Writing songs for Eason Chan and Sun Yanzi gave singer Chet Lam his big break
- Lam came from humble beginnings and was living in a 200 sq ft Hong Kong apartment when he ‘got lucky and had a few big national hits for other singers’
- He talks about settling down while wandering the world with his partner, Mr N, who changed his life
Family quarters: I’m from a humble background. I was born in 1976 and grew up in Ping Shek Estate (in Kwun Tong). My sister, Eman, is seven years younger than me and we lived with my parents, my grandmother and two of my dad’s sisters, before they got married, in a 300 sq ft cube in the public housing estate.
We always found a way to figure out the sleeping arrangements – a bunk bed, a sofa, a floor, you name it. My dad was a practical engineer and worked night shifts at the airport, so he needed to sleep during the day.
As a child, I couldn’t stop singing, which my parents found annoying. When I was nine, I joined an Asia Television (ATV) singing competition and won, and that led to offers to sing jingles for commercials, until my voice changed. Later, I dragged my sister along, so she started singing, too.
My mother’s younger brother gave me a song book with simplified melodies. He knew how to play the acoustic guitar and gave me one. I still can’t read music scores, I learned by remembering melodies and I interpret them in my head with the numbers on the song book and in that way developed my own system for writing down melodies.
The magic man: When I was 11, I was invited to participate in a show where I met the magician Harry Wong (Cher-hong), who was MCing the event. After hearing me sing, he recruited me to act in a musical and then took me under his wing to teach me the flute. He introduced me to that world and I fell in love with classical music.