what happened next. “A semi circle was formed by the guards obstructing the doorway. A loud voice in English was then heard saying that we were free and could leave the pillbox, one by one. However, we were all bayoneted… the bayonet just scratched my abdomen from left to right and the point came out from my clothes, struck my wrist, causing great bleeding”.No more than seven Japanese were involved in the actual bayoneting, though Chan sensed that there were others watching nearby. Gunner Martin Tso Him Chi was perhaps the fifteenth man to come out. Only then did he realise what had happened to the men who had gone before him. Bayoneted across the abdomen from his stomach to his chest, he lay pretending to be dead. He said he thought the sentries were by then tired so they were not as thorough as they might have been earlier. He could see in the light from a fire from a burning ship in the bay the bodies of his comrades: Gunner Kwok Wing Chueng, Gunner Poon Kwong Kuen, Gunner Algernon Ho, Bombardier T N Lau and Gunner Tsang Kai Pan. He saw the last man to be killed, Ting Ping Kwan, try to avoid being bayoneted by pushing up his arms and legs, but Ting died, too.

Then the Japanese came up and battered the bodies with rifle butts and threw them into a pit near what had been their kitchen. Tso, who had been covered by his comrades’ bodies, managed to roll down the slight slope so he fell against the kitchen wall. Tso and Chan lay, separately, among the bodies, listening to the sound of dying men “crying out for God, mother and water” as Chan described, but they thought that the guards were still around. Chan thought he saw soldiers stationed on the horizon. Only later he discovered that they were straw effigies. Gradually the groaning stopped. Tso said that he managed to survive by crawling out to get water and picking biscuits from the ground. He moved a corpse to cover himself when he got back to position, since he didn’t know where the Japanese might be. After several days Chan heard the sounds of looters coming to comb the battlefield, so he crawled to the dugout, hid and removed his uniform. As he was about to leave, he heard a sound from the pit and whispered “Is there anybody alive?” Only Tso answered.

Tso and Chan made their way home. Chan lived in Shaukiwan, not far from the site of the massacre. Tso lived in Causeway Bay a few miles farther on, but on the way home he met a party of Japanese and was forced to do coolie work. The next day, in pain and weak, he made his way to a Catholic church in Shaukiwan where Reverend Father Shek dressed his wounds and looked after him.

Studying a list of the men who were killed at Saiwan sheds light on the community they came from. The survivors, Tso and Chan, had studied at Diocesan Boys School, an old Hong Kong institution, together with many of the men who were killed – the bodies they saw were not strangers but men they’d known since childhood, with whom they’d played cricket and football. Tso escaped into Free China and became a banker in Guangzhou after the war. In this second photo, see him in his nice western suit.  But he's standing by the pillbox where the massacre took place. He's not posing : it's an official photograph taken by the investigators ofvthe War Crimes Commission.  After the trial, Tso took the relatives of some of the men who had been killed back to the site for private mourning. This was an act of courage and kindness on his part, as it was the first time he had been back, alone.  One of those relatives, Eric Peter Ho, brother of Algernon Ho and nephew of Henry Litton, told me years later how Tso was so overcome by emotion that he could hardly proceed. Tso died young, but left a very talented son who later won a scholarship to study in the US.

A few of the other men, remembered : Debonair Ernest Fincher had been famous for cricket and swimming parties. Algernon Ho, known to his intimates as “Algy” had that summer graduated from university, and was working as an accountancy trainee at Wong, Tan & Co, the only firm of Chinese chartered accountants in Hong Kong at the time. Litton, Ho, William Edward Broadbridge and Andrew Zimmern (all related) were members of prominent and talented Eurasian families who played an important part in Hong Kong affairs. Peter Ulrich, (third photo) a charismatic and athletic German Eurasian, had been the outstanding pupil of his graduating year, winning academic honours for La Salle, a new, but innovative, Jesuit school. He had in fact started teaching there.  He was such an exceptional character that people were talking about him in awe for decades. After the war, his parents were living in Bangkok.  Ozorio and Francis Oswald Reed were Macanese who’d grown up in Kowloon Docks, occupied by the Japanese, and later carpet bombed by the Americans in 1944-5, so flattened that you could stand at the shore and look through to the horizon on the other side. Only one of the large Reed family would survive the war. Gunner A Bakar was probably of mixed Chinese and Indian ancestry, his family long-term Hong Kong residents.  Chan Yan Kwong, who was 20 at the time of the massacre, went on to become a merchant after the war and remained in Hong Kong. The scars from his wound remained for the rest of his life. He displayed them in court when he gave evidence in the war crimes trials after the war.

Ernest Paterson, whose mother was Spanish, was an undergraduate at Ricci Hall, Hong Kong University. His face smiles out at us from a photograph of the University Science Club, taken  a few weeks before. On one side next to Ernie is my Dad, aged 20. They were best friends. My Dad had been crippled in his teens, which is why he could not be a Volunteer like his brother and friends, but ironically that saved his life. On the other side of my dad is Stanley Ho, who would later become the billionaire gambling tycoon of Macau ! and behind them is Oswald Cheung, later SOE, the first Chinese Queen's Counsel, and Member of the Legislative and Executive Councils.  Of the whole group  only Stanley Ho is still alive. This fourth photo comes from David Matthews and Oswald Cheung : Dispersal and Renewal : Hong Kong University During the War Years, 1998, 508pp)

Cheung Wing Yee, Poon, Litton, Reed, George Donald Stokes, Tsang and Joseph Nelson Wilkinson left wives and young children. The only man truly alone was Edgar Wallace Bannister, who had long left his parents, far away in England. With these men died a microcosm of the pre-war Hong Kong world they’d known. These men were among Hong Kong’s best and brightest, the hope of their communities, and, in one dark, moonless night they were destroyed.

Those who carried out the massacre were never identified. They weren't officers, and it wasn't a premeditated crime but basic thuggery. In the confusion of the battlefield, it was impossible to tell for certain which unit was where at the time.   More than twenty years ago, I decided to find out for myself what had happened, and uncovered the war crimes file in the National Archives at Kew.  In the file, there was an envelope, sealed since 1947. But the story was more or less public domain, since it had been reported in the newspapers, Trying to open the envelope, I inadvertently tore it, since it was securely bound into the file. No one had opened the envelope, or set eyes on the photograph, for nearly sixty years. I felt most truly humbled, but it genuinely felt like someone was willing me to be the person to lay eyes on the documents after so many years.

List of men in 5th AA battery listed as killed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Sgt 3834 Edgar Wallace Bannister, 28

Gnr 4571 A Bakar

Gnr 2235 William Edward Broadbridge, 34

Gnr 4134 Chan U Chan

Gnr 4840 Cheung Wing Yee

Bdr 4225 Ernest Francis Fincher

Gnr 4239 Algernon Ho, 21

Gnr 4317 Kwok Wing Chung,

Gnr 4186 Leung Fook Wing, 26

Gnr DR/53 John Letablere Litton, 38

L Bdr 4505 Lau Hsin Nin

Gnr 4198 Manuel Heliodoro Ozorio, 24

Gnr 4861 Ernest Manuel Paterson, 18

Gnr 4188 Poon Kwong Kuen,

Gnr 2798 Francis Oswald Reed, 28

Gnr 4798 George Donald Stokes, 31

Gnr DR/9 William E. Stone

Gnr 4189 Tsang Ka Pen

Gnr 4614 Albert Ulrich, 24

Gnr DR/72 Peter H. A. Ulrich, 25

Gnr DR/31 Joseph Nelson Wilkinson

L Bdr 4268 Andrew Zimmern
Altogether it is believed that about 28 men were killed in this incident, including several men from 7th AA Battery, Royal Artillery, who were temporarily assigned to the unit.
L Bdr George Bennett, 26

Sgt Reginald Edmund Coughlan

L Bdr Kenneth Henry Macdonald

Gnr William Rhoden

Gnr George Robert Ward

String Quartet Street Party

Street Art - for places where "culture" is part of people's lives

Seven Little Fooks

Seven Little Fooks (七小福)  a reference to folklore tales about seven kids who bring good luck.  In this case, a group of boys being trained in Beijing opera.  But they are refugee kids in a community of exiles : in the south, their northern origins don't mean much. Gradually they grow up and find work in Hong Kong kung fu movies. This is a film about their teacher, Master Yu Zhangzong, struggling to maintain his art in a world that doesn't care.  An exquistely filmed movie, sensitive to changing social nuances. Essential viewing, even for those who know only kung fu, since Chinese opera is the root from which martial arts grew. To understand kung fu, and Chinese culture itself, you need to know the world of Chinese opera. But this is also a very personal story, based on real people and real memories.  Clue : the eldest boy is nicknamed "Three Hairs". Translate that as Sammo and realize it's Sammo Hung who still carries his nickname though he's famous today. And who is "Big Nose" ? The now ubiquitous Jackie Chan, a bigger star than many in Hollywood.  In the movie Master Yu is played by the adult Sammo Hung,  who has won many awards, but must treasure this, since he's portraying the man who shaped him.  So Seven Little Fooks, (directed in 1988 by Alex Law Kai chui) is about real people, caught up in an era of unprecedented change. Evocative music by Lowell Lo Koon-ting.

It's December 1st,1962, when much of Hong Kong was stilll pre-war tenement, houses built on terraces, where people share communal spaces, like the neighbour, a tailor, who works in the yard and can't stand the sound of the kids singing.  A new boy arrives.  "Can I do cartwheels all day and not study?" he asks. "Then I'll sign for ten years!", he squeaks. His mother's crying,  but it's best for him, though the contract she seals with her thumb print (she's illiterate) is severe. If kids die in training, no questions asked.  That was the traditional way.  Notice the kid's name is Chan Kong-sang, which means Chan "Born in Hong Kong", marking his parents brief respite after 20 years of struggle in war-torn China.  He's now Jackie Chan.  And so the kids learn tthe basics of Beijing opera, as much physical fitness and gymnastics as opera in the western sense. That's why they neeed to start young to be flexible.  The school is very old style. The kids live communal and have shaved heads like kids in the North used to do. The local kids mock them, singing a rude song which the subtitles don't translate ("baldies, baldies, butter up your butts"). The kids give a performance but Big Nose fell asleep. The audience walks out "They've gone home to the radio" scolds Master Yu - the radio and big theatres being where top quality operas were done : small troupes can't compete.  So they get beaten with canes.  Mrs Chan comes to bathe the kids - no plumbing - and knows he's been beaten. But he says "Don't cry". Opera school is tough but the kids think they're freer than the ones in regular school, chanting by rote.   When Master Yu goes out the boys march into town to collect charity rice. On their way back they clash with the fancy kids and there's a brawl.   The taunt "Four eye'd boys, blind as turtles!" (meaning kids with glasses). Ponder that detail, it's important.  Wandering far from home, they need to get back by bus, but haven't any money so they con the driver and later escape without paying.  Watch them use their opera athletics to escape from the top deck !

Meanwhile Master Yu and his friend Uncle Wah chat in a teahouse. They trained together as boys themselves, in Beijing. "Rain or snow, we'd get up early and train". For what ?  Few make it big in opera. Wah works as a stuntman and stand-in for stars.  Bruises and broken ribs "Thirty years of good luck, thirty years of bad" quotes master Yu. "And then you're dead" says Uncle Wah. To cheer him, Master Wu starts singing, in the middle of the tea house, and Uncle Wah  gets his dream, to sing again, for a public.  When Master Yu gets home, the Cantonese tailor confronts him because  the opera boys punched his kid.  Master Yu holds his ground and defends his kids. Tailor and Opera master swap insults : scholars are too weak to work, too proud to beg : actors are prostitutes.  Another witty retort not in the subtiles "Chicken piss!". But when the Lunar New Year comes, they all celebrate together. 

Gradually the boys grow up, doing shows in proper cinemas. They also discover girls. Big Nose tries to impress by rotating a pot on his head, but modern girls are more interested in guitar bands.  One day, the leader of a Cantonese female troupe asks for help, since Beijing boys are much better at gymnastics. Master Yu doesn't have modern social skills either. He wants to buy the female troupe leader a "western" birthday cake, but none of the traditional bakers do that. He has to travel all round town until he finds one. Alas, the inscription says "Happy 70th, Grandad!. So Master Yu can't read!  It's extremely bad luck, since the Grandad it was baked for died that morning..... Master Yu isn't the only one  not up with the times. The Tailor can't understand modern fashion. His son "borrows" for Big Nose  the fancy togs his Dad's made for western customers and the two go out together. But the girl prefers the nerdy tailor's son who can "sing Beatles" as the girl's kid brother says. "You Beijing opera types no-one wants". Big Nose goes back, dejected but he's missed a show. Sammo substituted for him, but Master Yu beats him for covering up Big Nose's disobedience and kicks him out of the troupe. Sinc it's been his life, he has nowhere to go.

But business isn't going well and the troupe is dissolved.  Sammo reappears crestfallen and is  welcomed by Uncle Wah.  Master Yu goes to Uncle Wah's movie studio to get work for the boys.  He's forced to cut up a group photo so their heads can go on the register. Uncle Wah, who has been working as a stuntman for years, is getting old and has too many accidents.  He blows his last chance and suddenly goes insane, climbing up into the roof space in the studio, mad with grief, re-enacting opera scenes. An amazing scene. Master Yu climbs up and starts to sing an aria from The Emperor and the Concubine, where the Emperor has lost his,kingdom, but his concubine remains loyal.   For a moment, Master Yu and Uncle Wah are back to be stars again, singing together. Uncvle Wah thinks he's an opera star again. then he's taken away in an ambulance.

Master Yu calls his boys together. He's spent 40 years in opera. Success or not, he's given it full committment.   The school is closed, the house is being demolished and the boys are starting out onn their own paths. so now he'll retire, abroad. He releases the tortoise he's kept for seven years to hold up his bed, feeding and watering it . Its back is strong and it it still knows how to walk.   Master Yu boards the ship, that's taking him away, forever.  "You persevered 40 years and so will we" says Big Nose. "Sammo look after them !" the master's last command.  When they're gone he looks at the gift they've left. A white paper fan with what look like scribbles. But when the folds are aligned the squiggles spell out 七小福, Seven Siu Fooks.  Below a photo of Master Yu who lived to a grand old age and his boys, now grown men.

PLenty moire on this site about Chinese movies, Chinese oopera and music, especially Cantonese. THis ius the only site in Englishwhich does these subjects from a wider social perspective.

From the Heart of a Loafer

Sam Hui and Rebu, his wife. photo : Adam Wright

Sam Hui : From the Heart of a Drifter 許冠傑 - 浪子心聲, one of the great classics of Cantonese pop.  A modern day hit song, but one that makes me think of  Chinese poetry.  The idea that life is transient is deeply embedded into the psyche of Hong Kong people.  Everyone there is a descendant of a descendant of a refugee, or someone escaping bad conditions, dreaming of better. Some make it, some don't. Indeed, some have gone from destitute to millionaire and back. No cushion of privilege for most.  Nowadays people take things for granted, but things in the past were never easy.  Sam Hui  is the epitome of the Hong Kong spirit.  He became a megastar while in his teens, with a western style rock band. Yet he didn't, ever, forget his roots. He's had massive success but his heart is grounded in proper Chinese values.  He was very well educated, and a graduate of HKU whichn in those days was the only university in town and highly elite.  Always aware of the world around him, he has moral integrity.  He had social conscience long before it became safe to do so. He didn't sell out, even when camping up as Elvis !  As long as your heart is pure, bad things cannot bring you down.
It's hard to tell what's real and what's fake,

By nature, people aren't what they seem.

Who will share with you in good times,

But also share when water drips from the roof ?

Like a simple frog deep in a well,

dreaming of fame and fortune,

Full of hope, unaware of difficulty.
Who knows when golden houses can turn to hovels ?

If life destines something for you, it will happen in the end

If life destines it not to happen, there's no point begging otherwise. . 

When thunder roars and lightning strikes,

There's no need to be afraid

As long as your conscience is clear and your heart is just,

We are like the sand in the sea

There's no use in feeling bad

We can see the sunset in the sky above.

Fame and fortune can vanish like the mist

Rouge 1988 revisted, a study in time

Rouge 胭脂扣, one of the great films of the Cantonese cinema renaissance, much praised but also much misunderstood.  Rouge is remarkable, a meditation on timelessness and fluidity. The heroine slips out of one time period into another, literally haunting her old haunts.  To appreciate this film, it's almost essential to understand the background, and the language. The English translation skims the surface.  Non-Cantonese speakers are left wondering where's the kung fu pace and violence. But that's the whole point.  Rouge is poetry, like an ancient  classical tale. Like The Peony Pavilion, for example, that 16th century masterpiece where lovers defy death to be together. (Please read my work on The Peony Pavilion as kunqu opera.)  But how are western audiences to grasp this film without knowing the background? Or even the younger generation, intent on denying heritage?  Chinese film is every bit as good as European or Japanese cinema. So a film as full of cultural references as Rouge needs context, and historical background.

Rouge starts in a fancy tea house, such as existed in Shek Tong Sui, once the red-light district of Hong Kong.  It's not a brothel per se, though services are provided.  Essential reading, Virgil Ho's book :Understanding Canton : Rethinking popular culture in the Republican Period,  Even those familiar with the period will be taken aback by the period detail. Customers are called "Twelfth Master " or even "Seventeenth Master". Families were big then, and, as the heroine says later "daughters don't count".   In this situation, the terms mean something different.  Luxuriate in the period detail in the set and costumes -  proper furniture of the period, not "antique" at the time, though it would be now. Screens with panels of gaudy coloured glass remind us that this isn't a place where scholars hang out.  Oval mirrors add a touch of "westerness". showing how "modern" the clientele thought they were.  And the girls! Glittering like artificial butterflies,heavily made up in ornate cheong sams that nice girls wouldn't wear.

Ru Fa (Blossom), who's only just started working, falls for Twelfth Master.They romp about, smoking opium,which was legal in Hong Kong until 1947.  He has dreams of becoming an opera star, she has dreams of getting married.  Oddly enough, his mother (who has a past) is willing enough, but his Dad isn't keen.  The Chan's home, upper middle class, though not rich, is also shown in period detail. Homes like that still intact in the late 60's and 70's. So how are the lovers to stay together?

Cut to modern Hong Kong, in the 1980's. A newspaper office, desks piled up with hard copy - no computers then. Though this was reality when the film was made, only thirty years later "modern" has itself become antique.  The sections of the office are divided by low wooden panels.  Yuen Ting's working late. His long-term girlfriend Chu's gone home, having grabbed a gift he's given her - new shoes (hidden meaning). In walks an elegant woman who wants to place an ad in the newspaper to find someone.  She's like a vision,in ornate qipao, her face painted, her lips scarlet with old-fashioned rouge. Even stranger, she doesn't know about money and speaks in stilted, archaic style.  It turns out that he lives in Shek Tong Sui, so she follows him.  She asks strange questions about the area - where is a famous restaurant? Closed years ago, now a convenience store.  She likes Cantonese opera, mentioning long-dead stars she used to listen to.  She's never heard of Chan Po Chu, mega movie star of the 60's and 70's.  Then she mentions that she was 23 when she died.  She's a ghost!

Back in his apartment, everything is unfamiliar to her. He has a fridge, he drinks Coke ("foreign Wong Lo Kot", he explains. a famous brand oif herbal tea marketed since the 19th century.  Girlfriend Chu pops by. She gets a shock when she realizes Ru Fa doesn't wear a bra.   The two women are complete opposites, Ru Fa wan and miserable, Chu modern and down to earth.  She wears oversize jumpers to hide her figure, unlike Ru Fa, whose business was allure.

Ru Fa is searching for Twelfth Master,with whom she committed suicide fifty years before. They'd planned to meet on the Other Side,but he's nowhere to be found. So Yuan Ting and Chu use their journalism skills to track him down. They use land lines, not mobiles - another inadvertent antique touch, reminding us that what is now will not be a few short years along the line.  Eventually someone remembers the Chan family. Twelfth Master didn't die, which is why he can't be traced in the afterlife.  Yuan goes to a film set where a movie about the past is being made.  Twelfth Master is no star. He's a beggar, who pees on his shoes, his dreams of glory gone.  Ru Fa looks on him in disgust.  She hands him the rouge pot he gave her long ago, reminding him of their pact to be together.   He calls her name, in disbelief.  Out of the fog of his present, a glimpse of a long forgotten past. "Ru Fa !Ru Fa! Don't leave me!" he calls, but she's gone.  

The stars are Anita Mui (Ru Fa) and Leslie Cheung (Twelfth Master)   Fifteen years after Rouge was made, both were dead, within a few months of each other, she of cancer, he a suicide, which in itself is pretty ironic.  Watching the film now is a much creepier experience than when it was new. The film was directed by Stanley Kwan, based on a novel by Lilian Lee Pik-wa.  Yuan Ting was played by Alex Man Chi-leung and Chu by Emily Chu Bo-yee.  In another episode of time within time, connecting opera with the HK film industry, Patrick Tse Yin makes an appearance as a patron of the tea house. Another irony ! Tse Yin was a megastar, from the early 1950's. He didn't need to make cameos in his (relatively) old age, so his presence adds another touch of timelessness. 

Datong the Chinese Utopia - Hong Kong opera in London

From Bonnie Wong Teo, who enjoyed Datong, the Chinese Utopia, an opera by  Chan Hing-yun and Evans Chan, part of the Hong Kong Music Series Festival in London :

Three mums, of different ages, educated at the same institution in their childhood in Hong Kong, congregated in their West London neighbourhood of Richmond, Surrey, for their very first taste of a Chinese Opera, on the very last day of the Hong Kong Music Series, celebrating Hong Kong’s diverse musical landscape in Central London this summer. They were warmly greeted at the reception from delegates from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the Hong Kong Economic Trade office, showered with a lovely assortment of coasters and Frisbees marking the 20th Anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region – almost like coming home!  (typical Hong Kong hospitality)
 
Datong was presented like a western-style opera, sung in Mandarin Chinese, with Traditional Chinese and English Subtitles which made it easy to follow. It’s a thought-provoking production which led them to question their roots in Hong Kong, their great grandmother’s generation which prided on having ‘lotus-like’ (bounded) feet as a status symbol of not having to work, and their unbounded feet now in 2017, free to roam and live their lives with their new generation in the country that once colonised the city they were born, now returned to the Mainland 20 years ago. The audience, were as expected, mainly Chinese, with the rare exception of a few like Martin (an Englishman) who sat next to them, like them, went with little expectation but with some background research, to understand the context of Confucian ideas, Life and Rebellion in the Late Qing Dynasty.


Act One commenced during the turn of the 20th century, with the young daughter of the reformist Kang Youwei, Kang Tongbi, on a boat from Hong Kong to Penang, where her ailing father was staying, Tongbi then travelled to the USA, having witnessed the second class treatment of  fellow Chinese labourers in the Land of the Free under the Chinese Exclusion Act, and then free to roam, equipped herself with knowledge, fought for the rights of women, living a life hoping to reach the state of Utopia of Confucian style as depicted from her father’s controversial book 'Datong shu'. The short Act 3 after the intermission shows Tongbi on her death bed in 1969, 2 decades after the establishment of the Communist rule in China and during the Cultural revolution – her ideals having moved but not revolutionized the Chinese society.

Are these Datong Utopian ideals relevant to the modern world? The small cast presented us with a good selection of the grand Qing dynasty dress, late Qing peasant dress, Confucian Scholar dress and a school girl dancing away with Today’s date at the very end – which ties everything together nicely across the various generations this story passed through. The orchestra – mainly western, with a long erhu solo right before the end of Act 2, and a saxophone solo of ‘Let it Be’ at the beginning of Act 3 – reminds us of the audience, East meets West, taking the best of both worlds.

This Opera asked the question: did China come to this mad crossroads due to Confucianism, or because we chose to not follow his way? Is history repeating or simply continuing its course? And to those of us here, with unbounded feet, living overseas, themselves rebellions to their cause in some form. Only time will prove whether they are Rock or Jade, the story behind Kang Tongbi’s name, a crusader for Women's rights across China.

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Datong the Chinese Utopia, premiered at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2015 to great acclaim. In London, the cast were  Louise Kwong as Kang Tongbi, Carol Lin as The Empress Dowager and as Tongbi's daughter (an interesting reversal)  and Apollo Wong as Kang Youwei, with David Quah in supporting roles.  The conductor was Lio Kuokman, the director Tang Shu-wing. Photo credits : Yankov Wong)

Please read more about the Hong Kong Music Series  HERE (Datong the Chinese Utopia preview,  HERE  (Beyond the Senses, Chinese Chamber Muisc as Theatre) and  HERE. (Music Interflow, St John's Smith Square) 

Datong, the Chinese Utopia, in London

Datong, the Chinese Utopia, grand finale to the Chinese Music Series in London, the biggest ever showcase of Hong Kong culture presented in the west, comes to the Richmond Theatre on 27th and 28th July. Datong, the Chinese Utopia, has been described as "a century of Chinese history distilled into three acts". The opera, composed by Chan Hing-yun to a libretto by  Evans Chan,  examines  China's recent past through the lives of 19th century reformer Kang Youwei(康有為) and his daughter Kang Tongbei ( 康同璧).  Kang Youwei (1888-1927) was a scholar from  Nanhai, near Foshan in Guangdong province, whose ideas on the modernization of China appealed to the young Guangxu, inspiring the "!00 Days Reform" in 1898, which was soon suppressed by the ultra-conservative Dowager Cixi. The Emperor was imprisoned and Kang Youwei went into exile.  The title of this opera refers to Kang's book, the Datong Shu (大同書) revealing a vision of a global utopia of human equality and solidarity, where divisions of race, class and gender would no longer apply.

The opera begins during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guard movement demanded a new world order based on the abolition of the past.  Kang's daughter, Kang Tongbi, lies on her deathbed, her daughter beside her.  Years before, things were so different. Kang Youwei believed that feudal family structures kept China backwards, and that women should be equal to men. Thus Tongbi travelled the world, studied abroad and held feminist values, the prototype "New Woman" of early 20th century modernization.

Kang Youwei's ideas on reform were complex, confronting capitalism, religion and social organization, and so wide ranging that  they are recognized on both sides of the modern Chinese political divide. In his lifetime, and in exile, his ideas on equality brought him up against widespread racism.  In this opera, we see Kang meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt in the wake of anti-Chinese leglislation then sweeping the United States, We also see Kang Tongbi chiding foreigners who treat Chinese as lesser beings.  Lots of food for thought. In times of tyrbulence and division, we could do well to consider Datong The Chinese Utopia as an opera and as an introduction to Kang';s ideas.

Datong the Chinese Utopia, premiered at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2015 to great acclaim. In London, the cast will include  Louise Kwong as Kang Tongbi, Carol Lin as The Empress Dowager and as Tongbi's daughter (an interesting reversal)  and Apollo Wong as Kang Youwei, with David Quah in supporting roles.  The conductor is Lio Kuokman, the director Tang Shu-wing.  A film about Kang Youwei by Evans Chan premiered in 2011.  (see clips below) . Please read more about the Hong Kong Music Series HERE  (Beyond the Senses, Chinese Chamber Muisc as Theatre) and 

HERE. (Music Interflow, St John's Smith Square) (Photo credits : Yankov Wong)

Music Interflow - Hong Kong Music Series SJSS

Starting the Hong Kong Music Series in London, Music Interflow- a Dialogue of Two Cultures at St John's Smith Square. Presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council,  the series shows what Hong Kong has achieved, in a city with a thriving creative community.  This concert, organized by  Professor Lo King-man, demonstrated the varied influences which have gone into making Hong Kong a uniquely vibrant artistic force.  Hong Kong has a lot to be proud of! In Britain, people's ideas about Hong Kong are shaped by western media, so this Hong Kong Music Series is important. The two major highlights are yet to come - Beyond the Senses,Chinese chamber music as music theatre (Read preview HERE) and Datong : the Chinese Utopia, an opera that examines the modernization of China through the lives of 19th century reformer Kang Yu-wei and his feminist daughter.  British audiences owe it to themselves to pay attention.

Professor Lo King-man (pictured in the middle above) has been one of the great figures in the Hong Kong arts scene for five decades.  He was Director of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts,  the equivalent of the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School put together.  Under his leadership, the Academy introduced degree programmes, and specialist schools including one for Film and Television, a major industry in Hong Kong and source of the New Wave in modern Chinese cinema.  He also set up the Centre for Chinese Traditional Theatre Studies  In Hong Kong, music education is part of the school system, and standards are extremely high.   Thus the Academy for Performing Arts is built on strong foundations.  Now retired from the Academy, Professor Lo is Artistic Director of Musica Viva, an organization supporting performance.

Music Interflow began with six pieces by Hong Kong composers written for Chinese instruments. Tradition adapted for concert hall, capturing the sense of personal imagination that is so much a part of Chinese chamber music. Some pieces were for ensemble, some for soloists, Xu Lingzi's Guzheng particularly impressive. Clarence Mak's Meditation on Mount Jingling inspired a dizzying virtuoso display showing the potential traditional instruments can provide in terms of colour and expressiveness.  A strikingly original piece. Doming Lam is another great figure in Hong Kong music, his place in Hong Kong music represented by his Three Night Songs of Li Bai, an early work, where the piano line is western, but the vocal line is Chinese.  Read more about Doming Lam and Clarence Mak HERE.  Appositely, three Britten Songs, followed, arranged for two voices and piano. Britten was fascinated by non-western music while still in his thirties. Perhaps his awareness of norms beyond the western canon animated him as a composer: he represents a new. and highly individual thread in British Music.  Britten and Pears did spend time in Hong Kong but weren't able to experience Chinese music in the community it came from. Things didn't happen that way in 1956. Significantly, Doming Lam Three Night Songs of Li Bao dates from almost the same time, in 1957. Imagine the Music Interflow if society had been different.  Read my article Britten and Pears in Hong Kong. Also see Britten : The Prince of the Pagodas.

Equally eclectic was the second part of the programme. Six Miniatures of Yin and Yang (Meilina Tsui):  Western music but with a distinctive Chinese personality.  Yet more unusual perspectives: Holst's Venus and Jupiter, from the The Planets, transcribed for two pianos.  "Yin" and "Yang" in an entirely western context! Just as the concert had begun with Chinese chamber ensemble, it ended with western chamber ensemble with Frank Bridge's Three Idylls for String Quartet and Ottorino Respighi's Il tramonto, with a setting of Shelley's The Sunset in Italian.  Superb singing from Carol Lin (in sparkling gown in photo above). The piece is dramatic, like a miniature opera, where multiple moods are portrayed in the space of roughly 15 minutes. A tour de force. Lin floated the word "O" so it felt eternal, as it should, but even better was the elegant richness of her singing in the tender, lyrical passages that make this piece so moving.   

Performers featured : Mary Wu (piano), Nancy Loo (piano) Alexander Wong (piano), Xu Lingzi (guzheng), Carol Lin (mezzo), Colette Lam (soprano), Ho Siu-cheong (dizi), Chan Pik-sum (erhu), Zheng Yang (violin), Wei Ningyi (violin),  Chris Choi (viola) and Xu Ting (cello)

Composers featured: Tsui Wai-lam, Lui Man-shing, Chan Man-tat, Meilina Tsui, Doming Lam and Clarence Mak, Holst, Britten, Frank Bridge and Respighi

Please see my other pievces on Chinese music, Chinese movies, Chinese historyand on Hong Kong. This is one of the very few sites which covers Chinese culture and arts in English.  And I cover a lot on British music, especially Britten.

Anders Nelsson loves Hong Kong

Anders Nelsson is a shining example of what people can do when they genuinely integrate with the community around them. Inequality exists in all societies, all round the world., it's no one's "fault", it's just the way things are.  In some situations inequality can be exacerbated by other factors.  The man in the video below is singing in Cantonese. His accent's so good you might think he's dubbed.  But it's Anders himself.  He's fluent because he integrated so completely into the community that he bridged the divides in society around him.  When he was young, he was a pop star, who we adored.  Now, he's loved even more deeply because of what he's done with his life since.  It possibly helped that his parents were missionaries, who took Christian values seriously. They were also poor, and lived among the community they served, as equals. They weren't part of the power structure.  It's all too easy to be an Eternal Tourist, enjoying the benefits of a place but not really connecting on equal terms. Anders is proof that things can change.

 

Beyond the Senses: Chinese Chamber Music as Music Theatre

Perhaps the most unusual musical event in London this summer: Beyond the Senses "One Colour, One Fragrance" (一色一香) where Chinese classical music is presented as music theatre - a new way of experiencing this most eclectic form of chamber music.  It's "Atmospheric Music Theatre", pure, esoteric music, not opera, using subtle effects to extend the artistic experience.  Using the natural timbres of Chinese musical instruments, coupled with poetry, songs, music, dance and various visual elements, the performance cultivates an appreciation of the culture behind the music.
 
The Wuji Ensemble are a group of virtuoso Chinese instrument specialists who, with Artistic Director the composer Law Wing Fai ( 羅永暉), create performances which connect music with emotional expression.  Almost a new art form, this oblique, understated approach works well with the aesthetic of Chinese chamber music, where intense feelings are released in private contemplation.   In Hong Kong, the Wuji Ensemble are well-regarded.   In London, the Wuji style will be particularly rewarding for audiences who don't know Chinese music, or  those with a background in western chamber music: the basic ethos isn't really so different, though the instrumental colours will be a wonder! Beyond the Senses comes to London as part of the Hong Kong Music Series, sponsored by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. It's a one-off event, unlikely to repeated anytime soon unless you travel to Hong Kong for more.  BOOK HERE for tickets on 15th July at the Shaw Theatre (near Euston Station) Please also see my article on the first concert in the Hong Kong Music Series, on 7th July at St John's Smith Square 

Most of the music in Beyond the Senses is by Law Wing Fai, who was the founding Head of Composition of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, where he is still composer in residence. At Stanford, he did his Masters in Composition and Electronic Music. Although many of his works are primarily in the western orchestral style, he incorporated Chinese themes and instruments.  His Chinese music is even more extensive, covering not only chamber music but also music for Chinese orchestra, choral works and opera.  He also wrote music for avant garde Cantonese art film.  A composer with an instinct for drama, a modern man revitalizing tradition.  He's in Grove and also the Hong Kong Composers Guild.

Beyond the Senses features the renowned Kunju artist Kong Aiping in her ground-breaking reinterpretation of classical Chinese poetry. Set against a serene garden, the main character Ru Yu wanders around and starts to recite and sing about the scenery around her. She eventually realizes that what she sees and hears are but illusory and unreal, and slowly comes to realize the enlightenment and transcendence of life. On the stage, amidst the light strums of the pipa and voice, all enter into a realm of meditation and contemplation.  Thus the performance begins with a recitation of a poem "Strolling in the Garden" , then travels through three scena where different pieces of music are connected by thematic images: Autumn Palette, Water Zen and Listening to the Incense, concluding in an improvisation.   For programme and list of performers, please see HERE. Below, clips of some of the works included in the Hong Kong premiere in 2015.

 

Doming Lam - Hong Kong Music Series, St John's Smith Square

Doming Lam, from SCMP

Hong Kong music, and indeed most modern Chinese music, might be nowhere were it not for Doming Lam ( 林樂培), who features in the Hong Kong Music Series, the biggest celebration of Hong Kong classical music ever held in Britain.  Hong Kong is a dynamic, thriving and vibrant city whose cultural life reflects the cosmopolitan creativity that makes the place flourish, despite all odds. In in the west, people only know movies, and don't realize just how much more there is in Hong Kong arts. The Hong Kong Music Series presents five productions, four concerts and one opera, at various central venues in London from 7th to 28th July.  More details HERE

Doming Lam was born in Macau in August 1926. He studied in Toronto and Los Angeles (with Miklós Rózsa). Returning to Hong Kong in 1964, he soon became a leading figure, composing, conducting and promoting music in a city where performance is highly regarded.  With his engaging personality, he's a good communicator, almost a household name, which is more than can be said about many serious composers.  Maintaining an international presence, he's a Member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) . He also has a section in Grove. Photo at left shows Doming Lam in  his  youth when he compered a popular classical music radio show. The keynote concert in the Hong Kong Music Series will be held at St John's Smith Square on 7 July (book HERE)   Titled  "Music Interflow", the programme  illustrates the dialogue between western and Chinese music.  Doming Lam's Three Night Songs of Li Bai  will be a highlight. It's a short piece for solo voice and piano, written in 1957, but marks a significant thread in Lam's development.

Li Bai, who lived in the Tang period, was a scholarly poet who lived in solitude, eschewing worldly power.   Many of his poems dwell on Nature, specifically the moon.  He often wrote about wine, but drunkenness provided cover for the expression of deep emotion.  In traditional Chinese society, the scholar gentry were a distinct class.. Although many had careers in public service, they didn't necessarily have power or wealth, but had moral and intellectual authority.  Chinese classical music reflects these cultural values: music for contemplation and private edification.   Effectively, a chamber music ethos.  In the 19th century, Chinese audiences embraced western orchestral music. Conservatories were set up in Beijing and Shanghai. Read more HERE about Xian Xing Hai and  HERE about Ma Sicong, two important composers from the same southern delta region that Doming Lam comes from.  Guangdong culture is very distinctive: even the dialect is based on nine tones, difficult for non-native born to master.  The advent of large, western style orchestras stimulated the growth of large ensembles for Chinese music, generating a whole new genre.  Doming Lam writes music for western and Chinese orchestras, as well as synthesizing both forms anew.  He also writes large scale choral works. Read HERE for a list of his works, with links to scores and recordings.

Clarence Mak

The concert at St John's Smith Square on 7/7 includes works by Clarence  Mak, Lui Man Shing,  Tsui Wai-lam, Mailina Tsui and Chan Man Tat, music based on Chinese aesthetics, cognizant of western influence. The programme also includes works by Britten, Quilter, Bridge and Delius.  See the connections?  Chamber music and song - refined music for reflective individuals   Conducted by Lo King Man, the performers play western and Chinese instruments. The singers are Colette Lam and mezzo Carol Lin, who will also be singing in the opera Datong ; the Chinese Utopia at the Richmond Theatre on 27th and 28th July. Book HERE.  I'll write more later about the opera, and about the concert with Chinese opera in the Hong Kong Music Series.  Both deserve more time and space !  Besides, it's not easy to come to Chinese music, even modern Chinese music, without understanding the background and unique values.  Because the English-speaking world is west-oriented, it helps to understand alternative perspectives.  There is so much to discover!   To find out more, please follow the labels below to Chinese music, Chinese opera, Chinese movies, Chinese culture and history. 

Britten and Pears in Hong Kong

The Empire Theatre in Hong Kong, where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears did a gig on 3rd February 1956. The programme included songs by Dowland, Purcell and Schubert, and Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, plus Britten's folk song arrangements.  On the 6th, the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Alexander Grantham, invited Britten and his party to,lunch at Government House. In the afternoon, Britten and Pears visited the studios of Radio Hong Kong, where they were inteviewed and gave a short recital,which was recorded, and is available below.

On the 7th February, they gave another recital featuring Schumann Dichterliebe "in the private house of a curious man" as Britten wrote the following day to a friend. Britten's friend and travel companion, Prince Ludwig of Hesse, wrote about the concert "at the unpleasant finance manager's home. The clever and really very nice governor and his petite wife were also there. One cannot get rid of the feeling that the sinister nabob had harnessed famous English artists and  foreign royalty in order to lure the important governor into his den"  Somewhat bitchy, perhaps ?  Grantham was not a particularly pleasant man, but the visitors weren't in a position to judge the local situation.  There's no indication who the"finance manager" was, whether he was a government official, a businessman or even British.  That might be relevant.  Since Britten and his party spent much of their time in Hong Kong in the company of the governor, it's possible that they would have been influenced by his views.  Colonial society was, to put it mildly, "stratified".

The Empire Theatre, built in 1952, was built to state of the art standards, with  huge steel buttresses, (see pic above) and decorated in Shanghai art deco style, with important Shanghai architects and artists (the mural is amazing)  The owner was Harry Odell, the local impressario, who had himself come from Shanghai.  In 1957, the Empire was closed and re-opened as the State Theatre which became a Hong Kong landmark.  Recently, it was shortlisted as a heritage site for preservation.

Please also see my piece on Britten and Pears in Macau

Happy Hong Kong New Year !

Happy New Year from Hong Kong where they know how to party ! Ten minutes of fireworks (countdown video is extra on another clip)

Tracking down Blossoms in the Heart

Detective skills :  A photo of the Majestic Theatre, Nathan Road, in Hong Kong, which opened in 1928.  hence the art deco lines in the architecture, very typical of China in that period.  Quite classy! It showed first-run Chinese and western movies. Later when TV competed with movies and Chinese film became even more kung fu than before, the cinema became run down. Eventually it was demolished. Nowadays a flash new Novotel stands on the site, and the area is upmarket yet again.  The movie being shown  is 百花齊放 Blossoms in the Heart which dates the photo to July 1952. I tracked down Blossoms in the Heart, which was made by a small independent Mandarin-language company, Great Wall.  The star was a glamorous singer: Tong Chan  She later starred in the big budget Air Hostess with Grace Chang (Ge Lan) for MPGI studio. Lots on Grace Chang on this site including the timeless Wild Wild Rose (loosely based on Carmen and La Traviata but with social conscience). Please read more here. I can't track down the whole movie, but did find a clip,with its famous song. Below, the programme notes in English and Chinese.