Recently, in the latest issue of Mango TV's variety show "Night in Greater Wan Chai", I saw Chen Xiaochun chatting awkwardly with a Hong Kong person living in the mainland, saying that his job in the program is to help Hong Kong students come to the mainland to study.
Suddenly I wondered, although the two sides of the strait are close to each other, how can the current "interaction" be so frequent?
Just like this year's New Year's Eve party, satellite television stations around the world, there is a special phenomenon of Hong Kong star singers gathering to sing - of course, it is not unusual for Hong Kong stars to be introduced, but this time, this batch of names that became famous in the 80s or 90s, Hong Kong and even mainland audiences are familiar with, no longer represent Hong Kong, but share a new identity: brothers and sisters in the Greater Bay Area.
First of all, "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area" is not a new term.
The regional division of this term is composed of 2+9 cities, "2" is the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, "9" is Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Zhaoqing nine places, the naming of the region comes from a vein of super powerful logic: the history and culture of a place can try to be renamed and constructed in a short period of time. In the field of entertainment culture, the sudden huge popularity came ironically from a variety show that unexpectedly became popular.
Last year, in Mango TV's "Brother With Thorns and Thorns", Chen Xiaochun, Zhang Zhilin, Lin Xiaofeng, Xie Tianhua, Liang Hanwen were invited, and later became popular again in the name of "Brother of the Greater Bay Area".
Since then, the Hong Kong stars who have gone north have all presented themselves as stars of the Greater Bay Area, or at least opened when they were introduced to the scene; some have successfully started their second spring of their own acting careers.
It has always been the right channel for local satellite television to observe popular entertainment and celebrities.
In the past New Year's Eve and New Year performances, the popular Shanghai Oriental Satellite TV set up a special Hong Kong branch venue at the New Year's Eve ceremony, lin Zixiang, Ye Qianwen, Tan Yonglin, Zhang Mingmin, Lü Fang, Zhou Huimin, Li Keqin and others appeared as singers in the Greater Bay Area.
Jiangsu Satellite TV has Yang Qianwei, Guan Zhibin, Chen Weiting, Zhong Zhentao and other supporters (most of them now live in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places), and also use the brothers and sisters of the Greater Bay Area as selling points.
The most original is in the special edition of Hunan Satellite TV, the brothers of the Greater Bay Area of the Ancient Puzzle Boy System have ridden the word of mouth of the "Brother Who Cut Through thorns" and "Night of Greater Wan Chai" and become the most enthusiastic guests of the performance.
On the other hand, at the 2021 Billboard Pop Chart Awards Ceremony of Hong Kong's New Year's Day Evening Commercial Radio, new names rose and fell.
At the 2022 New Year's Day Awards Ceremony, Jiang Tao won the "My Favorite Male Singer".
The most popular Mirror is unknown to mainland audiences.
Two Hong Kong stages, but like parallel time and space.
The story of Hong Kong is difficult to tell, and it has not been cleared for many years, but it has begun to tell another story of the Greater Bay Area.
Then, new roles from the old actors take on the scene.
The brothers and sisters of the Greater Bay Area wear heavy makeup and practice a "Hong Kong Pu", turning into a model for entering the mainland market and developing northward, and it is more likely that more Hong Kong people will go north in the future.
Celebrities have a more important task than any advertising cooperation, becoming the most well-known and effective spokesperson for this integration policy.
TVB's past artists, singers of uncles and aunts, whether it is a mall catwalk to live selling goods, work together to perform a blockbuster with a more main theme, personally demonstrating the drama of responding to the call and expanding the space for life and career. The attraction of this completely hits the humble demand of traditional Hong Kong people: it is just to eat a mixed meal!
Hong Kong's entertainment industry will definitely be in the Greater Bay Area!
Even the latest champion of "The Voice of China" is a Taishan girl who specializes in singing classic Cantonese songs in Hong Kong, come on, Mandarin is not smart and does not matter. Not to mention the various policy benefits of the Greater Bay Area for Hong Kong people moving north, such as employment subsidies, social security, hukou resident treatment and so on.
However, it has to be admitted that after these Hong Kong stars came to the mainland, the general "quality" and "professional quality" were very high.
Previously, various evening parties and singing programs in the mainland were seriously fake singing and retouching, and unless it was a live broadcast of the final, it was difficult for you to hear how the singer's real singing voice was. Recently, the mainland party began to crack down on false singing, which made me find that cantonese songs accounted for more than half of the recent New Year's Eve parties in several local stations.
Because there are very limited stars who have the strength to dare to sing, no matter what the position of the Hong Kong stars in the north, most of them can be mixed up or have real materials.
And what does the Greater Bay Area mean in popular culture?
It can't wait to be released like a red-headed document.
Last year's widely publicized Mid-Autumn Festival Gala "Rising Moon in the Bay Area" program, sponsored by Bauhinia Culture Group, CCTV Movie Channel, The Propaganda Department of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and Phoenix Satellite TV, this "Mid-Autumn Festival Film and Music Evening in the Greater Bay Area" will sing affectionately on the shores of the South China Sea and the banks of the Pearl River. ”
Faye Wong sang the theme song of the show, "Bay", of course, full of old feelings of people's moon reunion, this hypothetical person with this heart, conveying the emotional resonance of the hard set, but when the moon rises in the Bay Area, can we be sure that everyone is watching the same moonlight? The changing face of the city, the mood of the citizens, disappeared without a trace in this harmonious music. The emotions that focus only on the past are deliberately missing the current Hong Kong, which has become a new generation of cultural output that has become more and more hot.
Held almost at the same time, the 2022 New Year's Day Awards Ceremony is generally recognized by the outside world as a watershed for the Hong Kong music scene to say goodbye to the past and for a generation of newcomers to appear.
In addition to expressing love and persistence for Hong Kong in songs or award-winning speeches, and encouraging and paying attention to those who have left or left behind, not many people can see that it is also a trend of separation between the internal entertainment system and the local system of Hong Kong.
When Wong Wai Man thanks Mirarror for insisting on singing Cantonese songs, we should point out that the concoctive methods of entertainment stars in the two places, as well as the entire entertainment industry chain and control methods, have been fundamentally different, and it is this difference that makes Hong Kong musicians gradually disappear.
In the past two years, for mainland music fans, the lack of Hong Kong's popular culture, especially the music scene, and the suspension of cross-strait traffic have deepened the cultural gap between the two places.
If language is not the final decision, then what is the lifeblood of Hong Kong music?
When the architect Rem Kuhaas studied the Pearl River Delta, he was confused by the super-rapid development of Shenzhen, which has no history, no soul and no recognition, but also surprised by the impossible collage and strong vitality of the Pearl River Delta cities, and the urban network of multiple cities creates a unique interdependence.
Although the above-mentioned Greater Bay Area is a cultural identity, in reality it is indeed another urban lifestyle that combines science and technology, medical care, travel, consumption and residence in the future. When collage's new life model meets culture, what kind of output can it have? Obviously the answer is infinite.
Yesterday's Hong Kong star represents an era, resource gathering, stars arching the moon;
Today's Hong Kong star naturally looks like a single shadow in comparison. In fact, the mainland pop music scene is not necessarily thriving, just as Tencent recently announced the top ten songs in the Chinese music scene in 2021, after the list was released, many netizens were stunned and sighed, the difference is that the mainland has a huge market, so it can still maintain the superficial scenery.
But history can be written, the future is unforeseeable, and maybe the Mirror boom will only last a few years? Maybe they'll eventually get to the top of Asia? Maybe there will be another Beyond in the Hong Kong music scene within a decade?
But who can say?
From the Chaoshan folk songs of the Gojo people to the mixed pan-Pacific style of American, Korean and Japanese idols in the Hong Kong circle, there is no other large cultural region in the mainland that can produce such a diverse and vibrant regional work that does not follow the mainstream popular tastes of the mainland.
Gojo people do not sing Cantonese, it is the Haifeng dialect of Shanwei District, but fans receive the original atmosphere of small people who are full of mixed characteristics and close to life.
In their recent concert promotion, they even put forward the theoretical framework of "developing", tracing the rich connotation and extended influence of Guangdong/southern culture in a broad sense, and even the fierce courage of southern cities due to marginalization.
The meaning of this "developing" is that it is both local and global vision and creation, which may be the future direction of Hong Kong's music. Mirror said that the goal is to be "Hong Kong first", and at this time in Hong Kong, there is a new idea, which is to put yourself into the global pop music context, rather than to carry out internal volume.
There is no need to draw the ground as a prison, and of course, it should not be favored by the main melody.
According to statistics, about half of Guangzhou's permanent population is foreigners, and the remaining half of the locals believe that not all of them can speak Cantonese, and the proportion of natives will only be lower.
Apart from the similarity of blood and culture, there are few similarities in the environment and identity of the two places. Since Hong Kong was able to grow into the Pearl of the Orient, why complain today that its neighbours cannot provide support.
This coat of the Pearl River Delta has been worn for so many years, and it has not yet been able to achieve the "Guangzhou-Foshan City", whether it is the Greater Bay Area or the Small Bay Area, it is just a name.
Therefore, after clearly understanding the concept and possibilities of the Greater Bay Area, and standing in their own position, they know how to break the boundaries it brings.
Maybe one day it will really appear, Queen Street will become Beijing Street, nathan Road will be changed to Shanghai Road!