Pop Singer Charmaine Fong
After three years on hiatus, Cantopop starlet Charmaine Fong is back with a new album, “Unlock Me,” and a new apparently “sexy” image. She tells June Ng about her bad dietary habits and how to free yourself from them.
I come from a single-parent family, and I admire my mom for managing to take care of me and my sister so well.
At 15, I went to Scotland for secondary school. I liked the school principal because he looked like Colonel Sanders and was enthusiastic about education.
Every time I want to do something, I’ll just do it. It doesn’t mean that I make hasty decisions. I’m a Taurus. When a record company first approached me, it took me half a year to decide whether or not to sign the contract.
It all started on a summer holiday in 1997. My mom lost a bunch of money in the economic crisis, and I couldn’t continue my education abroad and had to come back to Hong Kong. I had to find something to kill time, so I joined a VJ competition on a cable channel.
I’m lucky. Over the past ten years I’ve had a chance to try my luck singing in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. But my mom would worry that the record industry wasn’t doing well, and I felt bad that she was constantly worried I would fail.
After living in Taiwan for two years, I pulled the plug and came back to Hong Kong. I decided for a few years I’d just try my luck as a songwriter and lyricist. I had to because I realized I couldn’t take care of myself at all.
I ate nothing but cup noodles for two years. Seriously. I’m not kidding. I had rice once. Once in two years.