Hong Kong artists shine with Cantonese songs at Mid-Autumn Festival concert over the border
- Hong Kong celebrities take to stage with others from mainland China, Taiwan and Macau to celebrate annual festival
- Three-hour performance, with plenty of Cantonese content, is live-streamed on national platforms and shown in Hong Kong by public broadcaster
A who’s who of Hong Kong showbiz talent joined top artists from mainland China, Taiwan and Macau to stage a concert in Shenzhen on Tuesday that featured many beloved Cantonese songs.
While the bay area along the southern Chinese coast has a rich history of Cantonese culture, the concert marked a rare instance of the dominant language of Hong Kong being featured in a high-profile entertainment event staged over the border, where Mandarin is mainly spoken.
Among the Hong Kong celebrities taking part were Alan Tam Wing-lun, Jackie Chan, George Lam Chi-cheung, Faye Wong, William Chan Wai-ting and Gloria Tang Tsz-kei – better known as G.E.M. – with most of the performers choosing Cantonese songs.
The annual Mid-Autumn Festival is rooted in a fairy tale about the lunar deity Chang’e and Hong Kong actor and singer Nicholas Tse Ting-fung, who was among the hosts, seized upon the theme to praise the nation’s string of successes in space flight in recent years.
“The fairy tale about the moon has become the reality and our [spacecraft] has already been able to land on the moon.”
The concert kicked off with the popular Mandarin song Pearl of the Orient, which was written in the 1980s by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Lo Ta-yu and traces Hong Kong’s cultural roots to the mainland.
The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra performed under the baton of artistic director and principal conductor Yan Huichang, while renowned Hong Kong-based tenor Warren Mok also performed.
The event was co-produced by the publicity branch of Shenzhen’s Communist Party, the Film Channel Production Centre, which is under the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, Bauhinia Culture Holdings, Phoenix TV and Hong Kong’s TVB.
The concert also highlighted some popular Hong Kong-produced films and featured songs used in the movies, including the theme song of McDull, The Fantastic Brothers and Raging Fire.
A political scientist at University of Macau, Bruce Kwong Kam-kwan, said the production team had clearly added “Hong Kong flavour” to lure local fans.
“Therefore, from the perspective of entertainment alone, it will be more able to attract Hong Kong audiences.”
What’s the deal with CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala?
RTHK, which has been caught up in a series of controversies over airing content deemed critical of authorities, said showing the concert was in line with its mission.
“As the public service broadcaster in Hong Kong, RTHK has to fulfil the public purposes and mission stipulated in the Charter of RTHK, including engendering a sense of citizenship and national identity through programmes that contribute to the understanding of our community and nation,” a spokesman said.
“Broadcasting mainland entertainment shows and developing partnership with different mainland media is in line with the charter.”
Lam also said RTHK’s Chinese-language free-to-air TV31 channel would be running more mainland productions. She said she believed the new programming could be “conducive to Hong Kong’s integration into the country’s development”.