a few months ago in hong kong, i found a copy of a book that seemed vaguely familiar - pretty and full of pictures for my chinese challenged brain, i walked out of the arts centre with it under my arm.
once i ripped it open in my hotel room, i came across a pullout that looked like this:
a couple of months later, i got myself a new mobile phone, one with a camera that actually works. so idea + camera = this. ever wondered what a librarian wears to work? you may make your own conclusions about what librarians are actually like…
l-r: top: from david jones, skirt: bought in hong kong; cardigan: limi feu, skirt: emily temple cute; jacket: lee, shirt: forgot, skirt: my first made in china; cardigan: mum’s, top: ozoc, skirt: atelier pierrot; cardigan: uniqlo, shirt: cue , skirt: astrid and cyril
l-r: top: the gabriel chelsea, skirt: izzue; shirt: y’s, skirt: from stina; top: alannah hill (thrifted), t-shirt: dunno; top: muji, cardigan: limi feu, skirt: jacqui e (thrifted); cardigan: from aunt, top: myer underwear department, skirt: thrifted
the book in question is my fashion moments 87-07 by winifred lai. she is a famous stylist/fashionista/writer in hong kong, who started working for city magazine in the 90s, and then became chief editor of amoeba, a very pop fashion and culture magazine. she now writes columns, looks after her son as a single mother, works freelance with magazines, collaborates with fashion labels, and has many womenadmiring her.
i still wish i had kept the couple of copies of amoeba i used to have:
the photoshoots were bright and wild and creative, and mirrored a little the attitude of cutie magazine in the late 90s. i remember seeing zeny kwok and steven cheung in there as models (1998?) as well.
has various meanings. one is the yearly anniversary of the 4th of june, the other is the birth and the death of wong ka kui. they are all interrelated, after all - their song the wall, released in 1992, sounds like a close critique of the tiananmen incidents, aka the 4th of june incident (六四事件)…
and it’s been fifteen years since the death of the lead singer and songwriter of beyond, wong ka kui. born on the 10th of june 1962, this year marks the fifteenth anniversary of his death in japan on june 30th 1993. his death was untimely, and who could have predicted it would end this way?
if i weren’t going to japan in august, i would have booked my ticket to hong kong for the anniversary concert. everytime i see something related on youtube, i wonder why i don’t just go and blow the two thousand dollars and go. he really was that important in my life, as he was to manyhong kong musicians and of course, ordinary people.
One day, I saw an interview with Wong Ka-kui, the lead singer of Beyond. He said, “Music is heard by the ear and understood by the heart.” I was about ten or eleven years old, but it made perfect sense to me. I began having a different kind of respect for him and his band. I began admiring their style and unique sound. I began listening to all their music and even begged my mother to translate the meanings of the lyrics. I began to hear the music with my ears and understand it with my heart.
i finally did it. i sat through the entirety of dragon heat! as far as avant garde hong kong cinema goes, eric kot was lucky to even make the film in 1999, as such an indulgent piece would be superfluous when fewer and fewer features are being made each year, and the dollar return means more.
after reading reviews online, i honestly thought i wasn’t even going to make it past the flickering opening credits. blink and you’ll miss their names, so i capped some of the cameos for your convenience, which are equally fleeting (ekin cheng, jacky cheung, stephen fung, shu qi, cheung chi lam, anita yuen etc)
most laughingly, the jackie chan cameo (not pictured here) is probably not one he agreed to, and is actually footage of him at a wedding! director kot is into crazy stuff like that…
the slight irritation to the film is just the switch between a regular shot to a shot of the same image on a video screen, to black and white, to a different resolution image, and back to colour again. but at least there’s a very silly saturated homage to wong kar wai. was i supposed to explain the plot to you? isn’t one really, and there’s an awful lot of repetition of everything.
but yet i don’t mind, and i still paid about ten dollars for a crappy ex-rental vcd of this film (understandably out of print). as an extended music video, i don’t mind the music either (mostly carl wong composed, with a soundtrack you can buy with lead actress “the me” singing).
okay, so what’s the real reason i bought this? a cameo from hoff dylan, who attempt to hold up a chinese place for all their char siu ramen. nice try…
and the favour goes both ways, as eric kot records a cantonese sort of ode to his hometown in the album version of hoff dylan’s to the world…
vague translation as eric rambles too fast: “everyone don’t run away, listen! …welcome to the paradise of the beauty and fashion city, hong kong! … remember to go on the star ferry across the sea to central! yi er san si wulong tea, for fighting there’s jacky chan, singing there’s jacky cheung. for a good looking man there’s andy lau, andy lau sa ii ne. japanese people say a u e i o, chinese people say buo puo muo fuo. … there’s still more! … dragon dumplings, swallow them whole, swallow them and be full. umai! yum cha, eat prawn dumplings, pork buns, wonton noodles… subarashii! so cheap! …hong kong is my hometown i hope you really like it … obviously i missed a bit of it as his mouth moves way too fast.
but the lyrics of the original song, written by komiyama yuhi, go:
hong kong to taipei to tokyo
going down to l.a. to mexico
all the world i’ve seen
all the world to see is next to you…
on another one of his trips to the u.s., posting images of food and streets, i can’t help but be bitten by the bug, and wish for travel.
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