Remembering Anita Mui, Hong Kong singer with true heart and soul: what would she have done about the coronavirus outbreak?

Canto-pop singer Anita Mui Yim-fong used her star power for good during the 2003 Sars outbreak despite struggling with health and personal problems

Charitable work and social activism were important to Mui throughout her life – she even helped dissidents escape mainland China after Tiananmen

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Hong Kong singer Anita Mui performing at the Hong Kong Coliseum in 1988. Photo: SCMP

Published: 8:00am, 23 Feb 2020Updated: 5:56pm, 24 Feb 2020

When the Sars virus broke out in Southern China and spread to Hong Kong in early 2003, Canto-pop star Anita Mui Yim-fong was – like all of the city’s residents – alarmed.

By the end of March that year, the number of cases had risen past 1,000 and more than 50 people had died.

It was a tough time for the city – and for Mui personally, too. The singer was still reeling from the loss of her older sister from ovarian cancer in 2000 – and suffering from cervical cancer herself – when one of her close friends, fellow singer Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, took his own life on April 1.

It was then that she decided to take action.

Mui receiving a gift from fans during a concert in Hong Kong on November 7, 2003. Photo: Reuters

Over dinner, after Cheung’s funeral, Mui hashed out her plans with Tina Liu Tian-lan, a style consultant and media maven. “Tian-lan, we should do something, shouldn’t we?” Liu remembers Mui telling her.

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