leslie cheung

I have been thinking about and re-evaluating a lot of things about my childhood - not for any particular reason, but it's fucking weird to see people being nostalgic about the 90s. Anyway, part of that is also just kind of revisting the pop culture world I lived in at the time, which was Cantopop and anime for the most part. 

Leslie Cheung lived as an openly gay man in Hong Kong is the nineties. It was hugely controversial at the time, and also he committed suicide in 2003. My friend told me that he basically came out in a concert and it was a huge deal. Also a huge deal was his experimentation with gender and fashion, which got him insulted a lot. None of this really entered my consciousness as a kid - he was just an actor I really liked who was in a bunch of funny movies. My sisters claimed they preferred his acting to his singing, and that his singing voice wasn't that good. But I dunno, sounds pretty good to me:

This has a long intro, in which he dedicates the song "Moon Represents My Heart" to his mom and his boyfriend, "the two people closest to my heart".

"張國榮跨越97演唱會-月亮代表我的心" (Watch on YouTube)

Controversial song, "Red", in which he wears red heels for most of the song and dances sultrily with a male partner.

"紅-跨越97演唱會 (官方完整版LIVE)" (Watch on YouTube)

hk general strike

•  Over 100 flights canceled. Train service canceled/delayed.
• Rallies across the city.
• The yuan plunged beyond 7/dollar for the first time since 2008 in response to Trump's tariff threat.