Bai Feng (白鳳)

“FANS CALL HER ‘CANTONESE NIGHTINGALE’ – Pak Fong, pretty 22-year-old Cantonese singer from Hongkong, literally leads a double life — and likes it. By day, a quiet-mannered, home-loving girl who obviously prefers books and domestic chores to ‘gadding about town,’ she is, by night, the toast of Singapore’s singing world. And, as such, she has numerous admirers who write in from all parts of Malaya asking her to sing their favourite songs at the Great World’s Paramount Night Club. ‘Obviously it’s impossible to satisfy them all. But I do try to meet as many she requests as I can each night,’ she declared. What do they ask for most? ‘Well such popular numbers as “Eh Pien Cher Chin” and “Yin Kwai Yen May Kwai.”’ Pak Fong came to Malaya years ago with her parents. Even at that early age, she was filled with one desire — to become a singer some day. It took her 10 more years to realise that wish. Beginning in humble fashion she has now reached the top and claims star billing wherever she appears. Her personal tours have taken her to all the key towns of the Federation. Singing Cantonese songs, for which there is an ever-growing demand, she has come to be known as the ‘Cantonese Nightingale’ to fans. Not so long ago, Radio Malaya featured her in a series of weekly programmes, each with a 15-minute spot. A recording company made three discs of numbers done by her, and she is expected to make five more shortly before she returns to Hongkong in two months’ time. In conjunction with her singing, Pak Fong has acquired some stage experience, and has a yen for dramatic parts. ‘I have been acting off and on for the past three years,’ she confided, ‘and I like it. Maybe some day I may get a chance of going in for it more seriously.’ Pak Fong has inherited her talents from her mother — Yen Hong — who was at one time famous in Singapore as a singing and stage star herself. Her grandmother too made a name in this line in Canton many years ago… A ‘home-bird,’ Pak Fong spends most of her time indoors, studying music and reading books and magazines. ‘I haven’t the time or the inclination to rush around town as other girls do,’ she said. ‘My interest in my work is all I live for…’” [Sunday Standard, April 29, 1951, 12]