Johnny Yim made a career in music against all odds
It sounds like the plot of a corny musical: the son of a musician and a dancer pursues a career in music against the wish of his parents and finally finds his feet in the highly competitive industry thanks to grit, talent and determination.
Yet that's exactly what happened to Johnny Yim Lai-hang, the 30-year-old self-taught music producer and arranger who is currently a major creative force behind the tunes of many pop singers such as Stephy Tang Lai-yan and Stephanie Cheng Yung.
'My parents are artists, and they know [what it takes to work in the field]. That's why they always told me not to treat music as a profession but to see it only as a hobby,' says Yim.
But to Yim, who started practising the piano aged six, music is simply a hobby too addictive to relinquish. During his student days in Toronto, he kept taking part-time music-related jobs.
He spent so much time playing in a band and composing songs during classes that school was more of a nuisance than a necessity.
'I always thought I would become an engineer. But my music teacher in high school said that since I was gifted in music, my talent would be wasted if I didn't study the subject [at university]. I thought about his advice for a very long time. However, I still applied to do engineering,' he says.