About owning it like Faye Wong does…
- Aug 30, 2025
- 3 min read
Some might consider her aloof and bordering on face palm arrogance, but there’s always been something about Faye Wong that, to me, radiated t certain je ne sais quoi that said, “I don’t suffer fools gladly” and with her having an aversion to anything even approaching pretentiousness.
For my money, Faye Wong is coolness personified and THE only truly cool Chinese artist, and someone who would have been right at home when Shanghai was the Paris of the Orient.
In fact, a few years ago, I wrote a script with Faye in mind about her time travelling back to the days of the great Shanghai divas and how she met who she did and…well, the script never had liftoff. But, one never knows…
Having been around Chinese culture and Chinese everything for over six decades, and especially immersed in all things Chinois for almost a decade for personal reasons, I know who’s what and who’s not and those who make out to be who they’re not.
Faye is the real deal- an actress, a singer, a style maker and a diva in the most pure sense of the word.
I always wanted her to perform at least once with Edith Piaf or Marlene Dietrich, but I am glad that she discovered Bjork instead and how this changed her entire musical direction.
Having persuaded her to endorse Virgin Atlantic’s direct flights from London to Hong Kong, she had Sir Richard Branson practically eating out of her hand without her even having to lift a finger.
If the world of Chinese entertainment needs someone with the panache to finally give it a personality of its own, it’s Faye Wong.
There’s nothing fake about her nor is she some copycat version of things that have come before, because she doesn’t have to be anyone, except be herself.
It’s been a long and interesting journey for her from recording covers in Cantonese as Shirley Wong, taking a break in New York in 1991, returning to Hong Kong a year later as someone who went against the grain of what everyone expected of a Chinese popular artist.
Always a fan of the late Teresa Teng, she also embraced the music of the Cocteau Twins, Cranberries and Bjork- and introduced the music of these artists to a new audience in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China- she was born in Beijing- and created her own persona on and offstage.
She was terse in her interviews, her relationships and marriages ebbed and flowed, and how these worked out or didn’t was whatever Faye wanted them to be because she controlled the world around her and has always been her own person.
I still remember someone name dropping about how they could have Faye open for this and that A Lister artist from the West if and when they performed in China.
They obviously didn’t get it. I just smiled and mentioned that all the Western artists mentioned should be opening for Faye- and just what clout and respect and Chinese pride she commands with her legion of fans, the hierarchy in the government, sponsors and the media.
At a time when the entertainment industry in the West has turned to K-Pop for survival, Bollywood lost its footing almost two decades ago, and new artists from Asia appear like something from The Lost City Of The Incas and thinking they want to be who they can never be, here’s an Asian born in what once was Ceylon, and has lived in Hong Kong since the days when Darkie toothpaste was sold here, who always returns to the music of the original Shanghai Divas- and Faye Wong.
The songs of the Shanghai Divas are who my friend Morton Wilson introduced me to and produced those fabulous Remixes of their music when running Schtung Music in Hong Kong and I was with EMI Music.
Together, we worked on various “Asian” Remixes for everyone from David Bowie and Robbie Williams to Kylie and Placebo and so many more.
Did EMI help to have this music heard? Of course not. This region wasn’t important enough:)
We never got around to working with Faye Wong and also pushing back on having music from Asia “penally colonised” and kowtowing to the music industry “missionaries” and the various con artists.
The time just might have arrived to right those wrongs, stop taking in the strays, and even somehow bringing together- just as a thought- David Bowie and Faye Wong.
Gawd knows we can, because together and separately, we have done the unexpected and shone a light on music from this region through some fortuitous collaborations and never sticking to formulaic thinking.
Our time is Now.
A belated Happy 56th Birthday, Faye!
Comments