Hong Kong Blog Day 7

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The Time of Leslie – Day 1

Today before 6 p.m. would mark the end of time on my own playing tourist in Hong Kong.  Beginning at 6 p.m,, all of my remaining time in Hong Kong I would be involved in various commemoration activities for Leslie Cheung. 

For those few readers of this blog unfamiliar with Leslie Cheung—he was one of Hong Kong’s most talented and famous entertainers.  Starting out in the late 70s as a singer after placing second in an amateur singing contest on Hong Kong television, he then was an up and coming television star.  In the mid-80s his recording career went supernova and, in a few short years, he practically rewrote the history of Cantopop.  Beginning in 1986 with A Better Tomorrow, he starred in a series of Hong Kong films that established him as one of that industry’s most promising young actors.  He starred in several iconic films in the late 80s, including A Better Tomorrow 1 and 2, Stanley Kwan’s acclaimed Rouge and A Chinese Ghost Story 1 and 2.  At the same time, he was one of Hong Kong’s most beloved singing stars.  His fans were shocked when he announced his retirement from the stage in 1989 and his emigration to Canada.  Thereafter, he took film roles in some of the most significant films in Hong Kong and the Mainland until his death in 2003.  Among his finest films were Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time and Happy Together for Wong Kar-Wai, Farewell, My Concubine for Chen Kaige, Bride With White Hair and a host of other significant films for Hong Kong and Mainland directors.  He returned to music and the stage in 1996 with a change in artistic direction that made his music and stage shows ever more personal expressions of his artistic interests and concerns.  Sadly, sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, Leslie began to suffer from severe clinical depression and, after one failed suicide attempt in November 2002, Leslie succeeded in taking his own life on April 1, 2003 by falling from the 26thfloor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to the street below.  His legion of fans around the world were inconsolable and many of his professional colleagues and friends even today express their sorrow at the loss of Leslie.  So for Leslie fans the world over, April 1stis a date that mixes sadness at the loss of a beloved artist with a celebration of his enduring artistic legacy.  Activities for fans in Hong Kong offer opportunities to both express our grief and loss and to celebrate and share Leslie’s artistic achievements with the world at large in a public forum.

I had chosen the dates for my visit to Hong Kong to climax with the April 1stcommemorations.  I had had ample time to get acclimated to the city and had met many people I knew from various on-line communities.  From here on out, my attention would shift to the commemoration activities for Leslie in the company of legions of other fans, some known to me and others unknown but united with me in our mutual love for this artist.

Last Tourist Activities

I had finally gained some facility with navigating Hong Kong.  The MTR was becoming second nature and I was learning how to get around on the streets with greater ease.  I also found myself walking more than ever.

The first order of business was to find a larger tote bag that would fit under the seat of the plane for the return trip.  I had purchased a lot of items during my stay and I was afraid that my suitcase would be overweight if I didn’t put as much as I could in this under the seat tote bag.  I went back to the Jade Market and asked one of the vendors who spoke very good English the best place to look for such an inexpensive tote bag, and she sent me to a stall across the park from the market.  There I managed to communicate my need to the proprietor of the stall and ended up buying said tote bag for less than $10US.  If I stayed in HK longer, I think I would have really gotten the hang of Cantonese.  I wasn’t having any trouble hearing what people were saying, it was just that my vocabulary was woefully inadequate.  When I return in 2013, that problem should be rectified with thousands more words and a much fuller understanding of the grammar and even a few thousand written characters under my belt!

With the tote bag tucked into my current smaller tote bag, I returned to the Jade Market to see about buying a few more items.  First off, I bought a fun and very inexpensive agate bangle that was striped with orange, green and white, quite similar to the ring I had bought the previous day.  Then I found the vendor of the Tibetan silver and turquoise jewelry that I had admired the day before.  Of course now that I had returned, he didn’t offer me such a good price on the necklace as he was willing to give me the day before.  When I saw that he just wasn’t willing to come down to what I was prepared to give him, I stopped looking at necklaces and turned my attention to some of the rings that he had.  I have slender fingers, so I have a hard time finding rings small enough to fit my fingers.  His rings were no exception.  But eventually I found a lovely silver ring with turquoise and coral stones.  I tried it on and it looked quite nice.  I then asked him what he would sell the ring and the necklace to me for and he offered me the same price as before, but now with the ring thrown in, too.  I jumped at the price which seemed quite reasonable to me based on the quality of the workmanship and materials.

Leaving the Jade Market, I noticed that the sun was breaking through the clouds.  As this would be my last day to go to the Peak, I jumped at the chance.  Only increasing humidity and a rising mist dampened my expectations for the view.

I queued up for the Peak Tram in Central and shortly was on my way up the side of the Peak to the Tower Mall and the viewing platform.  I must say that the Peak Tower Mall is a total tourist trap and I wasn’t enticed to even stick my head into any of the shops.  After the Jade Market and some of the other places I had been recently, I had little interest in the tourist “loot” on offer at every one of the shops.  The wind was really whipping up on the Peak and all of Central and Kowloon was shrouded in mist and my pictures weren’t very impressive.  (Also, the lack of a wide-angle lens was a definite liability.)  After a few minutes walking around the viewing platform I had seen what there was to see on that day.  Then I ate a totally mediocre lunch (one of the few poor meals I had in Hong Kong) and took to Peak Tram back to Central.

Next stop was the walk-through the Aviary in Hong Kong Park.  The guidebooks all wrote glowing things about this Aviary.  We have an amazing tropical Aviary at the North Carolina Zoological Park, however, that includes a much wider variety of birds, habitats, and vegetation than the one in Hong Kong Park.  After a leisurely walk-through, it was time to move on.

Since it was still early, I decided to swing by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and see if the flowers I had ordered with some other fans were on display on the Ice House Street side of the hotel sidewalk.  One of the Hong Kong fans, Julie, had pooled money from 3 of us to purchase beautiful bouquets for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Leslie’s last residence in Hong Kong and next to his wax figure at Madame Tussauds.  All of these bouquets were scheduled to be delivered in the afternoon of March 31st.  I had given Julie a poem to be included with each bouquet, and she was going to select some photographs to illustrate each card.

Rounding the corner from the MTR station, there was a grouping of flowers in large stands outside the hotel.  It didn’t take me long to find “our” bouquet.  I was also looking for the bouquets of some foreign fans that I knew sent flowers every year, but I didn’t see them yet.

After a few minutes of snapping photos and reading the cards that were written in English (many were, obviously, in Chinese, though I also saw some in Japanese and Korean), it was time to go.  I knew I would be back with the crew tomorrow when all of the flowers would be on display and there would be many more fans.  I went back towards the MTR station and set my bag down to take out my guidebook and decide what I wanted to do when I got over to the Kowloon side, where I would be meeting friends at 6:15.  I saw two young women coming out of the MTR exit and they came over to me, visibly excited and said, “You are Marie from the US!  We are so excited to meet you.  We are your fans.”

You could have knocked me down with a feather.  Who were these women and why did they seem to know me?  They introduced themselves as two university students from Guangzhou who were in Hong Kong with several other Mainland Leslie fans to attend the commemoration events around 4-01.  Both were fairly recent “post fans” and were quite touching in their devotion to Leslie, which I witnessed over and over again with so many young “post fans”. 

I was still looking a bit puzzled when I asked them how they knew me.  Fox and Star said that they had heard my radio interview from The Story with Dick Gordon that I had done last November.   http://thestory.org/archive/thestory907_Delencia.mp3/view  I knew that the file had been ripped and was being circulated among Leslie fans in Asia, but I had no idea that it was so well-known or so popular.  Fox told me that there was even a Chinese translation of the transcript for fans who could not understand the original English-language interview.  They said that the interview and accompanying Chinese transcript were posted on many Mainland Leslie fan sites and that I was, in fact, quite a celebrity.  I must say that I truly had no idea.  At the time that I pitched the interview to The Story, I had an instinctive feeling that this could be a very important interview, but my focus was entirely on English-language listeners of the program, most of whom had little to no idea who Leslie Cheung was.  I never imagined that this very well-produced, though quite brief interview would go viral in China and that I would become something of a celebrity among Leslie fans because of it.

Fox and Star were on their way to the Peninsula Hotel for high tea and invited me to come along, which I was most happy to do.  It turns out that Leslie conducted a very famous interview and photo session at the Peninsula in 2001.  Fox had the photos in her camera and was able to show them to me.  The Peninsula is quite the old grand dame of a hotel, built in the 1920s in the old style.  The central lobby, where tea was being served, had tile floors and a forest of large piers that supported a coffered ceiling decorated with elaborate plaster decorations.  The feel of the place was very old style British colonial, though the majority of tea takers that afternoon were Asian.  The waiters were dressed in smart uniforms (though no white gloves) and were circulating among the tables bringing pots of tea and towers of tea cakes to the tables.  In the balcony, a string quartet played tasteful classical music.  It was simply too, too civilized.  I can see why Leslie might have liked the place—it had great style.  I treated myself to a pot of quite good Ti Kwan Yin and one of the Pen’s famous scones.  We took a round of photographs and then, sadly and all too soon, it was time for me to leave for my next appointment after a delightful hour spent taking tea and talking about Leslie with these two fans.

Next up was a memorial mass for Leslie at Rosary church.  I was to meet up with a number of fans, among them Molle, Simie and Julie, at the Jordan MTR station and then we were going to catch a cab to the church.  I was surprised at how many of the Hong Kong fans were Catholic and, upon arriving at the church, there were more fans waiting for us.  The mass was for Leslie and for the grandmother of one of the fans who had also died a few years ago.  After the mass itself, the gathering of Leslie fans then stayed in the church and did a special litany for Leslie.

A group of fans then went out to dinner nearby, including Simie and Molle from Australia, Franny and Huko from Japan and Angelina from Hong Kong.  The little restaurant had delightfully tasty Chinese cuisine and we kept the dishes coming as we were all quite hungry by this time.

Some of the other fans had to go to Chater Gardens, the site of the 4-01 outdoor concert, because Ming Pao Daily had published the date of the concert as 3-31.  Fans needed to be there to greet anyone who came on the wrong night and encourage them to return the next night.  It seemed that Ming Pao is notorious for this sort of mix-up, which was a shame.

The evening was passing quickly and I had a date with more Leslie fans up in Mongkok for a night of karaoke beginning at 10:30.  I had just enough time to go back to the hotel, which was only a 10 minute walk from the Neway karaoke parlor, put my feet up and then change clothes and freshen up a little bit.  Except, my keycard wouldn’t open the door to my hotel room.  I went back down to reception and got a new card, as sometimes these cards get demagnetized and stop working, but to no avail.  The lock still wouldn’t unlock.  I called down to the front desk from the phone next to the elevators on my floor and was told the receptionist was on his way.  His pass card got the door to open, but then it, too stopped working.  Apparently the problem was with the battery that powered the lock, so maintenance would have to be called in.  Obviously, my plan for a quick shower and a little rest was not going to happen.  It was already 9:30 p.m., and the guy still hadn’t arrived to fix the lock.  In fact, the lock wasn’t repaired until 10:00, just 15 minutes before I needed to leave, as I was supposed to meet Molle at Neway at exactly 10:30.

I quickly changed clothes and made my way to Neway.  I was there right at 10:30 on the dot, but there was no sign of Molle.  I waited for about 10 minutes, and still she didn’t come.  I wanted to go up to the room, but I didn’t have the room number and the attendant wouldn’t let me into the elevator without the number.  Fortunately, I had a phone number for one of the organizers for the night and she was able to give me the secret password that opened the night’s sing-K to me.

Walking into the room, I saw a few faces that I recognized from my first night in Hong Kong—both Tracy Chan and Leslie Ho were already there.  I also saw some other faces that I recognized from the Citywalk opening the previous Sunday or from Facebook profiles.  There were also many new faces.  I was very happy to see that many of Gor Gor’s fans who had come out for karaoke that night were men.  I had always wondered if Leslie had many male fans.  The pictures of the public events always show a preponderance of women.  I even asked one of the Hong Kong male fans once in Facebook chat if there were many male fans, and he said that, yes, in fact there were quite a few.  But when I asked why they weren’t more visible at the public events, he didn’t really have an answer.  Maybe it is a little off-putting to be one of only a handful of men in a sea of women fans?  If anyone knows the answer to this, I would be happy to hear.

Eventually Molle and Simie joined the group, as well as one of the Mainland fans that I had tea with at the Peninsula earlier in the day.  But this was a serious and dedicated group of karaoke fans and the singers were choosing their favorite songs and some were already trying out their pipes with enthusiastic encouragement from the rest.  I have to say that karaoke just isn’t big here in the US among the non-Asian population.  I have heard that there are some bars in a few cities that have karaoke, but I had never seen one.  I am very familiar with all of Leslie’s music videos, so there was nothing mysterious about what the fans were singing.  The Asian fans found it hard to believe that we just don’t have karaoke in the US.  There seems to be something inherently different about the nature of fandom in the West and Asia and we just don’t have a place for karaoke in the Western version of fandom.

Everyone was supposed to sing, even me who can’t sing Cantonese, not even with the Chinese characters scrolling at the bottom of the page. ;-)  But I knew that Leslie had covered several English-language songs, so I was okay.  Molle and I sang that old Olivia Newton-John chestnut “I Honestly Love You” that we both knew from our teen years in the 70s.  Unfortunately, Leslie is a high tenor and I’m an alto, so the key was awkward and the end result wasn’t too great.  The facilitator saw the problem and then turned around and loaded a live version of the same song that Leslie sang in concert.  Because he was hoarse from many consecutive nights performing, the number was pitched down a couple of steps, which made it much more comfortable for me to sing.  I did a pretty miserable job, I haven’t really sung publicly in years, but I still received an enthusiastic round of applause when Molle and I were finished.  Then the Hong Kong fans got down to the serious business of singing just about every song in Leslie’s catalog.  I was especially impressed with Leslie Ho’s singing of several of Gor Gor’s hits.  Leslie sings very well and has a real feel for Leslie’s music.  It was a real treat to hear him sing that night.  I hope his plans to someday produce and star in a musical about Leslie comes to fruition.

The event started at 10:30 p.m. and now it was approaching 1:30 a.m.  The plan was for people to sing until dawn.  It sounded like a good plan, except that I had a full day of festivities planned for 4-01, including a concert the next night.  I had been out and on my feet since 9:30 a.m. the previous day and hadn’t had much of a break all day.  I wanted to be at my best for the next two days.  Julie and some or the local fans were going to be showing a number of the foreign fans around Hong Kong and taking us to some special places associated with Leslie in the coming two days.  I knew I needed to rest a bit before the climax of the trip began bright and early the next morning, because at 10 a.m. several fans were going to meet at the hotel lobby and take me to the first place associated with Leslie the next morning.  So, I bid a fond farewell to my fellow fans at Neway and headed back to the hotel.  It was a nice night and I had a lively escort in Leslie Ho, so the walk back to the hotel passed quickly.  Leslie then said good-bye at the door of the hotel and headed back to karaoke where he planned to spend the rest of the night singing.  In Seville, I have spent the night with flamenco performers singing and playing, now in Hong Kong it was fans singing karaoke until dawn.  I have been very lucky to touch on the passionate heart of these two cities and was welcomed in both places like an insider, rather than a tourist.  I have lived a charmed life and I am very grateful that so many people over the years have opened their hearts and their secret gatherings to me and shared the essence of their city and their passion with me.  Perhaps it is no coincidence that the theme of this year’s Leslie Cheung commemoration is the Passion Tour.  The flamencos of Seville welcomed me into their passionate brotherhood warmly, without hesitation and in all sincerity.  The same had now happened in Hong Kong.  When I was preparing for my radio interview, I realized that there were many things I could talk about where Leslie was concerned, but I decided that I needed some organizing principles and some specific works that I would return to over and over again as an illustration of what I was trying to say about Leslie.  Rather naturally, I chose Leslie’s performance of the Passion Tour released on DVD.  It was watching that performance on You Tube that introduced me to this great artist at the absolute peak of his artistry and seduced me on the spot.  There is such richness in every aspect of the show that it rewards a close and in-depth reading.  Everything was coming together in the most marvelous way for me now in Hong Kong, pulling together my personal experience with Leslie, my public sharing of Leslie on the radio, and the events planned to commemorate Leslie in Hong Kong.  Red Mission hoped that by presenting the Passion Tour video as the public event to commemorate the 10thanniversary of its performances in Hong Kong, this show which was somewhat maligned by the critics  in 2000 could finally be recognized for the marvelous mature expression of Leslie Cheung’s artistry that it so clearly is.

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