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Xiaosi Talks about Chung Wai Ming and the Influence of Radio Drama

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Much of my early knowledge and entertainment came from Radio Hong Kong. I was in primary school in the late 1940s; that was the formative part of my life. There wasn’t much entertainment available then, so that the programmes on Radio Hong Kong opened up a wide horizon for us. For example, story-telling. I was very much affected by the performance of several artists such as old Mr Fang Rong. His stories, such as “Jigong the Living Buddha” and “The Seven Knights Errant” usually ended with “The moral consequence is…” We should not look down on what might appear to be clichés, because they had a major impact on our growing up. As we heard this repeatedly, we became aware of the ideas of karma, or moral cause and effect, and the moral consequences of our actions. The other was Chen Gong who narrated the stories of the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and “The Water Margin”. He was steeped in Chinese learning, and as we listened to him, our knowledge of Chinese culture, history and literature also increased. If we listened attentively, we could remember one or two historical characters in an hour or a couple of historical facts. Day by day, our knowledge grew. Historical stories, Chinese cultural tradition and all kinds of poetic works were not necessarily learnt only at school. Radio in fact provided both entertainment and learning.

In addition to traditional culture, during the late 40s and early 50s，many groups were performing dramas on radio, and among their plays were those adapted from modern Chinese literary works such as “Thunderstorm”, “Sunrise”, the trilogy of “Family”, “Spring” and “Autumn”, and short stories such as “Returning South”. In my case, I had first heard these works on radio before I read the text version in primary school. The effect is much better to have first heard the stories and then read the novels afterwards. Even when I was studying modern literature at university, my classmates had to start from scratch while I already had a basic understanding of the works so that I had an advantage over them. It was the same with classical literature which I studied in the fourth year at University; the works I heard on radio formed a strong foundation for me as a literature scholar.

In the late 40s, a Radio Hong Kong broadcaster, Taotao, influenced me greatly. He narrated the story “Xiaqiu Zhuan” by Huang Guliu, which was a patriotic work. The boy in the story was downtrodden and he joined others to become a smuggler to the mainland by climbing over the Lion Rock. At the time I had not studied geography, but after hearing the programme, I realized that one would be in the Fatherland by climbing over the Lion Rock. I had always thought that the Fatherland was very far away, and I was overwhelmed to discover that it was so near. This too may be considered another seed that was sowed in my youth.

Radio Hong Kong used to broadcast Cantonese opera, sometimes live. I am sure many older people were grateful to Radio Hong Kong for it because not everyone could afford the expensive tickets to an opera performance. In 1948, I remember, when Ho Fei Fan’s “Dream of the Red Chamber” was staged in Guangzhou for 30 days, Radio Hong Kong transmitted it for fully 30 weeks [Editor: should be 30 days]. In addition, newspapers in Hong Kong printed the full libretto of the opera so that we could follow the words while listening to the broadcast. I was only a child then but I learnt many words this way. There are many reasons why people of my generation had such a good foundation in the Chinese language; apart from school, other media also gave us many opportunities to learn. The messages conveyed by the media at the time were positive and profound, and culturally nurturing; they could be easily absorbed by young people. It can be said that before I was in primary school, I picked up a lot of general knowledge and cultural knowledge, and classical literature from opera by listening to Radio Hong Kong.

I respect Mr Chung WAi Ming greatly. He began, when he was quite young, to narrate martial arts stories by Chu Yu-chai in a very vivid style. There were other narrators who were also very skilled, like Mr Fang Rong and Chen Gong, who could make the scenes come alive. Mr Chung’s telling of martial arts stories emphasizes the persevering spirit of the knights errant in perfecting their martial skills …Through his strong and confident voice, I can feel the chivalry and integrity of the story’s characters and their moral rectitude. I was deeply influenced by it.

In the 1940s, just after the war, people in Hong Kong were generally quite poor. My father loved listening to the radio, and my family was the first in the neighbourhood to own one. I still remember him climbing onto the roof to put up the antenna. After dinner, kids in the neighbourhood congregated at our house to listen to the broadcasting. Later, radios became more common and a new cabled radio station was started so that the number of listeners grew. In those days, even though it wasn’t possible for everyone to own a radio, everyone did aspire to listen to it, and they would also do so in herbal tea shops.





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