Albert Leung Wai Man (, born 7 December 1961), better known by his pen name Lin Xi (), is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

lyricist and writer. A prominent figure in

Cantopop Cantopop (a contraction of "Cantonese pop music") is a genre of pop music sung in Cantonese. Cantopop is also used to refer to the cultural context of its production and consumption. The genre began in the 1970s and became associated with Hon ...

and

Mandopop Mandopop or Mandapop refers to Mandarin popular music. The genre has its origin in the jazz-influenced popular music of 1930s Shanghai known as Shidaiqu; later influences came from Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Taiwan's Hokkien pop ...

, he has written lyrics for nearly all major Hong Kong singers, with notable collaborations with

Leslie Cheung Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing (born Cheung Fat-chung; 12 September 1956 – 1 April 2003) was a Hong Kong singer and actor. One of the most influential cultural icons in the Sinophone, Sinophone world, Cheung was known for his debonair demeanor, flamb ...

Faye Wong Faye Wong ( zh, 王菲; pinyin: ''Wáng Fēi''; born 8 August 1969) is a Chinese singer-songwriter and actress. Early in her career, she briefly used the stage name Shirley Wong (). Born in Beijing, she moved to British Hong Kong at the age o ...

Eason Chan Eason Chan Yick-shun ( zh, s=陈奕迅, t=陳奕迅, first=t, p=Chén Yìxùn; born 27 July 1974) is a Hong Kong singer and actor. He is one of the most popular and influential singers in both Cantopop and Mandopop. Besides holding the record ...

, and

Miriam Yeung Miriam Yeung Chin-wah (born 3 February 1974) is a Hong Kong singer and actress. As of 2020, she has released more than 35 albums and has starred in more than 40 films. In 2012, Yeung won the Award for Best Actress at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awar ...

. From 1995 to 2003, he won the Lyricist of the Year award at the Ultimate Song Chart Awards for nine consecutive years, making him the lyricist with the longest winning streak for this accolade. He went on to win the same award again for four consecutive years from 2006 to 2009. He also won the

Golden Melody Award The Golden Melody Awards (), commonly abbreviated as GMA, is an honor awarded by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture to recognize outstanding achievement in the Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Formosan-languages popular and traditional music in ...

for Best Lyricist twice in 1999 and 2010. In 2009, he was honored with the

Golden Needle Award Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards () is one of the main C-pop music award in Hong Kong. The award is sponsored by RTHK. Beginning in 1978, it is the oldest major award in Hong Kong, even earlier than the Jade Solid Gold Awards. The ceremony is ...

, the highest distinction in the Hong Kong music industry. After attending a rally against Hong Kong's

moral and national education Moral and national education (MNE), initially known as Moral and civic education (MCE), was a school curriculum proposed by the Education Bureau of Hong Kong in 2012. The subject was controversial for its stance on the Chinese Communist Party ...

plan in 2012, Leung became active in social movements. Since 2017, he has been blacklisted in mainland China for his support for the democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Education

Leung attended all-boy secondary schools in

Kowloon Kowloon () is one of the areas of Hong Kong, three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is an urban area comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a populat ...

Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) College Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) College () is a Catholic public, Anglo-Chinese boys' secondary school in Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The school is established by the Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic religious teaching order in 1969.In recent yea ...

and

La Salle College La Salle College (LSC; zh, t=喇沙書院, j=laa3 saa1 syu1 jyun2) is a boys' secondary school located in Kowloon City District, Hong Kong. It was established in 1932 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a Catholic re ...

. He received a

bachelor of arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

with a major in

translation studies Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and localization. As an interdiscipline, translation studies borrows much from the vari ...

from the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

in 1984.

Career

Leung has been a lyricist since 1985. His pen name, 林夕, comes from the last name of lyricist Richard Lam and the simplified Chinese character (meaning "dream"). He has written over 4,000 song lyrics and is known for his ability to compose lyrics quickly. On

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB; zh, t=電視廣播有限公司) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong. The company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Canton ...

's show '' Be My Guest'', he admitted that his fastest record for writing the complete lyrics to a song is 45 minutes. He has also published over ten books, including his essays and poems. He composed the lyrics for one of the theme songs of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, "

Beijing Welcomes You ''Beijing Welcomes You'' () is a feature song for the 100-day countdown to the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing, Beijing, China. The song comprises one hundred famous artists and entertainers from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore ...

", performed by a panoply of popular Chinese singers. In 2014, he described the experience as a "blemish" of his life for serving as an official mouthpiece. After the 2014

Umbrella Movement The Umbrella Movement () was a political movement that emerged during the 2014 Hong Kong protests. Its name arose from the use of umbrellas as a tool for nonviolent resistance, passive resistance to the Hong Kong Police Force's use of pepper ...

, he relocated to Taiwan and became a citizen in 2021. Since 2017, he has been blacklisted in mainland China and criticized by state media for his support for the Hong Kong democracy movement. In November 2019, over thousands of songs written by him were taken down from online music stores, some of which were restored later.

Personal life

Leung was raised a Christian but converted to Buddhism, while he also has an interest in Taoism, especially ''

Tao Te Ching The ''Tao Te Ching'' () or ''Laozi'' is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship and date of composition and compilation are debated. The oldest excavated por ...

''. He often incorporates Buddhist and Taoist ideas into his lyrics. He came out as gay in 2006 in an interview with his friend

Johnnie To Johnnie To Kei-fung (born 22 April 1955) is a Hong Kong filmmaker. Popular in his native Hong Kong, To has also found acclaim overseas. Intensely prolific, To has made films in a variety of genres, though in the West he is best known for his H ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lin, Xi 1961 births Alumni of the University of Hong Kong Alumni of St. John's College, University of Hong Kong Cantopop artists Faye Wong Hong Kong Buddhists Hong Kong lyricists Hong Kong writers Hong Kong emigrants to Taiwan Naturalized citizens of Taiwan Living people