Posted on 07/07/2009 9:20:44 PM PDT by Schnucki
IN a city where people daily take to the streets to shout and wave placards about everything from food scares to tax hikes, one enterprising group has decided to voice their frustrations in song.
The Hong Kong Complaints Choir has taken its cue from the English city of Birmingham, where the first complaints choir was launched by Finnish artists Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and Tellervo Kalleinen.
The movement has since spread to more than 20 cities, including Hamburg, St. Petersburg, New York, Chicago and Singapore.
Hong Kong organisers say their tuneful tirades, performed by up to 40 choristers at a time, add a twist to Hong Kong's many and varied ways of public complaint.
"We want to try and use a different way to lash out at current affairs. We are using a better manner to grumble," said Thompson Tong, a 25-year-old photographer and one of the organisers of the choir.
Every day it seems that a demonstration of some sort is taking place in this southern Chinese city of seven million, where unlike in the rest of China, people enjoy freedom of speech and take their rights seriously.
Mr Tong and his fellow The Hong Kong organisers set up an exhibition last summer to explain to the public what they were doing and to start collecting complaints. They also set up a website, where people could post their pet peeves.
So far more than 700 complaints have been submitted by local citizens, Mr Tong said.
The group has enlisted a local lyricist and composer and sets to work composing five-minute songs, such as the one which opens with the line: "Why do we never stop having to work? Why are our bosses always jerks?"
The group's inaugural performance took place ahead of the huge annual July 1 demonstration, when tens of
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
“This sounds like something for FR to take up. DFU can write some of the songs. ;)”
That’s a great suggestion. The guy who writes songs for Rush could also do songs. Even stinking liberals get entranced by songs; they might like the song before they realize what the song is saying! Dy no mite!
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