God said that if there is light, then there is light, in those days, there were no neon lights, but it is still quite recent that human beings know how to use kerosene to light up the outdoor areas of cities – it is only when western cities entered the modernization era in the early 19th century that kerosene lamps appeared one after another in the streets, bridges, arcades, and so on.
But when it comes to the color science of cities, we still have to wait for another century. In 1898, scientists discovered the rare gas neon, which is colorless and tasteless, but when injected into a vacuum tube, it can emit red light when it is electrified; neon light has a beautiful name in Chinese, called “霓虹灯(Ni Hong Deng)”.
Because of the intense color, in bad weather can still reflect, neon lights soon in the city, such as used in the sea, land and air guidance, but more potential, but also in the commercial symbols above the battlefield.
In the 1910s, neon was first used in Parisian barbershops and opera houses. In the 1920s, neon was introduced to Los Angeles in the United States, and then expanded nationwide, giving rise to the neon landscapes of Times Square and Las Vegas in the 1930s and 1940s.
Neon was first introduced in the 1930s in the magical cities of Tokyo and Shanghai, and later in the 1950s in Hong Kong. The Western technology was combined with the Oriental artwork of Chinese characters in squares, and neon became the dress for the city’s night.
The architectural and technological history of neon is a long story that needs to be written in a separate article. This article mainly focuses on the cultural imagery of neon, wandering between various art texts and urban landscapes.
The Color Palette of Light - Neon Lights
If the night of a city is imagined as a palette of light, and if this palette of light is imagined as a woman’s evening make-up, then all the lights are the evening foundation of the city’s face cream, the dim lights are the light shadows of the glamorous and the colorful neon is the rich and glittering, as if the city has to go to a boisterous feast every night.
The prosperity of the feast is supported by business, neon signs in the city, distributed in every corner of the city that can be consumed, such evening make-up of my city Phi Gua more than half a century, in the world of the many cities, but also almost become a city of wonders.
Because of the neon sign’s stimulation, it reflects the prosperity of the city’s people’s desire, or it itself is a desire to seduce the front.
Hong Kong’s neon lights cover a wide range of industries – pharmacies, banks, restaurants, eateries, amusement game centers, money changers, and so on – but the imagery of neon, or its symbolic meaning, is often particularly distinctive. Light always evokes prosperity, especially in the darkness of the night, when nocturnal animals emerge from their burrows, but without neon’s illumination, the city would not be a stage at night.
Because of the sensual stimulation of the neon sign, the prosperity it reflects always flows with the desire of the city people, or it is itself a front for the seduction of desire.
Capitalist society is based on the consumer desire of urbanites, and “city that never sleeps” and “city of desire” have become synonymous.
Other lights are not allowed, but neon alone. It is in this intersection of sparkle and desire that the colorful neon of New York’s Times Square becomes the perfect hangout for the nameless and lonely (Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver), and it is in this neon-created urban fantasy that neon can stab into the eyes like a blade – from Simon & Garfunkel’s classic Sound of Silence: “The flash of neon pierces my eyes! The flash of neon pierces my eyes / Breaks through the night sky / Touches the sound of silence ……”
This is a feeling that we can all relate to, as the city’s lights have become a fluid visual atmosphere, a kind of urban sensibility; the city’s mentality and materiality are always being constructed on top of each other.
Literary Hotel, City of Desire
There is always an undercurrent of desire in the glamor of neon, in the decadence and loneliness of neon, and such imagery appears in local literature, movies, and songs, and has been appropriated, focused, and enlarged, and as far as I know, there are not a few notable examples of this.
In literature, Eileen Chang’s “Love in a Fallen City” wrote about the first sight of Hong Kong that Bai Liushu saw when she docked at the shore of a boat, and she wrote in detail about the clashing colors of the advertisement signboards reflected in the green and oily seawater, but at that time, neon signboards were not yet popular, and neon shadows and lights were not yet seen in the text; it was only in the 1950s when Cao Juren’s novel “The Hotel” was written that the neon signboards made a grand debut.
In the opening chapter of the novel, a young man, Teng Zhijie, who came to Hong Kong with his father after the change of power in China in 1949, met Huang Mingzhong, who had also fled to Hong Kong to become a dancer, at the barber shop where he worked as a shoeshine man, and the scene is described in this way: “He walked out of the side door of the M Barber Shop, and looked up, and there, on the signboard standing on end, was the neon sign of the ‘Tsing Hua Dance Hall’ across the doorway.
I have no way to trace the origin of neon signboards as a unique image in Hong Kong literature, but if neon signboards emerged as an imported industrial product in Hong Kong in the 1950s, Hotel can be considered as the earliest one.
In the novel, the hotel is located on Nathan Road in Kowloon, which has always been a neon stronghold, but other districts also have their share of neon signs.
This reminds me of the classic novel The Drunkard by Lau Yee-shining, in which the opening chapter of the novel describes a scholarly drunkard who goes to a finger ballroom to buy a drink, and strikes up a conversation with a barmaid, with this description: “The hunter may not always be brave; especially in the neon jungle, where the innocence of the swing has become a precious commodity”.
The intoxication of neon has spilled over into the pen of the literati.
World of Light and Shadow, Aesthetic Setting
As for the world of light and shadow, neon lights itself are a common object in the streets, so it is conceivable that all movies set in the streets can easily incorporate neon signs into them.
However, for those movies that intentionally use neon signs as an aesthetic feature of the city’s setting, many commentators have talked about Wong Kar-wai (e.g. “Carmen of Mongkok,” “Forest of Chongqing,” “Fallen Angels,” and so on).
I think the most outstanding movie (in terms of intention and image management) is the 1986 movie “I’m a Fool”, written and directed by Ko Chi-sum. The movie tells the story of a pair of secondary school classmates, a rich girl named Luo Mei-wei and a troubled girl named Li Li-zhen, who live in a housing estate, and meet Jacky Cheung, who has returned to Hong Kong from Canada for vacation, and Michael Wong, who is a motorcycle racer, respectively.
In a scene of intimacy between Li Li-zhen and Michael Wong, the backdrop of a large neon red TDK sign (with two small blue banners at the top) is deliberately used as a backdrop for the rooftop’s first-time lovers, who are having fun on the dark corner, and the fishbone antennae.
The whole scene, from the establishing shot to the close-up to the neon lights going out, lasts for more than two minutes, contrasting with the soft evening light of the fountain in Chater Garden where Lo Mei Mei and Jacky Cheung are dating. Neon (especially the color red) is used as a stage light and set for the wild desire in the movie.
Neon lights (especially the color red) are used in the film as a stage light and set for the wild desires of the city.
Legend of the City, Song of the Night
As for Cantonese pop songs, there are many that incorporate the word “neon”, and there are many popular ones, such as Jacky Cheung’s “Love for Each Other”: “Every light / Fade away / Busy busy city / Eventually turns quiet / Neon lights spread the light of the day / Stopping by the rest of the day”.
But what is so popular is not the neon in the lyrics, but rather Jacky Cheung’s love song itself. Neon” in lyrics is mostly just a light touch, from old favorites like Hacken Lee’s “Silky Rainline” and Derek To’s “Shadow Dance” in the 1980s to newer ones like Hung Cheuk Lap’s “One Night in the City” in 2011, all of which are about neon, or using neon as an embellishment for love.
The one that closely links neon with urban imagery that I can still remember is Xu Meijing’s “Fallen City”: “Legend has it that the tears of the infatuated will fall to the city / When the neon goes out, the world grows cold / The fireworks will give up and the singing will stop / The end of the story is even more touching ……”.
On the surface, it seems to be a love song, but the lyrics of Wong Wai Man’s song shine with the lights of the city, which is indeed “the floating world in full bloom”. It’s like “the flashy world is the setting for the breakup”, and even the brightest neon rainbow has to go out, even the most beautiful song has to end, so it’s hard to tell whether it’s love or the fate of a city in the end of a story like this, based on the meaning of the song.
Another even more profound song that belongs to my formative years is “Starry Night” by Damien. The lyrics begin with neon: “The neon lights up the night / lighting up the city / hesitating on the road / just wanting to find a new direction at this midnight”, and the city’s lights of different textures (parks, seafront lights, street lamps, traffic lights, etc.) flash before our eyes along with the speeding of a speeding car.
The final lines, “Please take a look at this shining city / and then run / in your heart of hearts, I’m afraid that this shining city / is shining here,” are like a mirror of the city; Chen Shaoqi’s lyrics are a judgment on Hong Kong’s uncertainty in the transitional period.
In addition to the vocals, it is worth mentioning the video for the 1987 song “Tat Ming’s School”, in which Wong Yiu-ming and Lau Yee-tat, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, travel in cars and on the street, capturing neon street scenes in many cities, especially the neon-drenched section of Nathan Road.
“Neon lights” in the lyrics is mostly just a little bit light ……
A vanishing place, a place of transition
The peaks of prosperity are in decline, like the ghostly ruins Benjamin saw amid a thriving capitalist society.
Most of the neon signboards are now aged, like the Koon Yin Chuang, herbal tea store, Golden Deer Thread Shirt, pawn shop, old steak house, western restaurant, and nightclub, all of them are dusty and weather-beaten.
The lustful neon signs in Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, remind us of the days when sailors disembarked at Suzie Wong’s. The youthful figures of the past are now half-aged, but fortunately, their charm still exists. Some of the neon signs are in disrepair and have broken a stroke or two or the initials of a square, sandwiched between the urban jungle of light and shadows, unexpectedly giving rise to a sense of humor and decadence.
Some of the neon signs have already died, such as the iconic Yue Hwa Chinese Goods on Nathan Road, which has long since disappeared. Some stores have both neon lights and LED signs, a space where the transition of time is taking place at the same time.
In some cases, there is a split between the old and the new, such as McDonald’s in the middle of the city, where the old store still uses neon signage in red and yellow tones, while the new store uses all yellow and white spotlight signage.
After a long period of prosperity, glitter, decadence, loneliness, and desire, neon has now slipped into the midst of disappearance, unexpectedly giving rise to nostalgia and loss.
But it is too early to say that Hong Kong’s neon has lost its luster, as there are still plenty of bright neon signs on the streets.
Disappearance is a kind of transition, fading is a long time coming. If Neon Light has completed its historical mission, the end of the day will not suddenly come one day.
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