MUSIC & ACTIVISM
Anthony Wong’s Forbidden Colors
Gay Hong Kong Canto-pop star brings activism to US stages
BY MICHAEL LUONGO
From 1988’s “Forbidden
Colors,” named for a 1953
novel by gay Japanese
writer Yukio Mishima to
this year’s “Is It A Crime?,” commemorating
the 30th anniversary
of the Tiananmen Square Massacre,
Hong Kong Canto-pop star
Anthony Wong Yiu-ming has combined
music and activism over his
long career. As Hong Kong explodes
in revolt against Beijing’s tightening
grip with the One Country, Two
Systems policy ticking to its halfway
point, Wong arrived stateside
for a tour that included ’s Gramercy
Theatre.
Gay City News caught up with
57-year-old Wong in the Upper West
Side apartment of Hong Kong fi lm
director Evans Chan, a collaborator
on several fi lms. The director
was hosting a gathering for Hong
Kong diaspora fans, many from the
New York For Hong Kong (NY4HK)
solidarity movement .
The conversation covered Wong’s
friendship with out actress, model,
and singer Denise Ho Wan-see who
co-founded the LGBTQ group Big
Love Alliance with Wong and recently
spoke to the US Congress;
the late Leslie Cheung, perhaps
Asia’s most famous LGBTQ celebrity;
the threat of China’s rise in
the global order; and the ongoing
relationship among Canto-pop, the
Cantonese language, and Hong
Kong identity.
Wong felt it was important to
point out that Hong Kong’s current
struggle is one of many related to
preserving democracy in the former
British colony that was handed
back to China in 1997. While
not his own lyrics, Wong is known
for singing “Raise the Umbrella” at
public events and in Chan’s 2016
documentary “Raise the Umbrellas,”
which examined the 2014
Occupy Central or Umbrella Movement,
when Hong Kong citizens
took over the central business district
for nearly three months, paralyzing
the city.
Wong told Gay City News, “I
wanted to sing it on this tour because
Out gay Hong Kong Canto-pop star Anthony Wong Yiu-ming in concert at the Gramercy Theatre in
September
Anthony Wong chats with fi lmmaker and collaborator Evans Chan.
it was the fi fth anniversary of
the Umbrella Movement last week.”
He added, “For a long time after,
nobody wanted to sing that song,
because we all thought the Umbrella
Movement was a failure. We
all thought we were defeated.”
Still, he said, without previous
movements “we wouldn’t have
reached today,” adding, “Even more
so than the Umbrella Movement, I
still feel we feel more empowered
than before.”
Hong Kong’s current protests
came days after the 30th anniversary
commemorations of the Tiananmen
Square Massacre, known
in China as the June 4th Incident.
Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese
soil where the Massacre can
MICHAEL LUONGO
MICHAEL LUONGOT
be publicly discussed and commemorated.
Working with Tats Lau
of his band Tat Ming Pair, Wong
wrote the song “Is It A Crime?” to
perform at Hong Kong’s annual
Tiananmen commemoration. The
song emphasizes how the right to
remember the Massacre is increasingly
fraught.
“I wanted our group to put out
that song to commemorate that
because to me Tiananmen Square
was a big enlightenment,” a warning
of what the Beijing government
will do to those who challenge it, he
said, adding that during the June 4
Victoria Park vigil, “I really felt the
energy and the power was coming
back to the people. I really felt it,
so when I was onstage to sing that
song I really felt the energy. I knew
that people would go onto the street
in the following days.”
As the genre Canto-pop suggests,
most of Wong’s work is in Cantonese,
also known as Guangdonghua,
the language of Guangdong province
and Hong Kong. Mandarin,
or Putonghua, is China’s national
language. Wong feels Beijing’s goal
is to eliminate Cantonese, even in
Hong Kong.
“When you want to destroy a
people, you destroy the language
fi rst, and the culture will disappear,”
he said, adding that despite
Cantonese being spoken by tens
of millions of people, “we are being
marginalized.”
Canto-pop and the Cantonese
language are integral to Hong
Kong’s identity; losing it is among
the fears driving the protests.
“Our culture is being marginalized,
more than fi ve years ago I
think I could feel it coming, I could
see it coming,” Wong said. “That’s
why in my music and in my concerts,
I kept addressing this issue
of Hong Kong being marginalized.”
This fi ght against the marginalization
of identity has pervaded
Wong’s work since his earliest
days.
“People would fi nd our music and
our words, our lyrical content very
apocalyptic,” he explained. “Most of
our songs were about the last days
of Hong Kong, because in 1984,
they signed over the Sino-British
declaration and that was the fi rst
time I realized I was going to lose
Hong Kong.”
Clarifying identity is why Wong
offi cially came out in 2012, after
years of hints. He said his fans always
knew but journalists hounded
him to be direct.
“I sang a lot of songs about free
love, about ambiguity and sexuality
— even in the ‘80s,” he said,
referring to 1988’s “Forbidden Colors.”
“When we released that song
as a single, people kept asking me
questions.”
In 1989, he released the genderfl
uid ballad “Forget He is She,” but
➤ ANTHONY WONG, continued on p.33
October 24 - November 6 32 , 2019 | GayCityNews.com
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