Lots of Western musicians and bands tour through Hong Kong. There’s huge appetite among locals and
expats alike to attend them. When there was such a frenzy over tickets when Lady Gaga came through town, she extended her
tour by a concert or two.
One of the things on Dave’s “bucket list” for Hong Kong was
to attend a concert here - but not one that we could just as easily see in the
US. There are lots of Canto-pop, K-Pop
(Korean), and Chinese artists who also tour Hong Kong. So Dave and one of his
concert-loving work colleagues took on the task of finding one that would be
fun for us all to attend together. The
concert: Leehom Wang, The Music Man II Tour.
Before the concert, Dave and I met our fellow concert-goer
at a Japanese restaurant for dinner. She
is a lovely woman of Chinese descent who grew up in Malaysia, went to a
prestigious US graduate school program, and has worked around the
world. As we talked, she mentioned that
she only speaks Mandarin to her mother and English to her father. When I asked why they don’t speak Malay to
one another, she said simply “Oh, we only speak that when we’re out of the
house in Malaysia”. Then, she proceeded
to speak to the waitress in fluent Cantonese.
More than three years into meeting lots of people like her, I’m still amazed.
The concert was at the Hong Kong Coliseum – not a huge
facility, holding just 12,500 people, but it was nearly full. Dave and I were the only obvious Westerners
that I saw. One thing that really
surprised me, in the land where no one seems to know how to queue up in a line,
was that concert etiquette here is that you sit down – the whole time – and actually
respect the space of others.
Another thing that was different than any concert I've ever been to was that people used blow
up hand clappers (handed to us on our way in) to make noise or would wave light
sticks (sold by lots of street vendors outside the coliseum – our friend had
bought me a purple one) to show approval for the artist rather than clapping. It was REALLY loud. It also looked like a psychedelic version of
the old Coke commercial with candles. (I
felt a bit sorry for the guy in front of us whose date was obviously a big
Leehom Wang fan and waved her heart shaped light stick wildly in front of his
face almost through the whole concert!)
As for the performer, Leehom Wang is a singer, musician, and composer who has a
big following on the Mainland and Taiwan. His music is an interesting fusion of Western
style rock, R&B, and wrap with very traditional Chinese opera and folk
music – all sung in Mandarin with a few English words thrown in here and
there. He spoke between songs, in Mandarin, and
seemed to have a great sense of humor. Even though I could understand just a few words, he was hugely entertaining and clearly very talented. The audience loved him. In fact, they couldn’t get enough of him; he
ultimately gave a spirited 20 minute encore performance – after already
spending a whopping 2.5 hours on stage. (I
was stunned, but our friend said it was normal; anything less than 2 hours is
considered short.)
Overall, it was a lot of fun and was quite a cultural
experience – but here’s something really funny:
Leehom Wang grew up in the US and is American. Our friend told me that Wang speaks Mandarin
with a very thick Western accent and that Dave’s spoken Chinese is much better.
Still, it counts as a local concert – check one off the bucket list!
If you’re dying to see more, here’s a link to a clip from
the concert:
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