Milestones

Tat Ming Pair

Name: Tat Ming Pair – Sek tau gei (Shi tou ji)
Item: Sek tau gei (Shi tou ji)
Author: Federico Romagnoli

Sek tau gei (Shi tou ji)

1987 (Philips)

art-pop, cantopop, new wave

by Federico Romagnoli

Anthony Wong (黃耀明) is a young deejay working at one of Hong Kong's best-known radio stations, Commercial Radio Hong Kong (商業電台), when, toward the end of 1984, he reads an ad in the music magazine Jiubaai Soengzauhon (搜索週報), placed by an instrumentalist passionate about electronic music looking for a singer to start a duo project with.

Wong decides to show up for the audition and there meets Tats Lau (劉以達): by singing songs by the Culture Clubhe convinces him of his talent as a performer. Before long they realize they have a great deal in common, the most important of which is calledDavid Bowie.

Their goal thus takes shape: bringing that kind of sophisticated, intellectual Western pop into cantopop, meaning traditional Hong Kong pop, sung strictly in Cantonese. [note 1]

The project's name was devised by Winnie Yu (俞琤), Wong's colleague at Cik Zaa 903, combining characters from the two musicians' names: thus were born Tat Ming Pair (達明一洽). Again thanks to Yu they landed a contract with Philips, and their rise was immediate.

The EP "Tat Ming Pair" and the album "Tat Ming Pair II – Kiss Me Goodbye" followed one another just months apart in 1986, both with good success, paving the way for a full-blown mania that erupted with the release of their second album, "Sek tau gei" ("石頭記"), in April 1987. [note 2]

Lau writes and arranges all the songs, but contrary to what one might assume, it's not Wong who pens the lyrics. Since Cantonese is particularly sensitive to changes in tone, setting it to music – especially within a Western scale system – requires deep technical knowledge of the language. For this reason, they brought in Keith Chan (陳少琪), a professional lyricist who had already done excellent work on their previous album. [note 3]

Wong nonetheless has a hand in the creative process, indicating to Chan the themes to be addressed, the terms he'd like used, any changes to be made, and a whole series of details that, at the time, had no place in the relationship between writers and performers in Hong Kong's music industry.

The various writers who worked with Tat Ming Pair over the course of their career have pointed out how their creative process was dense with interaction, which upended their usual habit of delivering lyrics already finished and ready to be sung.

The difference also lay in the subjects tackled: most local artists recorded love songs [note 4] and therefore had no particular demands, whereas Tat Ming Pair set their sights much higher: references to traditional Chinese literature, the rise of crime among Hong Kong's youth, the consumerist acceleration absorbed largely through Japan's influence on local culture, but also – in the albums that followed the one under discussion – concerns over Hong Kong's return under Chinese rule, the Chinese student protests of the late Eighties, the then-taboo themes of homosexuality and gender fluidity (Wong would come out as gay in 2012), the AIDS epidemic, and much more besides.

"Sek tau gei" is iconic from the cover onward, designed by William Chang (張叔平) [note 5]: with Lau and Wong's faces shown in profile, their gaze vacant, against a completely white background, it perfectly conveys the sense of refinement underlying their music.

The tracklist opens with a short instrumental, "Lei" ("離"), in which Lau indulges in orchestral MIDI sounds that build a semitone progression with a dissonant flavor, and bursts of programmed percussion so dense that during the rolls the tail of each hit is cut off by the attack of the next.

"Maa lou tin sai" ("馬路天使") is a gallop new wave, introduced by a riffs guitar riffs played in high octaves, with an epic, clean sound. The verses are marked by MIDI tones recalling wooden idiophones and by ambient keyboards flowing over the driving rhythm, creating a climate of contrast and tension that is then reinforced by the dense vocal meter of the chorus: only the return of the riffs opening riffs brings back a calmer mood.

The song's title, which translates as "Street Angel", is drawn from the 1937 film of the same name, directed by Yuan Muzhi (袁牧之) and starring Zhou Xuan (周璇), regarded as one of the classics of Chinese cinema from the era when the Nationalists still governed mainland China too. The reference is no accident: just as that film depicted the poverty and street life of 1930s Shanghai, Chan's lyrics describe their equivalents in 1980s Hong Kong.

Wong delivers it in a timbre rich with contrasts, managing to find the elusive balance between the theatrical passion typical of the cantopop and the detached dandyism of contemporary Western stars like Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys):

Screams in the dark alleys, bodies colliding,

all I see on the horizon are red neon lights.

Shouts in the wind, loneliness suddenly vanishes completely,

let your troubles and ideals be swept away.

Glances and sarcasm have become useless,

let every moment of youth, together with the streetlamps, meet again every night.

In the long night, the angels are laughing and screaming.

Forget everything,

bounce through the streets.

The long road is full of pitfalls and trouble,

it could be a warning, who knows?

Look at the night fog, set aside all advice,

dawn is coming, for anyone who wants to see it.

The cold of the night comforts the hearts of children,

no worries, no ideals, they are lost souls.

The wailing sirens of police cars chase after wandering hearts,

running, waiting, nothing changes.

“Mei hou “San Saigaai”” (“美好「新世界」”, transl. “Beautiful “New World””) is perhaps the track on the album that comes closest to post-punk, with Lau's guitar, particularly sharp and dissonant, standing out over a tight rhythm, while Wong sings of Hong Kong's youth losing themselves, as if hypnotized, in the labyrinth of the San Saigaai Zungsam (新世界中心, transl. New World Centre), at the time one of the largest shopping complexes on the planet.

Right now, the wind on Tokyu* beach has grown stronger.

Wandering aimlessly, stumbling once again into this wonderful New World,

looking toward the end, every fashion brand seems familiar,

every street has been walked, roaming around, lingering in the basement.

Stopping at every shop, with no final destination,

walking through it again, it still feels brand new.

At the end of the dark brown corridor the confidant appeared,

buying and selling, matching and planning, the inside of the shops is chaotic.

Looking around happily, glad to have met again today,

never bored, never changed, hoping every day will be just like before.

Forget hatred entirely and make every day a classic,

defying the indifferent faces all around.

Erase the past, abandon the future,

the world will be a better place,

erase the past, abandon the future,

give up the pursuit of ideals,

without sweet dreams or thoughts.

* Tokyu is a Japanese multinational, owner among other things of a department store chain widespread across much of East Asia.

The most complex lyric, and the hardest to grasp for anyone unfamiliar with local culture, is undoubtedly the one for the song that gives the album its title. “Sek tau gei”, which translates roughly as “The Story of the Stone”, references one of the great classics of Chinese literature, “Dream of the Red Chamber”. Written around the middle of the eighteenth century by Cao Xueqin, it's an enormously influential novel, studied by every figure who has since shaped Chinese thought, from writers such as Lu Xun, Sanmao and Gao Xingjian to political figures (Mao Zedong himself). It was also one of the texts used to standardize Mandarin during the early twentieth century.

The novel tells the story of a sentient stone that dwells in the heavens alongside the deities of Chinese mythology and longs to experience mortal life as a human being. It is thus incarnated in the body of the novel's protagonist, Jia Baoyu. His life is then recounted by the very same stone once its experience as a human has come to an end.

The lyrics take on their full meaning only once you know the plot of the novel:

I watch the snow swept by the icy wind grow thicker,

broken shoes, wet road.

These opening lines refer to a vision experienced by Jia Baoyu, in which he is shown the imminent financial and social collapse he is about to suffer. The protagonist is born into one of the wealthiest clans in China, with direct dealings with the emperor: unfortunately, due to a series of excesses and misdeeds committed by its young scions, the entire household is destined to fall into disgrace.

I watch the catkins fly over the distant mountains, the frail willows,

I get drunk alone, sickly and frail.

It's a reference to Lin Daiyu, Jia Baoyu's beloved: the two dream of marrying, but the clan's interference prevents the relationship from being fulfilled, and Lin, in her frail health, ends up dying of it.

I listen to music coming from the vast world,

I dance alone, hair and clothes unkempt.

I cast away all my thoughts, yet still can't tell truth from illusion,

from a dark room, old dreams emerge and vanish.

The novel is dense with this kind of dreamlike sequence, which, combined with the use of ambiguous phrasing and wordplay, makes it hard to distinguish reality from illusion, or even to tell whether the whole story of the stone actually happened. It's no coincidence that the protagonist's name, Jia, is written with the character "贾", which sounds the same as the character "假" (transl. "false").

I drink fate together with the alcohol,

but that smile hides the stains of tears.

At the end of the novel, Jia Baoyu comes to realize all his mistakes and regrets having ignored the warnings the gods sent him throughout the novel through dreams and visions: had he heeded them, he could have averted the family's decline and married his beloved.

I calculate every last detail, but unexpectedly there's too much distance,

turn after turn, the bond turns to dust.

The first part of the chorus, these lines allude to another key character in the novel, Wang Xifeng, a very powerful woman who marries Jia Lian (a member of the same clan as Jia Baoyu) and tries to keep him under her control by scheming and directly running their business affairs. Her stifling nature, however, will lead to the collapse of both the marriage and her financial empire.

A marriage arranged through harassment,

the love story of that spring night is put on hold.

Reality and falsehood, and in the end happiness and sorrow, are all lies.

We return here to Jia Baoyu, who in the meantime has had to marry his distant cousin Xue Baochai, whom he does not love, in order to satisfy his family's wishes.

Reality and falsehood, the colors and scents of flowers - all are made visible.

The final verse takes care to specify how Jia Baoyu's love for Lin Daiyu was, despite everything, still alive.

In order to best honor the spirit of the story being told, the harmonization doubling the main riffs uses perfect fifth intervals, which enriches the major mode of the scale with a nuance typical of traditional Chinese music. This generates a blend of Western musical sounds (the electronics of new wave, but also the ethereal atmospheres of dream pop) and Far Eastern folk, with an intellectual approach that takes the best of both cultures.

Not all the lyrics are so complex — there are simple love songs too — but on the whole it's clear that Tat Ming Pair's approach was not comparable to that of the stars cantopop who had dominated up to that point, and instead opened the door to new possibilities: not by chance, other groups capable of at least partly breaking the rules would arrive around the same time, such as Raidas and Beyond.

No one, however, has ever managed to preserve their artistic independence to the same degree as Tat Ming Pair: it's well known, in fact, that Beyond grew frustrated at having to simplify their songs from a certain point onward under pressure from their record label, something Tat Ming Pair never agreed to do. This naturally had its consequences: Beyond today boast a status legendary reputation across the whole Sinophone world, while Tat Ming Pair's is confined to Hong Kong alone.

The album continues alternating ballads with jazzy chord progressions (“Mou fung dik tsau gwai” / “無風的秋季”) with slow tracks layering acoustic arpeggios and electric solos, rhythmically punctuated by sampled dripping sounds (“Soeng sai” / “倆逢”), or menacing electro-industrial progressions (“Bang lit” / “崩裂”) against airier rhythms, though always built on drum machine and synth bass, decorated by crystalline digital piano and a smooth, reverb-drenched electric guitar.

“Sek tau gei” went straight to number one on Hong Kong's best-selling albums chart: it stayed on top for three weeks and spent another fifteen in the top 10. By the end of 1988 it had reportedly sold over 100,000 copies, a figure that made it one of the biggest hits of that period.

In mainland China it wasn't distributed right away and circulated only as bootleg tapes, yet it still achieved considerable reach, so much so that even today, at least in southern China, the title trackis still remembered.

Tat Ming Pair's career went on to triumph with four more albums released by 1990, all reaching number 1 on the Hong Kong charts. After a first breakup, during which Wong launched a fruitful solo career, the duo reunited in 1996 and has barely stopped recording and touring since, eventually finding an audience in mainland China as well.

The relationship has nevertheless been a troubled one, so much so that Anthony Wong's solo music was pulled from all Chinese streaming and download services in 2014, following his support for the Umbrella Revolution, a fate later shared by Tat Ming Pair, whose music was made to disappear in 2019 after the release of their single protesting the Beijing government, "Wui jik jau dzoey" ("回歸有罪"), already covered by OndaRock at the time of its release.

While Beijing's crackdown seemed at first to concern only the band's relationship with mainland China, more recent developments have shown that the duo isn't safe even in Hong Kong.

It's true that the music and arts industry supports them to the best of its ability (on January 3, 2019 they were given the Golden Needle Award for lifetime achievement, the most prestigious honor a musician can receive in Hong Kong), but the local government is boycotting them by every means available, pulling their music and appearances from public radio and television, trying to make them lose their sponsors, and, more recently, attempting to entrap them through legal technicalities: on August 2, 2021 Wong was arrested on orders from the Independent Commission Against Corruption, accused of having sung for pro-democracy candidate Au Nok-hin (區諾軒) during an election campaign without a permit to do so.

He was released only after paying a fine and signing an agreement guaranteeing orderly public conduct for the following eighteen months. Needless to say, the singer went straight back to the front lines against Beijing's policies as soon as he was released.

Meanwhile, Tat Ming Pair's concerts have resumed, rapidly filling the city's largest concert arenas: as the dictatorship's grip grows ever tighter, it's no surprise that their artistic stance is taking on ever greater significance.

[Note 1] In mainland China, by contrast, songs are usually sung in Mandarin (hence the term mandopop), given that in the mid-1980s China had a virtually non-existent music industry and imported almost all its records from Hong Kong, provided they managed to slip past the censors. For this reason, cantopop remained popular in China for a long time as well, even though Cantonese is spoken by only 4% of the population there.

[Note 2] The most common transliteration of the album's title found online is actually "Shi tou ji", from Mandarin. For this article, however, we chose to use the Cantonese version, since that is the variant of Chinese the record is actually sung in.

[Note 3] Keith Chan remains to this day one of the most important figures in the Chinese-language music industry, though perhaps no other artist has since given him the chance to display the expressive freedom he showed with Tat Ming Pair.

[Note 4] As always when discussing a complex system like a country's music industry, there's a risk of overgeneralizing. Some artists tackled social themes even before Tat Ming Pair - Sam Hui (許冠傑), for instance - but broadly speaking the point still stands.

[Note 5] William Chang is one of the most renowned and celebrated technicians in Hong Kong cinema. He is especially known for his partnership with director Wong Kar-wai, working as costume designer, editor, and production designer.

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01/05/2022

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Federico Romagnoli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition

Tracklist

1. 離 (Lei / Li)
2. 馬路天使 (Maa lou tin sai / Ma lu tian shi)
3. 美好「新世界」 (Mei hou "San Saigaai" / Mei hao "Xin Shijie")
4. 無風的秋季 (Mou fung dik tsau gwai / Wu feng de qiu ji)
5. 石頭記 (Sek tau gei / Shi tou ji)
6. 傷逝 (Soeng sai / Shang shi)
7. 崩裂 (Bang lit / Beng lie)
8. 後窗 (Hau tsoeng / Hou chuang)
9. 一個人在途上 (Jat go jan dzoi tou soeng / Yi ge ren zai tu shang)
10. 棄 (Hei / Qi)
11. Legend: Title in traditional Chinese characters (Cantonese transliteration / Mandarin transliteration)