Airwave novels are stories told over

radio broadcast Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

s. It is a term mostly used within

Hong Kong culture The culture of Hong Kong is primarily a mix of Chinese and Western influences, stemming from Lingnan Cantonese roots and later fusing with British culture due to British colonialism (Jyutping: ; Traditional Chinese: 粵英薈萃). As an interna ...

. The stories can be anywhere from 15 minutes to hours long.

History

The first radio station to offer airwave novel entertainment in Hong Kong was

Radio Rediffusion Rediffusion Television (RTV) was the first television station in Hong Kong, making it both the first British colony and the first predominantly ethnically Chinese city to have television.Kitley, Philip. 003(2003). Television, Regulation and C ...

Li Ngaw Li Man-King (; 16 February 1922 – 5 May 2021) known by his nickname of Li Ngaw (李我) or Lee Ngo was the pioneer of airwave novel radio broadcasting in Hong Kong. Father: li,dit sai( 李秩西）， also called li, kwong( 李光） Mother: y ...

is generally considered the pioneer of the Chinese story broadcast format.Evans, Grant. Tam, Maria.

997 Year 997 (Roman numerals, CMXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * 1 February: Empress Teishi gives birth to Princess Shushi - she is the first ...

(1997). Hong Kong: the anthropology of a Chinese metropolis. Though he did not begin the art in Hong Kong as he was already doing the story broadcasts in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.lcsd.gov.hk
/ref> The art form was popular in Hong Kong during the

1950s The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the "Fifties" or the " '50s") (among other variants) was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959. Throughout the decade, the world continued its re ...

. The term ''"Airwave novel"'' was first suggested by director Yam Wu-fa, when he bought the rights to

Crime Doesn't Pay The fifth season of ''Desperate Housewives'', an American television series created by Marc Cherry, began airing on ABC on September 28, 2008 and concluded on May 17, 2009. The season takes place five years after the events of the season four fin ...

in 1949. The film originally started out as the airwave novel titled

Flame of Lust A flame (from Latin ''flamma'') is the visible, gaseous part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic chemical reaction taking place in a thin zone. When flames are hot enough to have ionized gaseous components of sufficient density they a ...

by Li Ngaw.lcsd newsletter
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Present

Today radio stations in Hong Kong continue to broadcast stories. The format largely consist of

mogwai Mogwai () are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). Mogw ...

and

jiangshi A jiāngshī, also known as a Chinese hopping vampire, is a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore. The characters for "jiāngshī" are read goeng-si in Cantonese, cương thi in Vietnamese, kyonshī in Japanese, and gangsi ...

tales (鬼故, literally Ghost tales). A number of

Hong Kong taxi Hong Kong taxicabs are the principal taxi service in Hong Kong. Although a few taxis are independently owned and operated, the vast majority are owned by 17 independent taxi companies that rent out taxis on a shift basis to As of 2017, the ...

drivers do tune into the shows regularly, since radio remains to be their main form of entertainment. The stories are also for people with a deep interest in

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

type haunted stories. The format, however, is considered an older style alternative entertainment to present day

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

etc.

Broadcasters

(李我) * Tang Kei-chen * Chiang Sing * Piu Yeung * Fong Wing * Siu Sheung (蕭湘) * Ngai Mun * Lui Kei-man (呂啟文) * Lang Wun (冷魂) * Chung Wai-ming (鍾偉明)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Airwave Novel Fiction forms Radio in Hong Kong

History

Present

Broadcasters

See also

References