Hong Kong creative types in China find artistic freedom, openness to ideas in contrast to city’s conservatism
Artists who couldn’t make it in Hong Kong because of the city’s commercialism, high rents, small market and narrow-mindedness find a welcome in China
Former advertising executive Chiu Bing-hang had always wanted to be a professional singer. The Hong Kong native realised his dream in 2009 when he set up a Christian band, The Coming Rainbow, in Beijing with seven other musicians.
Going by the name Uncle Bing, and with a self-deprecating sense of humour, Chiu, 52, has since toured China with his band and performed for corporate sponsors at television stations.
If you’re an artist, is it better to work in Hong Kong or Singapore?
He recalls the favourable response the band received when they performed at a four-day music festival on the Wulan Butong grasslands in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region in August. The local government organised the festival to promote tourism.
“The steppe is remote, with just roaming sheep and cattle … but during the night over 50,000 people came,” he says. “Although we are not a famous band, the audience was very enthusiastic.”
A Hong Kong salaryman giving up a promising business career to pursue an artistic dream is the kind of act that might raise eyebrows – if not derision – among family and friends. But Chiu’s relocation to China in the 1990s to work for advertising agencies J. Walter Thompson China and McCann not only made his unconventional quest possible, but also profitable. It came after a failed restaurant venture, in which he lost all his HK$2 million savings. He still has a share in one restaurant, where the band perform.
“Our band writes original Mandarin songs. There are no songs in Cantonese [the dialect spoken in Hong Kong]. We go on trips for gigs twice a month. We perform at the opening of theme parks and other commercial functions.
