About 80 graduates enrolled in 2010-11 as both part-time and full-time students. The following map indicates their countries of origin:

In addition to classes and lab sessions, the JMSC programme emphasises internship and in-service training opportunities to provide hands-on experience. One such project is the JMSC-ABC on Campus reporting programme.

Click the picture below for the Bureau website and work examples.

The ABC on Campus Team 2010-2011

The interactive pie chart below indicates the diversity of MJ students’ nationalities.

Diverse Interests

Eldes Tran

Eldes Tran, 28, worked at the Los Angeles Times as a copy editor for four years before coming to JMSC. With the newspaper industry struggling, she wanted to join the Master’s of Journalism programme in Hong Kong to gain an international perspective.

“I want to broaden my journalism skills and also, coming to Hong Kong gives me a chance to know more about what’s happening in Asia. I would love to stay and work in Asia after graduation.”

Tran interned with the South China Morning Post (SCMP) during the spring and fall semesters. One of the live projects she spent time on was the interactive database, Who Runs Hong Kong, managed by SCMP journalist, Irene Jay Liu, who also teaches computer-assisted reporting at the JMSC. She said it was a great experience learning how to combine complicated data for investigative stories.

Chien Mi Wong

Chien Mi Wong, 25, worked in the banking industry for one-and-a-half-years before coming to JMSC. Seeking a career change, Wong wants to switch to journalism because she loves writing.

“I want to be a financial journalist because I have always loved writing,” Wong said. “And with my financial background, I hope to become a successful financial journalist someday, and JMSC is definitely a good place to start.”

Richard Schuster

Richard Schuster, 29, worked in the broadcast industry in Hungary for seven years before coming to JMSC. He was a news anchor for five years at TV2 and an assistant teacher at the University of Film, Theatre and Television in Budapest. Schuster decided to come to JMSC to gain an Asian perspective and enhance his journalism skills.

“JMSC is one of the best schools in the world, and Hong Kong is where everything is happening,” Schuster said. “Coming to JMSC, I hope to learn to become a creative storyteller.”

The JMSC can be followed at Twitter (JMSCHKU). View a sample of recent tweets:

Activists gathered at the Legislative Council building ahead of the speech to press their claims for measures to narrow growing income disparities in Hong Kong:

Tsang said Hong Kong’s budget surplus topped HK$71 billion, well in excess of the $25.2 billion shortfall predicted a year earlier, and listed a series of concessions that he said would total about HK$44 billion.

Financial analysts said Tsang had to walk a tightrope between meeting public expectations without fueling inflation by implementing over-generous sweeteners.

“Fighting inflation is our main task this year,” said Tsang.

VIEW VOX ASIA’S LIVE COVERAGE OF THE BUDGET HERE

Here’s where we can help. Vox Asia sent a team to Victoria Peak and another to the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Shui. They compared the crowds, the locales and, most importantly, the views.

“Speculators leave! Artists stay!”

”Save the artists!”

Set up outside the Wah Luen Industrial Centre in Fo Tan, a cadre of young activists with bullhorns regaled the throngs of visitors attending the the community’s annual open studios event over two weekends in January.

The activists, who are part of a grass-roots group called Revitalisation Independence Partnership, or RIP, were collecting signatures for a petition aimed at saving artists from the speculating activities in the district.

"We have to do something," -- Wong Chun-kwok

Activist and artist Wong Chun-kwok said the government’s revitalisation plans have pushed out artists who choose to work and live in Fo Tan’s industrial buildings.

“Artists depend of these kind of buildings because of the relatively low rent,” Wong said. But artists are getting frustrated because speculators are buying up their studios and pushing prices up, he said.

Currently, rent for a 1,500-square-foot studio is about HK$7,500, said a property agent with Midland Realty. But that is expected to increase to at least HK$8,000 by July, according to the agent.

“We have to do something,” Wong said. “If we don’t, the arts village will vanish.”

“And if industrial places are gone, then a lot of Hong Kong artists will have to give up their arts,” he added.

A place called home

In Hong Kong, 20% of the artists who work in industrial buildings are mainly located in Fo Tan, transforming this remote industrial area into one of the largest art clusters in the city, according to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) last year.

Most of Fo Tan’s artists are tenants, and they stay for an average of 2.5 years, a “relatively short period of time”, according to the HKADC report.

Most are budding artists. More than half have less than 10 years of experience in the art field, said the HKADC, and music and visual arts are the major types of arts and cultural activities undertaken in the industrial buildings.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong is nearby, and some of the first artists to move to Fo Tan were CUHK graduates.

Castaly Leung Ching-man, a freelance painter and illustrator, was one of those original artists who moved to Fo Tan in 2001. Last year, she moved into a new studio — her fourth in nearly 10 years.

She said she has been pushed out each time.

“Usually two to three months after the open studios event, the agent would call and tell me that the owner has to sell the apartment to someone else,” Leung said. “They either ask me to move out or they raise the rent.”

Leung said the annual Fotanian event gives speculators a chance to check out their studio spaces.

“They weren’t interested in the artwork. Some just came in, walked around, and left if they didn’t

Artist Castaly Leung is a renter.

She wasn’t the only artist who has experienced this.

Chow Chun-fai, a multimedia artist who lives in the same building, keeps his curtains closed during the open studios event. He was one of the tenants who initiated the “趕走炒家，留住用家” campaign (Speculators Leave, Artists Stay).

Artists vs. Redevelopment

Hong Kong’s Planning Department has suggested rezoning 8.3 hectares, out of a total of 37 hectares of industrial land in the area. More than half is slated for residential use, and the rest is considered to be redeveloped into commercial zones or “comprehensive residential and commercial area.”

Such plans for Fo Tan sprouted from Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s proposal in 2009 to “release the potential” and “encourage the redevelopment or conversion” of over 1,000 old industrial buildings.

The series of measures include lowering the threshold for compulsory sale for redevelopment of industrial buildings; a “pay for what you build” approach, which would allow owners to pay additional premiums for extra redevelopment density; and an exemption of the change of land-use payment to owners who opt for a wholesale conversion instead of tearing down the building for redevelopment.

And adding fuel to the overheated speculation activities are reports that investors from mainland China are coming to buy industrial apartments. Agents have noted growing interest from speculators. Some real estate agencies have organized special teams to consult building owners and interested parties on redevelopment plans or potential takeovers.

In 2010, the total value of registered transfers of industrial buildings in the city hit HK$26.5 billion, a record high in 15 years. The value and the number of registered transfers have gone up by 77.2% and 50.6%, respectively, compared with 2009.

In Fo Tan, 42 industrial buildings are more than 15 years old, which fits the criteria for redevelopment.

Some visitors “rushed to the window once they entered to check out the views, then rushed back to the doorway to see how high the ceiling is, and how big the storage space is.” — Artist Castaly Leung

Director of Centaline Commercial (Industrial) Kwok Chor-wah estimated that there will be a 25% to 30% increase in price (per square feet) in 2011, and rental (per square feet) is expected to climb by 20%. There will also be a 20% increase in total transaction value in industrial buildings this year, Kwok said.

Climbing rent prices

Castaly Leung knows all about the rent increases.

“I remember 10 years ago it was HK$300,000 for a 1,200-square-foot studio. Four or five years ago, the price went up to HK$600,000,” she said. “Ten months ago, my previous studio was sold for HK$1,200,000. Last Friday, a real estate agent asked if I was interested in buying a studio for HK$1,600,000.”

Artists and factories coexist here.

According to sales figure from Centaline Commercial, studios in Wah Luen Industrial Centre, where Leung lives, fetch HK$1,500 to HK$2,000 per square feet now. That compares to an average of under HK$1,000 per square feet before Hong Kong’s revitalisation plan was announced.

Leung, though, is sticking to renting, despite the climbing prices.

“I always rent my studio,” she said. “I don’t have the ability to chase after the surging prices, so I cannot buy one.”

Eventually, some fear, the artists will be priced out of their own home.

They fear that Fo Tan will become another Kwun Tong, an industrial area with a cluster of more than 200 musicians that has been a victim of major revitalisation. In January 2010, Hidden Agenda, a local indie band, was among the first batch of artists who were forced to leave their studios because of redevelopment plans. The act was regarded by Inmediahk as “the first sacrifice of the government’s revitalisation policy and the largest forced eviction ever”.

Taking action

Wong, the activist with the RIP, said the group collected more than 4,000 signatures during

4,000 signatures were collected.

Fotanian — much more than he expected, he said.

The petition will go to the Home Affairs Department, Urban Development Board or the Development Bureau.

“We are trying to say that we need this kind of space, that the area is already changed to residential use,” Wong said. “A lot of people are using this space, so there’s no need for the government’s revitalisation plan…. We the artists are already revitalising it ourselves.”

Watch this heart cell move. It was grown from a skin cell taken from cardiologist David Siu’s bicep.

The new method of generating human-induced pluripotent stem cells — cells that have the capacity to develop into more than one type of cell — brings closer the day when old and damaged tissue can be replaced by cultured tissue which is less likely to be rejected by the body.

Dr David Siu Chung-wah and his team at HKU used this technology to grow heart cells from adult skin cells.

Watch him describe the process of creating these human induced pluripotent stem cells and hear his hopes of what will come from the findings:

Read more about the HKU study in the medical journal, Cellular Reprogramming (PDF).

The field of cardiology has come a long way, Siu said, While people who suffer heart attacks don’t always die, they are left with damaged hearts and are vulnerable to future attacks. For these patients organ transplantation is often the only solution.

The situation is similar for other major organs such as the kidney and liver.

The World Health Organisation says the demand for organ donors “outstrips supply in almost every country in the world.”

Listen to doctors from across the world discuss the challenges of organ donation and transplantation.

Remaining hurdles

Siu estimates it may be another five to 10 years before growing replacement tissues and organs may be a viable treatment option. Currently growing a single cell culture costs HK$30,000 (US$3,900) The last three years of research cost HK$200,000 to $300,000, not including the salaries of the 10 to 15 staff in the lab. Needless to say, the process is expensive.

There are also still issues to tackle in production before treatments can be clinically compliant. Viruses are currently needed to manipulate genes to “re-program” the cells, and this could cause complications.

Then there is the issue of controlling cellular growth. Current tests show that heart cells can be made from skin cells, but more research needs to be done to ensure they stay heart cells. Bone fragments in the heart would not be ideal, nor would abnormally rapid cell-growth tissue — or cancerous cells.

Learn more about Stem Cells from the US National Institute of Health.

It’s been 10 years since this industrial complex in Fo Tan in northern Hong Kong was converted to studio space for artists. Every year the artists of Fo Tan open their doors for the annual Fotanian Open Studios event. During this latest open day, Chow muses on what Fo Tan means for him.

Chow Chun-fai

VA: What do you specialise in?

Chow: I’m doing paintings from movies. I’m doing photos from paintings. I’m doing video from photos. So I’m always doing something in between. When I’m doing a painting, I’ll always capture a scene from a movie. Of course the subtitle and the image itself is very important. So when I paint, I freeze the moving image …  and then I paint it as a painting.

VA: How long have you worked here?

Chow: I started my first studio in 2003, but I rented with my friend. But you know the rent rised up like crazy. So I decided to buy a unit. This is my second unit. I bought it three years ago, but now it’s too expensive to buy. But at that time, when I pay for the mortgage, it’s even cheaper than the rent.

Chow's pantings adorn the wall

Chow's "little pantry"

Chow: Yes, I have a little pantry. Sometimes I can hide in my little studio for a week. Well this is how it is as an artist when you are so concentrated on your work that you’ll like to stay in your studio. So I spend seven days a week here. But, of course, as an artist, you also travel a lot. So sometimes I spend two months a year in Italy. Sometimes I will disappear from my studio too.

VA: What’s so special about Fo Tan?

Chow: I would say in the beginning, we were just looking for an empty space. So we were just looking for some white wall, and because in this factory, in this building, it is the cheapest but it’s the most far away from the train station. So if you’re doing business, it’s not that easy.  It is not convenient to your customer.

But for an artist, it is the best place because when you open the window, there are greenery because we are at the corner of the whole industrial area, so this is the best for art. But right now, of course … there is a art community so there’s a lot more reason for people to come to Fo Tan.

"In the beginning, we were just looking for an empty space ... "

VA: Are you worried that eventually that this place will be developed into something more commercial?

Chow: It will be. It happens to all art villages in all cities. We can’t escape from the free market.

Reporting by Mandy Lai, Kathleen Ngai and Chien Mi Wong. Photos by Chien Mi Wong and Mandy Lai.

A couple of hours earlier, Olympic Square in Hong Kong Park had rung to the music of his band performing; his voice bouncing off the white columns guarding a semicircular stand. But as the sun went down on a sunny winter afternoon, the only sound echoing across the stone steps came from hidden inspects, a cool wind and dancing leaves.

It may have been an anti-climatic end of show for Yung and his indie band, 31G, but that is not unusual in Hong Kong. Yung is the vocalist for the rock band formed in 2005 by six young men from different bands. They gathered to create their own music while working regular jobs. Yung works in IT.

He was pleased just to have had the opportunity to perform.

We don’t care how much we get, seriously. We don’t care about the income. We’re doing it just for fun. For me, it’s just like a hobby.

Unenthusiastic audiences, expensive venues and online music piracy, do not appear to faze him.

“We can do things like ask friends to come and support us. Like 200 people come to watch us. In Hong Kong it’s not that easy to call out more than 100 people. Most of the time, if you get 100 people to watch, you’re cool already,” he said proudly.

A Glimpse of Sean Yung and 3IG at Sound in the Park 2011:

Article continues below the video

Solo in the corner from Vincent Du on Vimeo.

The band took part in a concert that was part of an outdoor concert series titled: Sound in the Park, featuring local musicians and bands playing six different themes in four municipal parks. Part of a taxpayer-funded arts project organised by the government’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the series provided a rare opportunity for indie bands to perform live.

“I want to introduce these excellent bands to the public,” said Yuen Chi Chung, a music critic and the curator of the series. “We seldom can enjoy outdoor performances by indie bands here while European indie musicians have plenty of outdoor platforms to present their music.”

Hong Kong is home to just a few successful musicians with indie roots. Most famous among them are the Pancakes, who won the attention of record companies along with the chance to release their own records. But success doesn’t come easily, and many indie bands in Hong Kong do not last long.

An Industry Dilemma

Yung’s casual attitude towards money is not shared by record label company owner Alok Leung who has to work out how to juggle the costs of recording demos, issuing records and renting venues.

Music Label Owner Alok Leung

People are interested in indie music only when it is free, he said.

“It’s much more convenient to download music for free from the Internet, but I believe that good music shouldn’t come at no charge.

“It contains the musician’s ideas and efforts. The audience and those who listen to the music should ask themselves whether the music really is good enough. If it is, you should at least consider doing something [to pay for it].”

The Sound in the Park indie music concert was open to all-comers at no cost.

As Yung put it: “People just walk by the park, and the music makes them come in and check out what’s happening. If they had to pay money, it would be a totally different story. In Hong Kong not many people are willing to pay money out their pockets to watch a show, especially for indie bands.”

Teenager Angel Chan was typical. She said she didn’t know of any venue where she could see independent bands perform live in Hong Kong. She just happened to be in the vicinity when the music started.

“Actually I just passed by this place,” she said.

This pattern is not confined to Hong Kong. The physical music recording market has been sluggish ever since the rise of free music online.

“Music fans would rather get digital music compositions than buy a CD,” Yuen wrote in an article published in the arts magazine, CforCulture.

“This directly led to the unwillingness of indie musicians to produce and publish their albums at their own expense. It’s not that they are not confident enough, they just are too frightened to face the piles of albums that no one would buy. ”

A Shortage of Venues

In crowded, high rent Hong Kong it’s difficult for indie musicians to find performance venues. It’s different over the border in mainland China.

“In China, indie music has so many more venues. It has a large audience also,” said Daniel Goodman, who attended the Hong Kong Park concert.

Venues in Hong Kong also take a bigger slice of revenues.

“In China the average is like 7-3. We get seven and [the venues] get three. But in Hong Kong, it’s more expensive, like 5-5. Maybe 7-3, they get seven, we get three here,” Yung said.

Sound in the Park concert in Hong Kong Park

Louise Sizer, a concert attendee from London, said Hong Kong’s indie bands suffered from a lack of exposure.

“More venues should be provided to get them out into the public eye. And certainly there should be better promotion, because a lot of these events are happening and people just don’t know about them.”

Relaxing after the concert with his wife and baby girl, keyboard player Lung Wai of the indie band  Modern Children agreed that the shortage of venues was a handicap.

Modern Children had earlier performed the group’s new composition, The Mongolia Song.

“The skies resounded with thunder. We trembled with fear. But the sun will come to you, with its mighty light, shining brightness,” the lyrics went.

The song reflects Wai’s attitude towards indie music. Despite his passion he has no choice but to face the reality of the indie world.

“In Hong Kong, we have no space to do our music,” he said. “The media seldom pays attention to us.”

Sound in the Park, featuring local musicians and bands played at six different themes in four municipal parks in Hong Kong:

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Hong Kong — Meet the Oyangs, Artists of the Afterworld. Oyang Ping Chi, (left) son of Oyang Wai Kin (right), has dragged the ancient Chinese art of creating paper offerings for the dead into the 21st century, building on a business his father established more than a half-century ago.

Burning “hell money” — Bank of Hell notes in denominations of millions of dollars — along with paper replicas of life’s luxuries — is an important part of the ritual of smoothing the journey of one’s loved ones into the hereafter.

In high-rent Hong Kong, the craft is fading away. It retains a foothold in older neighbourhoods. The Oyang family business is unusual in that it is thriving. In recent times that is largely thanks to Ping Chi’s skill at creating replicas of sought-after designer goods — from iPhones to luxury cars — all destined to be burned along with hell money banknotes.

In This Article:

ccccccc	Up in Smoke: A Chinese Tradition	Po Wah: Hong Kong’s Oldest Paper Offering Shop	Oyang Ping Chi’s Story	Environmental Concerns

But creating paper funerary objects is definitely a sunset industry. Competition from cheaper workshops over the border in China, environmental concerns about the toxic effects of burning offerings and a dilution of “traditional values” among some members of the younger generation are taking a toll.

Up in Smoke — an Age-Old Tradition

Burning paper offerings -– replicas of money and various everyday items -– to commemorate the dead has long been a Chinese tradition.The Chinese believe their dead relatives can receive and use the items in the afterworld.

Chinese people buy and burn paper offerings on important remembrance days such as Tomb Sweeping Festival, Ghost Festival, Double Ninth Festival, Chinese New Year and other traditional holidays.

But in China, no one does it better than the Hongkongers. Ancient traditions are preserved well in this financial centre.

Not having undergone communist doctrine and the rampage of the Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong people have been better able than their mainland counterparts to preserve many traditional Chinese customs. The city where “the East meets the West” is in many ways more “Chinese” than China.

Po Wah Paper Offerings — a Hong Kong Icon

Oyang Wai Kin (pictured right), Oyang Ping Chi’s father, fled to Hong Kong from neighbouring Guangdong province during the Chinese civil war in the 1940s. He started out as an apprentice in a relation’s paper offering shop.

Later he founded his own business, Po Wah Paper Offerings, which now has a history of almost half a century.

“The dragon heads and lion heads we made used to be exported to the United States.” — Oyang Wai Kin

Soundtrack in Cantonese. Click on | Captions | to view English subtitles

At the age of 73, Oyang senior still goes to work every day — but he spends much of his time overseeing the work of his son, Oyang Ping Chi.

Oyang Ping Chi’s Story:

“I sell goods for the dead,” the younger Oyang said. “You see, each family spends from a few hundred to tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars on these paper offerings. And the next day, they just burn everything up.”

“Most young people in Hong Kong are well educated,” he said. “They have bigger dreams than playing with bamboo and wrinkled papers all the time.”

But Oyang Ping Chi is dedicated to this traditional craft. And he does it the most innovative way.

When children’s scooters were a hit a few years back, Ping Chi made one using bamboo and paper. He hung the paper scooter outside the shop and within three days it was sold to a young mother who had just lost her son.

She bought the scooter without bargaining. Ping Chi’s first experiment earned him HK$300.

He went on to make more innovative paper offerings: Macintosh computers, digital cameras, Sony Aibo electronic dogs, video game machines, basketballs, and even sushi platters. Local newspapers dubbed him the “Artist of the Afterworld”.

As news spread, orders came in from both young and old customers, asking for very specific paper offerings. Fans of the local rock band Beyond ordered an electric guitar for the late lead singer Wong Ka Kui. One customer ordered a parrot for his bird-loving dead friend.

“There’s a potential market for artistic and trendy paper offerings,” said Ping Chi. He has decided to dedicate his energy and time to updating and perhaps even saving this traditional craft by combining it with modern ideas. He plans to open an online paper offering shop this year to attract more business.

On a typical day, Po Wah Paper Offerings has a daily turnover of around HK$5,000, which triples during busy seasons. …………………………………………………………………………

There are 227 registered paper offering retailer shops like this in Hong Kong, according to Hong Kong Paper Offering Workers’ Union figures. Union chairman Chen Kiang estimates that Hong Kong people spend at least HK$500 million a year on paper offerings. Kuang Jeoi, a paper offering master in Hong Kong “The minimum daily wage for a Hong Kong craftsman is $400-500. But workers in Guangdong (China) works on a monthly salary of HK$2000.” — Kuang Jeoi, a paper offering master in Hong Kong

That’s not enough in high-cost Hong Kong.  Fewer young people are interested in learning the craft of making paper offerings and families are turning to the mainland to buy the paper offerings

The Paper  Offering Workers’ Union reported that the number of paper  offering craftsmen  in Hong Kong  has dropped in the last 30 years from a few thousand in to barely a hundred. Skilled masters number fewer than 10 men. They are all over 70 years old.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

In Hong Kong, the laws changed in the 1990s.

“The government launched a series of environmental protection and fire control regulations,” said Ping Chi . “The paper offering business was seriously affected.”

The main materials of paper offerings are bamboo, plastic foam and coloured paper, which generate black smoke during combustion. Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department applied a range of rules under the Air Pollution Control Ordinance, including specific controls on dark smoke emissions and open burning.

Burning of paper offerings in public housing was banned.

Her walk is graceful; the words she sings are poetic. Although she is on a bare stage with little scenery, her voice and gestures ignite the imagination of the audience. They hold their breath and follow as she points to the imaginary green hillside, the red azalea, the thread of sweetbriar and the peony.

This is the last day of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera’s five-day performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. In the audience, Cheung Lai-chun applauds. She has watched every performance.

Cheung is not an ordinary member of the audience She not only knows every play on the stage, she is also an active promoter of this almost extinct form of Chinese opera.

The Mother of a Hundred Operas

Boasting a history of six hundred years and known as the “mother” of a hundred operas, Kunqu’s fate in modern China has been full of ups and downs. It became almost extinct in the 1940s. After a short revival in the 1950s it was neglected for about 40 years on the Chinese mainland. By 2001 there were about 800 Kunqu actors left; they called themselves the “800 martyrs”.

But Kunqu supporters in Hong Kong meanwhile became enthusiastic connoisseurs of this most refined type of Chinese theatre. They have helped to keep it alive.

The development of Kunqu in the 16th century marked the beginning of traditional Chinese theatre, from which all other forms performed today evolved. Kun refers to the Kunshan district near Suzhou where it originated. Qu means “music”. Kunqu is a synthesis of drama, opera, ballet, poetry and musical recital.

It remains the most refined and literary of all forms of Chinese theatre, but its refinement has tended to distance it from the general audience of the modern day. Peking opera, which retains many features of Kunqu opera but is much less refined and literary, begun to supersede Kunqu as the opera of the country by the middle of the 18th century. To most audiences today, the acrobatic movements in Peking Opera are much more attractive than the poetic libretto of Kunqu.

But the most devastating blow to Kunqu came between 1966 and 1976, during Mao Tse-tung’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. During that time, anything but “Mao Tse-tung thought” was considered old and obsolete, including traditional Chinese art forms. Opera, such as Kunqu, was labelled an old and bourgeois “poisonous weed” which would corrupt the masses. No training or performing was permitted. Kunqu lost both its performers and audiences on the mainland.

“Is it some local theatre from Kunming in Yunnan?”

Thirty years after the Cultural Revolution, when a TV programme asked people on the street what Kunqu was, eight out of 10 people looked puzzled and made a wild guess. “Is it some local theatre from Kunming in Yunnan?” one person asked.

Fortunately for Kunqu, Hong Kong was insulated from the Cultural Revolution, and it has people like Cheung Lai-chun. She got to know the art form in the 1980s through a Kunqu master who came to Hong Kong when there were no performances being staged on the mainland. An arts graduate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Cheung said she immediately fell in love with Kunqu. “It’s just too beautiful,” she says.

For more than 20 years, Cheung has been learning and promoting Kunqu, both on the mainland and in Hong Kong. To learn Kunqu herself, she has paid visits to the surviving masters of Kunqu in Nanjing, Hangzhou and Beijing. She calls those masters “pandas,” as they are so rare today.

But to preserve and promote Kunqu is a much more complex task.

Cheung recalled a time in the early 1990s when Hong Kong Kunqu supporters paid a visit to the Shanghai Kunqu Theatre, and the bleak scene struck them all. “No performance was scheduled at the theater because no one wanted to watch,” she said. “We had to book the whole theatre to watch a performance. To our dismay, even when we gave out free tickets and invited people to come in, no one was interested.”

“I’m so nervous because I haven’t played it for so long,” — Ji Zhenhua

As for the performers, Cheung said they were given a small salary but “no one cared about their life or death.” Many left to become utility actors for TV dramas. Those who were devoted to the art stayed, but had few opportunities to perform.

Cheung said that one time they were very surprised to see the famous actor Ji Zhenhua smoking heavily before a performance started.

“I cannot help it. I’m so nervous because I haven’t played it for so long,” Ji told them.

The Hong Kong Institute for the Promotion of Chinese Culture, where Cheung has worked as volunteer for more than 20 years, started in 1987 to record the masters’ performances to preserve Kunqu. They were worried that if this handful of masters passed away, Kunqu would be extinguished forever. They also invited Kunqu troupes to perform in Hong Kong. These Hong Kong performances eventually became routine events for Kunqu troupes.

Through the efforts of supporters all over the world, Kunqu was listed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2001. This changed the dire situation of Kunqu. But new problems arose.

The founding director of Hong Kong City University’s Chinese Civilization Centre, Professor Cheng Pei Kai, witnessed the problems in the mainland government’s rediscovering of Kunqu.

The mainland government has a special fund to rescue Kunqu, but the authorities prefer to fund new plays and often refuse to fund traditional plays, which they think are old and not creative, he said.

Even though these classical plays are examples of refined literature, their number of classical plays being performed has been reduced from over 500 to about 100 in the past 80 years.

“What they want is new plays and grand performances to show that they have achieved something in preserving the culture,” Cheng said.

While the central government harbours ambitious plans to publish a Kunqu encyclopedia and promote new plays, the Civilization Center has more modest aims.

It is trying to preserve Kunqu in what Cheng called “a common sense way.” The centre has invited surviving masters to record and explain how and why they perform in every play. “Kunqu is a performing art, not dead words in the books. We record these for the generations to come as a reference,” Cheng said.

Renowned Kunqu actress Liang Guyin was invited to Hong Kong three times in 2009. That inspired her to relocate to Hong Kong where she will lecture about Kunqu and perform her art over the next two months. “Hong Kong supporters have been making a tremendous contribution to Kunqu,” she said.

View extracts from their unique show on Tuesday, April 13 –  plus interviews with the actors — and view the audience’s response.