Juno Mak Is Hong Kong's Anti-Social Icon

I was born in Hong Kong. I moved to Vancouver when I was in second grade, then came back when I was in sixth grade. When I was 16 years old, I joined an exchange program in Shanghai. One day I was singing karaoke with classmates and someone took a video. The video was forwarded around my classmates, someone’s relative saw it, and then I got an offer.

I signed a contract with Universal Music as a singer. I lived in Japan for a year, and learned to dance from my master Sam [of legendary Japanese pop group TRF]. I came back in 2002, at the age of 18. Universal Music is such a big company. There are many different departments and strategies for artists. They designed a fixed image for me, such as a standard hairstyle.

I couldn’t be my real self. It was exhausting. I left the company two years later, and started working on music that I liked. I grew up in the world of words and stories. What they were showing in the cinemas is very different from now, when we have 30 new movies every week. So I was heavily influenced by the music in films. It was planted deeply in my heart.

That’s why many think my music is very cinematic. It’s from my childhood. Every time I start working on a song, I do it just because the subject attracts me. I gain a lot of satisfaction and happiness from the process. I never think of the result. The so-called “commercial” or “alternative” labels are always judged by audiences. How audiences categorize my song, whether it is commercial or alternative, is something out of my control.

Screenwriter, songwriter, film producer—these are just titles. To me they are all the same, with the same nature: to create. I cannot control what other people call me. To work creatively is what I’m addicted to.

I am a quiet person. I never watch news. I have a television at home, but I don’t have an antenna cable. I just plug in a Blu-ray player, and watch movies I like. I love reading all kinds of fiction. Real life events are of no interest to me.