---
id: "post-36-en"
title: "When Words Fail, Sing a Song"
type: "review"
authors: ["Huang Langui"]
publicationDate: "Fri Aug 21 2026 21:05:59 GMT+0800 (Hong Kong Standard Time)"
publisher: "Taipei Fringe Festival"
originalUrl: "https://tpac.org.taipei/festival-fringe/2026/comment-whole_people/1600"
tags: []
relatedEvents: ["Karaoke"]
liveUrl: "https://www.rooftopproductions.hk/en/review/karaoke-tff-1600"
---

# When Words Fail, Sing a Song
**The Resonant Interweaving of Micro-Personal History and Hong Kong’s Collective Memory**


**Post Details:**
- **Type:** review
- **Author(s):** Huang Langui
- **Published:** 21 Aug 2026
- **Publisher:** Taipei Fringe Festival
- **Original Source:** [Link](https://tpac.org.taipei/festival-fringe/2026/comment-whole_people/1600)
- **Related Events:** Karaoke


---

## Content
A truly brilliant solo performance. Creator and performer Michelle Li shares her personal coming-of-age journey, taking the audience along to relive nearly forty years of crucial collective memories of Hong Kong society.

The personal history focuses on her emotional bonds with her mother and biological father across different stages of life, as well as her firsthand experience as a member of the children's choir performing at the farewell ceremony before the 1997 handover. Photographs, documents, and documentary footage are utilized to support and enrich the visual experience. Meanwhile, the collective memory of Hong Kong society is woven through her personal growth, touching upon housing policies, the Governor's New Year addresses, and the transfer of sovereignty. Interspersed with numerous Cantopop golden hits from different eras, the play guides the audience to recall how daily entertainment shifted from bustling open karaoke lounges to private K-rooms (KTV booths), and from the Capital Artists era to the Emperor Entertainment Group era—making space even for an appearance of the classic Cantonese opera excerpt The Reunion of Sword and Hairpin (劍合釵圓).

Thus, amidst this visual and auditory feast, while feeling the personal growth story she shares, as a Taiwanese audience member, I was simultaneously picking up and examining my own resonance with Hong Kong's collective memory. For example, hearing Faye Wong's Dream Lover (夢中人) playing before the show started, my mind went straight to Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express rather than the Irish band The Cranberries. When she asked which character from Young and Dangerous everyone liked best, Anthony Wong’s character "Tai Fei" popped into my head. Watching the documentary footage of the children's choir at the handover ceremony, I felt as if Britain had committed the crime of malicious abandonment, making me want to scream: What kind of future did you promise the children of that time?

The promises made by Prince Charles to the people of Hong Kong during the handover ceremony parallel the words her biological father spoke to his daughter after her parents divorced. Although one can understand that there are unavoidable circumstances in life, both sound heart-wrenching to hear. The progression from her father suffering from Alzheimer's disease to deep reflections on human long-term and short-term memory—what is remembered, what is forgotten, and whether memories are factual or constructed—ties directly back to a central question: What exactly is the collective memory of Hong Kong (and its people)? What should be remembered forever? And what would we rather—or have no choice but to—forget?

It is hard to answer, or perhaps too difficult to say out loud. So, let’s just sing a song.

*Automatically translated from the original Chinese.*




*Originally published in:  Taipei Fringe Festival. We create a mirrored version of reviews and articles about our shows for archival purposes, so that we can retain a version if the original disappears. We always link to the original publisher and credit the author. However, if you are the owner of this material and you would like us to remove it, please get in touch.*