In densely populated Hong Kong with notoriously high rents, musicians are used to playing cramped stages, but few venues are quite as pokey — or unorthodox — as the Yuen Hing Lung (源興隆麵家) noodle shop.
On a recent weekday night a jazz band was in full swing inside the 91m2 restaurant, perched on cola crates and using dining tables as music stands. The double bass player was squeezed into the space where the noodles are usually bubbling away.
There were no live spectators. Hong Kong has placed strict social distancing limits to control the COVID-19 pandemic and — like most forms of entertainment — live music has been decimated.
Photo: AFP
So instead, the musicians inside the 47-year-old noodle restaurant streamed their gig online, asking for donations in return from the few hundred who logged in.
The get-together was the brainchild of double bassist Justin Siu (蕭偉中), who invites various fellow jazz musicians for a gig at the restaurant once every two months.
They have all seen their work evaporate over the last year.
“We played party music, cocktail music, wedding music and now all of that is gone,” Siu said.
“They won’t have the budget to hire us for a while,” he added, speaking of his usual clients.
Shop owner Paul So (蘇汕都) said that he knew musicians were struggling, even more than restaurants, which have had to weather reduced hours and multiple lockdowns.
“I don’t know much about music at all, but I love listening to it,” So said.
“What I do is simply to offer him the venue and see if it gives him any sparks of creation,” the 61-year-old said, adding that Siu is allowed to use the shop for free on the rare days that So takes off.
Unlike the high-end hotels and jazz bars where he used to perform, Siu said that Yuen Hing Lung has a distinctly traditional vibe.
Most of its decor is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s.
Livestreaming donations bring in a fraction of real paid gigs, but Siu said that he is willing to take whatever he can right now.
“We hope that at some point, it will become mutually beneficial,” Siu said.
“Ultimately I want to make livestreaming something that can support Hong Kong artists,” he said.
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