Love in Hong Kong | |
Type: | Studio album |
Artist: | Teresa Teng |
Cover: | Love in Hong Kong.jpg |
Released: | December 19, 1977 |
Recorded: | 1977 |
Language: | Mandarin |
Length: | 45:05 |
Label: |
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Prev Title: | Love Songs of Island, Vol. 3: Light Rain |
Prev Year: | 1977 |
Next Title: | Love Songs of Island, Vol. 5 |
Next Year: | 1978 |
Love in Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港之戀; pinyin: Xiānggǎng zhī liàn), also titled Love Songs of Island, Vol. 4: Love in Hong Kong, is a Mandarin studio album recorded by Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng. It was released via Polydor Records on December 19, 1977. The album spawned the single "The Moon Represents My Heart", which went on to become a Mandopop classic and Teng's most recognizable work internationally.
Love in Hong Kong was released through Polydor Records on December 19, 1977. The release under Kolin Records was titled Love Songs of Island, Vol. 4: Love in Hong Kong (Chinese: 島國之情歌第四集:香港之戀), serving as the fourth record for her "Love Songs of an Island" album series.[1] The album spawned the single "The Moon Represents My Heart" (月亮代表我的心), a cover of Taiwanese singer Chen Fen-lan's 1973 song of the same name. It was written by Sun Yi and composed by Weng Cheng-hsi.[2]
Love in Hong Kong experienced commercial success upon its release; it received a platinum certification from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Hong Kong (IFPIHK) in 1979.[3] At the 1978 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards held in Hong Kong, the ceremony's first edition, "Love in a Small Village" was one of the Top 10 Songs Award winners.[4]
Teng's music began to spread rapidly across mainland China in 1978, when the country instituted the open door policy that allowed gangtai cultural products to enter its borders.[5] Professor of East Asian Studies Nimrod Baranovitch wrote that "'The Moon Represents My Heart' was the antithesis of the songs that people on the mainland had been listening to and singing in the previous thirty years or so". Its lyrics were centered around love and romance, "a theme that had almost disappeared from the popular music scene on the mainland after 1949 because of its association with 'decadent' 'bourgeois individualism.'" Upon the gradual opening of China's music market to gangtai artists following the Cultural Revolution, Baranovitch noted that many of the most famous songs were those sung by Teng.[6]