Annotation

First published in Guangzhou before moving to Hong Kong, Lingsing was a long-running weekly that survived through many years of great changes, portraying itself as a ‘never-falling magazine of opera and movie news from the South of the country’. Its focus was entertainment, with a strong focus on Cantonese opera and cinema, but also with frequent updates and reports about film stars and opera stars from Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and on occasion comic strips. After a hiatus due to the second world war, it resumed publication in Hong Kong in 1946 with special pages devoted to Hollywood and drama, introducing stars such as Cary Grant and Betty Grable to local readers. Such pieces were usually written by anonymous reporters, but known contributors included Wong Siu Man (Huang Sumin), Lingsing’s editor, and Wong Fa Chit (Huang Huajie), as well as various well-known actors, directors and script-writers of the time, many of whom gave accounts of their personal histories and experiences as creative workers. Overall, Lingsing is an important resource for understanding the development of cinema in Southern China.