Abacus | While Hong Kong gets the chills and they’re multiplying, the Musicians Union is staying alive
- With Omicron spreading in Hong Kong, social distancing restrictions have plunged the music and F&B industries into crisis
- The city’s musicians are counting on the Hong Kong Musicians Union to ‘shape up’ so they can get financial relief from the government
P is a professional vocalist in Hong Kong, and a single mother raising her two daughters in the most expensive city in the world.
Like all musicians, P, who asked that her real name not be used, was hit hard at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. With the closure of venues and a complete loss of income, she could no longer send her girls to school, or afford the rent on her flat, and had to ask friends to let her sleep on the sofa.
Babe Tree, a songwriter, performance artist and close friend of P, recalls the low point in P’s career – washing dishes to make ends meet.
“Who wants to be washing dishes, dealing with difficult diners, and being scolded by a restaurant boss when you are living in Hong Kong as a highly-skilled professional worker?”, Tree told me.
According to Tree, P relied on events and private parties to support her family.
“With that gone, she could not even afford a HK$6,000 (US$770) deposit on a small room”, she said.
P was one of the “lucky ones” – with Hong Kong permanent residency, she found work in a kitchen. But her luck only lasted for a while, until a typhoon ripped the roof off the family home back in the Philippines. As the saying goes: when it rains, it pours.
