Taiwan's Mandarin popular music in Hong Kong from the late 1960s to the early 1970s

Abstract

This thesis examines the history of Taiwan’s Mandarin popular music (aka ‘Mandopop’) songs and singers in the Hong Kong popular music scene from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. It focuses on the practices and impact of three major groups of actors—Mandarin sing-song filmmakers and film stars, music hall operators, and music critics—on the popularisation of Taiwan’s Mandopop in Hong Kong. While existing literature mentions the dominance of Taiwan’s Mandopop in the late 1960s, scholars tend to view this phenomenon as an interlude in the development of Cantonese popular music and treat the spread of Taiwan’s Mandopop in Hong Kong as an insignificant event. It is suggested that researchers of Hong Kong popular music, despite celebrating diversity and hybridity, exhibit a predominantly Hong Kong-centric perspective. They largely pay attention only to local events and actors while disregarding the process of how foreign cultural elements are interpreted and utilised in the local culture. This thesis approaches the popularisation of Taiwan’s Mandopop in Hong Kong as a social process and examines how Taiwan’s Mandopop songs and singers were engaged in the local context and acquired a local meaning. Relying on archival materials, including music magazines, media reports, and biographies of entertainment industry workers, this thesis highlights the efforts of Mandarin sing-song filmmakers and film stars, music hall operators, and music critics in promoting Taiwan’s Mandopop songs and singers in Hong Kong. It is found that the three groups of actors performed distinct roles in facilitating the popularisation of Taiwan’s Mandopop in Hong Kong, including promoting the exposure of Taiwan’s Mandopop songs and singers through sing-song films, enhancing the visibility and prestige of Taiwan’s singers in Hong Kong through music hall performances, and mediating the appreciation and interpretation of Taiwan’s Mandopop through music commentaries. This research clarifies the neglected history of Taiwan’s Mandopop in Hong Kong and enriches the understanding of the Hong Kong popular music scene before the dominance of Cantopop in the late 1970s, a period largely absent in the existing literature. Furthermore, this research avoids the Hong Kong-centric perspective in the academic discourse of hybridity by addressing the foreign cultural elements in the Hong Kong popular culture more seriously.