Youth appeal

Hong Kong pop music, or Cantopop, was born in the 1970s. It's a combination of the time-honored Yueju Opera, or Cantonese Opera, which is rooted in the Cantonese-speaking areas mainly in Guangdong province, and a mix of Western-style pop music and catchy expressions that voice the aspirations of grassroots workers in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Hey presto, the beat is infectious.

Cantopop also gives listeners a sense of Hong Kong's evolution over the past half century.

The TV reality show, Infinity and Beyond, finished airing last month. It chronicled how Cantopop developed and explored the cultural connection between Hong Kong and the mainland.

The show invited singers well-versed in this genre, including George Lam, Sally Yeh and Hacken Lee, to collaboratively perform Cantopop classics onstage with singers from the mainland in innovative ways, reminding people of the heyday of Hong Kong's music industry when the songs garnered a huge fan base, especially in the 1980s and '90s.

The program also interviewed music producers and lyricists of different ages, including Cheng Kwokkong, 81, and Andrew Lam Manchung, 63, composer Chiu Tsanghei, 55, and singer-songwriter Eric Kwok, 48, to share behind-the-scene stories of how they created the Cantopop classics.

Cheng says he wanted to highlight the inclusiveness, persistence, resilience and other merits of Chinese people in his lyrics. He quotes a Chinese poem that goes, "Each age brings forth new genius on this noble land, and each will rule its own domain for years to come." He says "a talented successor of Cantopop will emerge from the new generations".

"I hope that the younger generations can continuously bring vitality and creativity to the development of Cantopop music, giving the audience a feeling of lasting freshness," Cheng says.

The program uses narration, musical performance, clips of documentaries and interviews to unfold a picture that depicts how Cantopop germinated in Hong Kong people's industrious approach in seeking self-identity and a better life and flourished along with Hong Kong's thriving economic growth in the 1980s.

The Cantopop songs, with their literary value, patriotic undertones, sensitive description of different aspects of people's lives or the expression of emotions, have been tugging at the heartstrings of a large number of listeners. Similarly, the program, Infinity and Beyond, co-produced by Hunan Broadcasting System and Hong Kong broadcaster TVB, also enjoys popularity among audiences from both the mainland and Hong Kong.

The show has garnered an audience of 200 million on Hunan Satellite TV and more than 3.3 billion views on Mango TV, an online video-streaming platform affiliated to Hunan Broadcasting System, says its president Zhang Huali.

The program is estimated to have reached about 70 percent TV viewers in Hong Kong, becoming the most popular music variety show aired on TVB this year, according to Stella Ho Siu-wai, a producer with TVB.

A symposium was held earlier this month to gather members from the program's production group, cultural experts and critics to discuss the program's positive impact on the patriotic education of young people and the cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and the mainland.

Ho says the TV show also holds an appeal for an audience of 24 or under, enabling younger generations to know more about Cantopop music. Ho adds that the first time she got to collaborate with Hunan Satellite TV was when producing another TV show, titled Strictly Come Dancing, a decade ago.

And this time, she was impressed by the big strides that the production units from the mainland has made in audio effects, set placement, stage scenery and stage lighting over the past decade.

"It's a precious opportunity for us Hong Kong variety show producers to conduct exchanges with our counterparts in the mainland," she says. "We get to know how they deal with details in the production of a large-scale TV program and recognize how their narration perspectives differ from ours."

Singer Jerry Lamb Hiu-fung, who performed in the show, says he got to cooperate with bands and singers from the mainland to interpret Cantopop classics in a refreshing way, which helped to broaden his musical horizons.

"The program has set up a bridge for us musicians to conduct cultural and musical exchanges. Many more Hong Kong singers would like to share fine musical works with listeners from the Chinese mainland," he says.

Xiang Yunju, vice-chairman of the China Literature and Art Critics Association, says Cantopop also inspired people from the mainland to "better carry on" traditional Chinese culture. For instance, Hong Kong music makers used classic ancient poems in the creation of pop lyrics.

It provides an example of mutual learning between cultures. Many of the songs that uphold the spirit of the Chinese nation also help young Hong Kong people to form their patriotism, he says.

Zhang from Hunan Broadcasting System says the program was produced to mark the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, "inspiring Hong Kong people to carry on mainstream values, which are characterized by the love of both the motherland and Hong Kong as the core, and are in conformity with the principle of 'one country, two systems'".

The program pays special attention to young audiences by using narrations and styles that are more acceptable to the youth. Young singers such as 21-year-old Shan Yichun and 17-year-old Gigi were also invited by the program to attract a larger group of young viewers, he says.