Hong Kong Garden Lyrics
Harmful elements in the air
Symbols crashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
While the population feeds
Junk floats on polluted water
An old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number twenty-three?
Leave your yens on the counter please
[Chorus]
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
Hong Kong Garden
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
Hong Kong Garden
Oh-oh-oh-oh
[Verse 2]
Tourists swarm to see your face
Confucius has a puzzling grace
Disorientated, you enter in
Unleashing scent of wild jasmine
Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
A race of bodies small in size
Chicken chow mein and chop suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
About
Siouxsies and the Banshees inspired a generation to dress in black, from hair roots to shiny shoes.
The apparent racist lines in the song were later explained as reflecting the comments local Skinheads made in the restaurant.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
In an interview with Uncut magazine in 2016, Siouxsie stated:
When “Hong Kong Garden” came out, it surprised a lot of people because it definitely did have a lightness to it. Our material was always a bit heavier. But we loved great pop songs and when John McKay came up with the intro, it was very quickly pounced on by all of us. I’d always been really attracted to Eastern imagery and sound. The story is that when I was growing up, the first Chinese takeaway that went to Chislehurst was called the Hong Kong Garden. I used to go along with my friend and just be really upset by the local skinheads that hung out there and gave the staff such a hard time – really racist, just intolerant. The Avengers were on TV around that time, and I remember us both wishing we were Emma Peel – go in there and sort them out.
- 1.Pure
- 3.Overground
- 4.Carcass
- 6.Mirage
- 10.Switch
- 11.Hong Kong Garden
