RED BOAT TROUPES AND CANTONESE ... - University of Georgia

school choir, playing in the brass band, or string orchestra were acceptable activities in the eyes
of students. Many “English schools” were Catholic schools run by priests and nuns from
Western countries, or those who had been trained in foreign countries. “Chinese schools” leaned
on Confucianism and on the Chinese moral and education system. Since Hong Kong has
become a British colony in 1842, a person’s social status, and hence, wealth, seemed directly
related to his/her English speaking and reading ability. Although “Chinese school” students
were considered of inferior social class in the eyes of their “English school” counterparts,
listening to Western pop music was still the trend for these students.
Most teenagers would not admit that they like Cantonese opera, even if they did, because
parents or grandparents listened to the phonograph records. They refrained from telling their
friends; otherwise they would be teased. If they wanted to sing an aria, they only did it in the
shower, or at home. In my high school years, when friends called, grandma would tell them on
the phone that I had gone to coeng je (singing stuff) when I was at the high school choir
rehearsal. My friends later told me how they laughed after hanging up the phone. In her days
living in the estuary, grandma had heard blind women and men singing on the street, low class
music for donations to buy food. She also heard opera in the performance halls, but no Western
choir singing. There was just no vocabulary with which she could describe choir practice except
for what had commonly been used in her village that referred to low class musical performance,
coeng je. My singing activity is still called coeng je by family members for fun.
Many performers continued to sing opera as well as take part in the movie industry after
WWII in Hong Kong. One of the most successful fa dan was Fong Yim Fun in the early 1950s.
Under her leadership, many new operas were premiered between 1954 and 1956. 142 Tong Dik
Sung (1917-1959) wrote librettos for her productions before Fong left the stage to get married.
142 Sau Y. Chan, Hong Kong Yuet Kek koi syut: 1900-2002, v.
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