{"id":1189,"date":"2026-07-26T22:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T14:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2026-07-26T22:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T14:10:22","slug":"cheng-kam-cheong-%e9%84%ad%e9%8c%a6%e6%98%8c-and-the-big-boss-%e5%94%90%e5%b1%b1%e5%a4%a7%e5%85%841972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"Cheng Kam Cheong \u912d\u9326\u660c and the Big Boss \u5510\u5c71\u5927\u5144,1972"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Allan Pang<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Album cover of the Big Boss \u5510\u5c71\u5927\u5144<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among Cantonese communities in Southeast Asia, North America, and China, a shared experience would likely be ‘Cantopop’ – popular music sung in their spoken language. We now tend to think about Cantopop as something coming from Hong Kong. Is this the full picture of Cantopop’s history?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Finale of Joseph Koo’s charity concert in Hong Kong, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the rise of Cantopop in Hong Kong is partly a Malaysian story! During the late 1960s, the popularity of Cantonese movies and music  declined in Hong Kong. Mandarin films and songs became the mainstream. However, Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, continued to welcome Cantonese popular culture. For instance, movies and albums by Connie Chan \u9673\u5bf6\u73e0 were always well received by friends in Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Albums by Connie Chan from the 1960s (L: \u5973\u6bba\u624b Female murderer; R: \u9673\u5bf6\u73e0\u4e4b\u6b4c Songs of Connie Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How did the Malaysian scene influence Cantopop in Hong Kong? The story began with a singer named Cheng Kam Cheong \u912d\u9326\u660c. Born in Malaya, he later started to perform Cantonese songs in Singapore. Originally invited to record a Cantonese opera album, Cheng proposed recording pop songs in Cantonese, with lyrics written by himself. This marked the beginning of his Cantopop career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cheng recounting the start of his singing career in a television show in Hong Kong, 2001<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1969, Cheng performed his Cantonese songs in a television show in Hong Kong \u2013 Enjoy Yourself Tonight (EYT) by Television Broadcast Limited (TVB). He caught the attention of the Hong Kong audience, and his Cantopop became immensely popular. Local newspapers began to praise him for making Cantonese popular culture revive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is an excerpt from Hong Kong’s Kung Sheung Evening News <\/em>(27 December 1973), describing Cheng’s influence on not only Hong Kong but also Taiwan singers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

One should credit the \u2018prince\u2019 [referring to Cheng] ten times for the popularity of Cantopop in Hong Kong\u2026 Not only Cantopop but also Cantonese movies, which had declined long time ago, became popular again because of his Cantopop. In recent years, all male and female singers from Taiwan had to perform Cantopop in cabarets. Songs by the \u2018prince\u2019 went deep into the society and enabled HK people to listen to Cantopop on any occasions. There were numerous Taiwanese singers who focuses on learning Cantopop. They bought Cheng\u2019s albums to learn!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In 1972, he released another song titled ‘The Big Boss’ \u5510\u5c71\u5927\u5144, which became a big hit! He wrote the song to praise martial arts actor Bruce Lee after watching the film, which was also named ‘The Big Boss’. He also established fan clubs and performed across territories in Southeast Asia, North America, and Hong Kong before he passed away in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cheng Kam Cheong and Bruce Lee appearing in TVB’s EYT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cheng was not the only singer influencing the Hong Kong scene. Others, such as Lisa Wong \u9e97\u838e and Shang Kuan Liu Yun \u4e0a\u5b98\u6d41\u96f2, also brought their Cantopop to Hong Kong in this era. Their songs became transregional before Hong Kong became an international centre for exporting Cantopop, demonstrating Malaysia’s significant role in the world of Cantonese popular culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Albums by Lisa Wong (L) and Shang Kuan Liu Yun (R)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Further Readings<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Craig A. Lockard, Dance of Life: Popular Music and Politics in Southeast Asia<\/em> (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998), chapter 5.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Kam Hing Lee and Danny Tze-Ken Wong, ‘Chinese Popular Music as a Musical Heritage and Cultural Marker of the Malaysian Chinese’, International Journal of Heritage Studies <\/em>23, no. 10 (2017): 989-1001.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • For readers who can read Chinese, you can also refer to chapter two of \u7cb5\u8a9e\u6d41\u884c\u66f2\u4e03\u5341\u5e74, (\u9999\u6e2f\uff1a\u4eae\u5149\u6587\u5316\uff0c2024)\u3002<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Allan Pang Among Cantonese communities in Southeast Asia, North America, and China, a shared experience would likely be ‘Cantopop’ – popular music sung in their spoken language. We now tend to think about Cantopop as something coming from Hong Kong. Is this the full picture of Cantopop’s history? In fact, the rise of Cantopop in Hong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":1190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-myunbd"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52.png",816,813,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52-300x300.png",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52-768x765.png",768,765,true],"large":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52.png",816,813,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52.png",816,813,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52.png",816,813,false],"smart-post-landscape":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52-816x570.png",816,570,true],"smart-post-portrait":["https:\/\/imagined.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-52-600x813.png",600,813,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Amna Account","author_link":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/?author=16"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Allan Pang Among Cantonese communities in Southeast Asia, North America, and China, a shared experience would likely be ‘Cantopop’ – popular music sung in their spoken language. We now tend to think about Cantopop as something coming from Hong Kong. Is this the full picture of Cantopop’s history? In fact, the rise of Cantopop in Hong…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagined.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}