A music director and a teacher at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts appeared in Eastern Court yesterday accused of illegally hiring mainlanders to stage concerts.
Wong Hae, 27, music director of the Hong Kong Arts Performing Ensemble, and his mother, Li Yuen-yung, 57, a part-time teacher at the academy, entered no plea to the charges.
Wong - the son of Wong Kwok-tong, a celebrated Chinese musician known as 'The King of Er-hu' (a Chinese musical instrument) - faces 21 counts of employing three mainland students with no Hong Kong work permits, Gao Si-jia, Han Ying and Chen Dong-xiao, to give commercial performances between July 1998 and May last year.
Li, Wong Kwok-tong's wife, has been charged with 20 counts of aiding and abetting Wong to commit the alleged offences during the period.
Wong and Li face 21 and 20 alternative charges respectively accusing them of aiding and abetting, counselling and procuring the mainland students to breach their condition of stay in Hong Kong.
Magistrate Ian Candy adjourned the case until July 20 for further preparation. The defendants were released on bail of $5,000 each.
