Hong Kong’s indigenous villagers use song to preserve nature and heritage amid city’s rush to modernise
Home-grown country album Fragrant Village depicts New Territories communities under siege from development as villagers fight to preserve their ancestral lands
As the hustle and bustle of the city pound our eardrums around the clock, a group of local musicians made up of indigenous New Territories villagers want to remind us to treasure the sounds of our countryside before they fade away.
In protest against a government plan to replace villages with new towns in the northeastern New Territories, musicians and villagers living there have put together a unique home-grown country album titled Fragrant Village to get their message across about over-development.
The album has been gaining traction since the group performed at the Clockenflap music festival in front of thousands of people last month.
The recording is a musical anthology of 10 stories told by villagers from Ping Che, Ma Shi Po and Kwu Tung.
Album producer Sze Ka-yan said about a dozen musicians interviewed villagers before composing the music. Each of the 10 stories was worked on separately in order to give each song an individual musical sound and mood.
She said most of the 10 songs were recorded outdoors to capture various natural sounds such as the whizz of the wind and gurgling of water. She said it was critical to preserve these sounds of Hong Kong’s countryside before bulldozers roll in.