How I Learned to Listen to Cantopop Again
- Ming CHU
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
March 29, 2026 | Ming
Some music never truly leaves us. Even when we drift away from it, it continues to exist quietly within us, waiting for the right moment to resurface.
Cantopop is one of those.
Living far from my roots, I now find myself in a place where the Hong Kong community is almost nonexistent. And yet, this music shaped a fundamental part of who I am. As a child, it was a refuge—a shield against homesickness, a familiar presence in an unfamiliar world. In the silence of exile, hearing Cantonese felt almost like a physical necessity.
After immigrating, I became a quiet child, observing more than speaking, learning how to exist within a new balance. Music, however, never left me. Back then, one voice stood above all others: Shirley Kwan. Hers was a voice rich and sensual, deeply inhabited, capable of expressing the most fragile shades of emotion with striking directness.
Then, as it often does, life took over.
Adulthood, work, the rhythm of everyday life gradually pushed Cantopop into the background. It became a memory—almost a closed chapter. I returned to Hong Kong several times, to that paradoxical city that had become, for me, “the most familiar stranger.” And then one day, almost by chance, a name appeared: Keung To.
The first encounter was not immediate.
His music felt opaque at first, almost elusive. I understood every word, yet their meaning slipped through my fingers. Where the Cantopop of my childhood had embraced clarity—love, heartbreak, nostalgia—his world seemed fragmented, coded, at times disorienting. I had to slow down, to listen differently, to translate, to decode. And gradually, something opened.
The entry point was unexpected: *Say I Love You With Mask On*, discovered through my son, who loved the song despite understanding little beyond the words “I love you.” That alone was enough to create a connection.
But the real turning point came elsewhere.
At a concert by Hins Cheung, Keung To appeared as a guest. His rendition of *Broken Point* was strikingly delicate. And yet, it was *Masterclass* that shifted everything. On stage, he carried a raw, almost confrontational energy. A glance, a tilt of the head, tension in the body—and that lingering question: “How is being young a crime?” Beneath the performance, something more intimate surfaced. Perhaps anger. Perhaps resistance.
And unexpectedly, it resonated.
Because beneath the apparent stability of adult life, more defiant fragments always remain. *Masterclass* was not just a musical discovery; it was a revelation.
Seeing Keung To perform outside Hong Kong is nearly impossible. So when the *Keung To Lava 2025* tour was announced, the journey back felt inevitable. Four concerts in four days. Total immersion.
On stage, the artist moves beyond the boundaries of song.
His voice carries a distinct texture—instantly recognizable, capable of conveying raw, unfiltered emotion. But it is through the body that everything fully unfolds. The choreography is not ornamental; it extends the meaning. Every movement inscribes the song into space.
Certain moments remain etched in memory.
In 《Loneliness Disease》, solitude becomes almost tangible. Alone, back turned to the audience on a vast platform, he reveals a vulnerability expressed with remarkable restraint. One line is enough to fracture the distance: “If I persist in my complaints, will the world eventually love me?” The barrier dissolves. The emotion lingers.
《Mirror in the Mirror》 offers another form of confrontation. Facing a double—a dancer, or perhaps a projection of himself—the body resists, struggles, and eventually dissolves into an infinite play of reflections. Identity becomes unstable, fragmented.
With 《Lonely Waltz》, the aesthetic turns more symbolic. Black and white, angel and demon, opposition and fusion. Until an enigmatic sequence—3.14159—opens onto something larger: a search for wholeness that remains forever incomplete.
The Keung To experience is not passive. It demands engagement, a willingness to not fully understand.
Perhaps this is where the clearest break with 1990s Cantopop lies.
Where it once told stories, Keung To constructs emotional states. Where feelings were expressed, they are now suggested—fragmented, sometimes concealed. Meaning is no longer given; it must be sought.
His work, in many ways, resembles contemporary art.
First, there is intrigue.
Then, understanding begins to take shape.
Finally, it becomes personal.
The listener becomes a participant.
And perhaps that is where everything converges.
Because beyond eras, styles, or borders, music retains a singular power: to bring us back to ourselves. To surface emotions we thought we had left behind, in forms we did not expect.
My journey with Cantopop began in childhood. It continues today in a different form—more complex, more demanding, but also more intimate.
And as with all works that truly matter, it is no longer just about listening.
It is about recognition.
Ming
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