Apart from the comical chop suey of a song made famous in the Sixties called “Kowloon Hong Kong” by a female group from the Philippines named The Reynettes, there have only been songs ely through movies like “Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing” and the goofy Chinatown novelty of “The Ding Dong Song” and the Frankie Lane hit, “Rose Rose, I Love You,” which was an English adaptation of a Mandarin song.
That’s about to change with the release of Home.
Written by music executive Hans Ebert and singer-songwriter Ben Semmens, below, the song is a musical dedication to their home- Hong Kong- and the spirit and resilience of the people and the city.
It’s also a song to people with a love for their homes wherever they may be in the world.
Says Ebert, be glas Whyte, champion Hong Kong jockey for thirteen consecutive years, “The song is our gift to our home- Hong Kong- and, on its 130th Anniversary, also our gift to the Hong Kong Jockey Club that, through its Charities division, does more for this city than many realize.”
With his close association as an Advisor to the HKJC and role in enhancing the Club’s successful Happy Wednesday brand, and being an award-winning advertising executive for his work to raise public consciousness about everything from AIDS to the Right Of Abode for minority groups in Hong Kong before the 1997 Handover, Ebert has been a strong advocate of “giving back” to the city.
As for Ben Semmens, who a nally for a three-month residency at Happy Valley Racecourse’s Happy Wednesday evenings at the Adrenaline and Beer Garden venues, this has turned into a two-year stay.
“Hong Kong’s my adopted home and I’ll be forever grateful to the Jockey Club for taking a chance on a guy from a small town in Cardiff in Wales and putting him in front of tens of thousands of people every Wednesday night at the Happy Valley Racecourse.
Adds Semmens: “There are so many games going on where new artists are conned into playing for free at events and organizers dangling the promotional carrot about performing to ‘industry leader and what the HKJC has helped me achieve will, hopefully, be seen as a game changer in the way new music talent can be promoted.”
Apart from the song, an accompanying video will be produced soon.
The theme of the song “Home” will be taken further through an inter-active social media campaign where people will be invited to create their own videos for the song, and send in poems, photos, paintings, thoughts, stories about what home means to them.
Says Ebert: “The song is the first step in what we see as an ongoing theme that will evolve into something much bigger and, hopefully, brings together people and stories of their homes from around the world onto a much bigger platform.”
RB 