Jing Wong Won't Smash His Guitar Yet
The indie star writes rebellious music with a poetic twist, a genre he’s dubbed “Book Rock.”
I think I had ADHD when I was a kid. I used to run all over the place. There were always bruises on my legs since I kept running into things. Most of the good kids in my class thought I was a weirdo. I used to sing all the time. I even hummed songs during exams. Once, I was singing during class and my teacher caught me.
She punished me by saying, “If you want to sing, you have to sing so loud that everyone in school can hear.” I did what she asked. At that time, my favorite song was “Do You Hear the People Sing” from “Les Misérables.” I imagined I was Prisoner 24601. I was asked to join the choir. Persuasion works on me, but coercion is out of the question. My sense for music was a genetic gift from my father. He was very well educated. He wrote poems and had great taste in music.
People always make fun of my name: “You are so noisy. How come your name is Jing [“quiet”]?” I went to international school for my A-Levels and later went to the UK for university. In the summers I would spend whole afternoons listening to Britpop.
I was heavily influenced by UK music. I went to many live shows. I was also influenced by improvisational live jazz with weird melodies. Every day I was educated by atypical music. I played in a band where all five of us had different tastes. We loved to share them—industrial music, free jazz, experimental, big band, art school, psychedelic rock.
I came back to Hong Kong after getting a first-class degree and a master’s degree from Central Saint Martins and the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. Then one day I picked up an acoustic guitar and started busking. At the beginning I couldn’t afford a mic. I lost my voice after two hours of singing. Then I played better and saved money for a mic and an amp.
I busked in different places in Hong Kong, for six hours every Sunday. Buskers now work in shifts with a few people—I used to play all by myself. Once there was a kid with his father, they stood and listened to me for an hour. The kid left and came back with a bag of McDonald’s for me.