Tokyo Dreaming: The Hidden Canto-pop Gem by Hong Kong's Filipina Icon

It is impossible to untangle the history of Hong Kong pop music from its deep Filipino roots. For younger listeners, singers like Janice Vidal (衛蘭) and AGA (江海迦) are the obvious reference points. But to find the original trailblazers of Canto-pop with Filipino backgrounds, you have to look back to Teresa Carpio (杜麗莎) and the somewhat lesser-known but equally formidable Rowena Ellen Cortes (露雲娜).

Born in 1956 and raised in musical households, both women shared remarkably parallel trajectories. Surrounded by working musicians from birth, they were singing before they could fully grasp language. Both won talent contests at startlingly young ages – six for Carpio, and just five for Cortes. By age six, Cortes had already released her debut single, Very Very, through EMI.

Before Canto-pop took hold in the 1970s, the local market was dominated by English-language covers. Both singers cut their teeth in this scene. Consequently, even Cortes’s two major Cantonese albums relied heavily on localised adaptations rather than original material. Today, she is largely remembered through Cass Pang’s acclaimed rendition of her track 情像外衣 – fittingly, a cover itself. Ironically, her most prominent original recording arrived decades later as a guest vocalist on Eason Chan’s hit “He Says She Says (講男講女).”

Before the Cantonese boom fully materialised, both women also sought to break into the Japanese market. Cortes released a handful of Japanese singles and the 1977 album Oh, My Love. Carpio’s ties to Japan, however, ran even deeper. Having spent part of her teens there, she made history in 1971. At just 14 or 15, she became the first Hong Kong singer to release a Japanese single with 混血児マリー, swiftly followed by ふたりはいつも that same year.

Carpio eventually turned her success with English covers and a regular television presence into a comfortable career, before taking a hiatus to marry, move to the US, and have a daughter. By the time she returned to Hong Kong in the early 1980s, the musical landscape had shifted. Canto-pop was exploding, and she transitioned her sound to meet the moment. Her 1981 self-titled Cantonese debut featured what would become one of her most beloved tracks: 眉頭不再猛皺, a cover of the Japanese hit Sukiyaki.

Yet, her Cantonese solo career struggled to sustain its momentum. In 1983, she self-funded a concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum. While it cemented her legacy as the first female singer to perform at the prestigious venue, the show suffered from poor ticket sales. The resulting financial strain left her with heavy debt and ultimately played a part in her divorce.

She could have retreated, but she didn't, true to the title of her 1985 comeback album, No Reason to Give Up (何必放棄). A year later, in 1986, she returned to her Japanese roots to create a brilliant record: Tokyo Dreaming. Produced in Japan by Takeshi Kobayashi, the English-language album was released alongside a Cantonese counterpart (featuring a different track order) simply titled 杜麗莎 Teresa Carpio. It was a triumph of sophisticated, soulfully layered pop. Brimming with funk, soul, and jazz, it evoked the very best of Japanese City Pop while mirroring the atmospheric art-rock of Western acts like Roxy Music. It proved, undeniably, that Carpio was ahead of her time.

Unfortunately, being ahead of the curve often means being overlooked. Despite being one of the finest Cantonese albums ever produced, it was largely ignored by the local public and remains a hidden gem. But its industry footprint was massive – it is believed that Tokyo Dreaming inspired producer Clarence Hui to craft Sandy Lam's iconic, R&B-infused City Rhythm(都市觸覺) series.

So why did Carpio’s Cantonese output struggle to resonate with the mainstream? The answer likely lies in her mixed heritage. During the 1980s, Hong Kong was experiencing exponential economic growth and a post-colonial cultural awakening. After decades of a colonial hierarchy that glorified English music and dismissed Cantonese culture as low-brow, the public was desperately craving local, homegrown idols they could see themselves in. Carpio, with her cosmopolitan background and mixed ethnicity, registered as an outsider. She was trying to navigate a Canto-pop industry that was rapidly, and somewhat exclusively, defining its own local identity.

This sense of "otherness" bled directly into her screen career, too. In the few film and television roles she landed, she was predictably typecast as a mean-spirited woman, an aloof posh lady, or a foreigner – most memorably as the strict nun in the comedy Happy Ghost (開心鬼).

Ultimately, these career hurdles reflected a broader societal reality. Everyday racism has long been normalised in Hong Kong, and bias against Southeast Asian communities has often been brazen. Much of this prejudice stems from the demographic's historical association with lower incomes and the city's heavy reliance on migrant domestic labour. Because Filipina women have historically made up the majority of this workforce, they are often casually referred to by derogatory slang terms such as 賓妹 (literally "'Pino women") or 賓賓 (pronounced "bun bun," a diminutive for Filipina).

This class-based bias is further compounded by entrenched colourism; in a culture that has traditionally equated pale skin with beauty, it was once entirely commonplace to hurl these derogatory terms at local girls with darker complexions as an insult.

To understand how Hong Kong generally views Southeast Asia, you only need to look at Marianna (Cantonese title: 賓妹) – a 1982 film about a "deranged" tribe in the rural Philippines.

Fortunately, the cultural landscape began to shift in the 2000s. A new generation of Hong Kong musicians with Filipino heritage has found a much warmer reception in the industry. Pop stars like Janice Vidal and AGA have reached the mainstream heights that Carpio and Cortes never quite managed to achieve, while artists like rapper Alconaba Wilfredo Jr have carved out solid success in the local hip-hop scene. While there is still progress to be made, this modern wave of success may suggest that Hong Kong is slowly becoming a more open society, finally learning to embrace the diverse voices that have always helped shape its musical identity.

Reference:

Fond/Sound: Teresa Carpio (杜麗莎): 心己许 (Tokyo Dreaming) (1986)