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I just went to Tibet for a concert. Apparently I’m really popular there. I can generate a small mob around me in Western China. I can’t generate a small mob in Western district.
You can feel that the Internet is quite an extraordinary thing.
Now there are all these different platforms for artists to showcase their work. You can basically plug your favorite songs on your own blog.
A decade ago, the media was very concentrated. It was just the TV and the radio, playing those specific songs that were plugged on.
I was very fortunate, because I was one of the first Hong Kong artists to record songs in Putonghua and plug them in the mainland, when China was ready and craving media from abroad.
So I’m lucky to have a group of songs, like “Short Hair,” that spread across all of China like wildfire. I got in when China was ripe for foreign media.
I was discovered after doing a print ad for a watch. I had long hair back then.
Then my maternal grandfather passed away, and I felt like cutting my hair short at that juncture.
I’ve had short hair since. I guess it suits me. My stylists don’t even bother to ask me to change my look.
My parents divorced when I was 15. I had no contact with my father since then until this Chinese New Year.
I thought, well, he’s in his 60s already, his biggest regret must be not having a relationship with his children.
So I called him, and took him out for dinner on Father’s Day with my younger twin brother.
My mom said, “Wow, you’re mature enough to make the first time.”
But I was never really angry with him. It was just like, hmm, he was gone.
A lot of my friends have strained relationships with their parents, even if they aren’t from broken homes.
I want to tell young people nowadays: communicate more with your parents.
Every relationship starts off in an awkward way. If you can just strike up a conversation with a total stranger at a bar, why can’t you talk to your own father or mother?
I got into the entertainment industry in 1996. I’ve done more than ten Cantonese albums, more than ten Mandarin albums.
This is the first time I’m executive producing of my own album.
I wanted to make an album of songs that I want to listen to.
I had 100 percent artistic control this time. To make an album that you actually like is a really hard thing.
A recording label has a lot of… concerns. The sales, the awards a song could win—a lot of business elements
Now that the rules of the industry have changed, selling copies of an album isn’t that important anymore.
And I’m not thinking of getting awards, so I’m not too concerned with following these marketing “strategies” to do just love ballads and karaoke songs.
The album is titled “A Cat that’s Afraid of Loneliness.”
People think cats are solitary and unfriendly creatures, not as friendly as dogs.
Actually, there are cats, like my Poppy, who are friendly and crave affection as well.
It’s like a metaphor—you can’t stereotype people, just like you shouldn’t stereotype cats. Sometimes don’t really understand someone, but you’re set on your view of this one person.
I was busier doing extracurricular activities than actual school curriculum when I was in school.
I was in athletics, basketball, swimming, I was in choir. I’m quite an active person.
I didn’t have that much time to play, because I was also in the Red Cross, and went from junior member to become president.
I’ve written a children’s book “Little Yellow Flower” for charity with a few other celebrity friends.
I build seven schools in China, with the help of prefectural governments, and I made the mistake of announcing my first visit—when I got there, the whole village literally showed up at the school with welcoming banners.
Once you are famous, you will be famous for your entire life. So I feel doing charity can be a job for your entire life, since being a celebrity doing whatever job will get awareness.
But I’m a little wiser now. When I go to my schools for a visit, I say it’s my friend.


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Gigi Leung

Magazines

Ever since Sina.com opened Weibo (China’s Twitter) on the Mainland, Gigi Leung—Cantopop sweetheart of the late 90s and the early 00s—has become the most followed Hong Kong artist, with around 742,685 fans (Jackie Chan only has 382,010 fans). She chats to Johannes Pong about her new album and her fame across the border. 
