Cult Icon Singer Wan Kwong
Cult icon Wan Kwong has brought laughter to Hong Kong for more than 30 years with his infamously indecent song lyrics. Although he’s never been properly addressed at any music awards, he’s still managed to sell more than a million records. The “Temple Street Prince” tells June Ng that life was better in the old days, when men would pay in full for their strippers.
I never performed on Temple Street. People call me the Temple Street Prince because my album in the 70s was so popular in that area. Every shop there played my record.
I’m not a local Chinese, even though I’ve been in Hong Kong for 38 years. I was bornin Vietnam.
My family was very rich. My father owned a few theaters and a roller-skating rink in Vietnam. I had to leave the country because of the war. I was of service age but I didn’t want to join the army.
I started singing as a career when I got to Hong Kong. I was a very experienced singer. I started performing traditional Chinese opera in public at eight.
I started at a theme park in Kai Tak, which doesn’t exist anymore. Chinese opera was losing popularity, so instead I switched to international pop songs, rewriting the lyrics in Cantonese.
My really big hits were released in the early 80s. Some people called them salacious but that’s not the case. They’re just humorous. I use puns with certain words and people get certain connotations.