Jing Wong: Tangled Up, Tango On

With his new ep, 生活的小偷, singer-songwriter Jing Wong offers a take on classic Cantopop, imbued with his jazz and Britpop upbringing. These parts create a whole message for his Hong Kong. On a surprisingly warm November noon behind the Clockenflap main stage, Jing lays out inspirations from and aspirations for a city he doesn’t wish to see leave so soon.

Jing Wong (2 of 4)

Christopher Tuazon: On any given Jing Wong tune, you play around with different genres. What’s your musical foundation?

Jing Wong: When I went to university in London, my friends and I would mostly play a lot of Beatles covers. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go to there. I love Britpop. Radiohead, Blur, Suede. Plus, when you’re in art school, you get to listen to a lot of weird shit, like Sun Ra.

CT: Pop and jazz definitely come through in your music.

JW: On my own, I’m more of a folk player. But I love laying jazz riffs with the guys on saxophone and harmonica. The connection is irreplaceable. Without words, we know where we’re going, and we go there together. It’s amazing. That’s what’s beautiful about Clockenflap, too.

CT: As a Hong Kong musician, how would you describe the local music scene and community?

JW: I think it’s been growing in the last ten years. A lot more alternative, experimental bands are becoming more popular. Like, post-rock bands like tfvsjs. And there’s another one, A New World if You Can Take It. Hong Kong in these past few years has grown into a scene like that.

CT: In this scene, is there a specific inspiration that you get?

JW: Musicality. I feel like I have to fight against something, because in HK the Cantopop or Kpop is predominant, so it almost feels like I have a mission. Not to destroy it, but to balance it.

CT: As if there’s a thick surface layer, and underneath that there’s a true HK scene.

JW: Yes! So my way is to write Chinese songs now. My previous albums were in English, so this is my very first Chinese attempt. The music style; at least the first one, called “Tango,” that one is totally unlike any Cantopop that’s like in the scene. I thought, “Alright, I’ll write a Chinese song, but I won’t give people what they normally listen to.” So I hope I could somehow instill some kind of alternative energy into the scene.

CT: It’s interesting that you began talking about the Beatles, because they essentially are the classic example of that. Make their music accessible, and then once they had listeners on board-

JW: White Album! Push the music slowly to change everyone’s idea of music together.

There’s also one song called “別走那麼快 | Don’t Go So Soon.” That’s partly because one of my close friends left last year to tend to his illness, but I also wrote it because the city was going through a lot of turbulence at the time. So I feel like the Hong Kong that we used to know is slowly disappearing, so this is a song for our Hong Kong to not leave so soon.

CT: And at last year’s Clockenflap, right when the protests were still fresh, one of the bigger HK bands took to the stage, covering the LCD panels with what amounted to a huge middle finger to the HK powers that be. As a local musician, do you feel galvanized with that sense of purpose?

JW: Yes, but the complication is that even amongst the younger people, there are many different perspectives on how we should do whatever we could do to make Hong Kong a better place, or keep it as good as it was.

So it’s hard to have one clear statement, but at least believe in what you think you have to do, and do whatever you think is best for Hong Kong in your own way. And hopefully we don’t clash. Because it does happen. It did happen.

Instead, let’s change together.

Jing Wong (4 of 4)