One record, two labels: how 1950s Chinese music was spread overseas through Hong Kong
Exhibition on declassified information at Central Library captures cultural link between Shanghai and city
Long before “one country two systems”, there was “one record, two labels”, a secret music mission to spread folk songs recorded in mainland China to overseas Chinese, with Hong Kong as the distribution point.
Historical details like this, which captured links between colonial Hong Kong and the mainland in the 1950s amid the cultural divide, were revealed on Wednesday at the opening ceremony of exhibition “The Art-Tune Encounter: A Gramophone Remembrance of Hong Kong and Shanghai”.
The event at the Hong Kong Central Library, which will run till end November, is in its final leg after road shows in Shanghai, Beijing and Xiamen since June. It was made possible with the passing of the 60-year mark for top secret Chinese documents to be declassified.
“We hope the exhibition will highlight the musical memory and the connection between Shanghai and Hong Kong, which is never broken despite the separation in 1949 [under the communist revolution],” Zhang Limin, general manager of state-owned China Record, said.
In 1956, Art-Tune Records Company, a registered private Hong Kong label, was actually a subsidiary of China Record Corporation in Shanghai, carrying out clandestine musical operations.