Joey Yung Cho-Yee (Traditional: 容祖兒; Simplified: 容祖儿; Pinyin: Róng Zǔ'ér), … Read Full Bio ↴Joey Yung Cho-Yee (Traditional: 容祖兒; Simplified: 容祖儿; Pinyin: Róng Zǔ'ér), born in June 16th, 1980 in Hong Kong, is a rising and very popular female Cantopop singer and actress. She is an artist of the Emperor Entertainment Group since 1999. She won the prestigious "Most Popular Female Singer Award" on Jade Solid Gold in 2003 with the help of her hit, "My Pride" and won the same prize always again between 2004-2007 thus emerging as one of the premier Cantonese singers in the world.

In 1995, at the age of 15, Joey was participating in many singing contests, including the Big Echo Karaoke Singing Contest, in which she was given the opportunity to be an artist of Go East Entertainment Co. Ltd.. However, her talent did not win the recognition of the company. Go East ended the contract with Joey soon after the song 'The First Time I Want to be Drunk', which is the theme song of a movie, was recorded. The song is Joey's only song produced by Go East.

Afterwards, she continued with school while also working as a clerk and helping her mother in managing the business of a fashion boutique. She was later introduced to Golden Pony Records Co. Ltd. by an ex-colleague of Go East. Not long after she joined the company, it withdrew its business in Hong Kong. Joey's singing career was once again terminated. A couple of years after, she followed Roman Tam, the godfather of Canto-pop, to learn singing.

Joey as a Newcomer (1999-2000)
In 1998/1999, Joey joined Emperor Entertainment Group. Her talent was appreciated and she was sent abroad for training to enhance her singing skills in 1999.

As this was also the same company her mentor Roman was in, she also toured with Roman which helped her gain experience as a performer.

On 29th September 1999, her first EP was released, officially debuting as a singer. The album charted on the IFPI Album Charts (based on sales) for 23 weeks, breaking the record for the most conseuctive weeks on the IFPI album chart in Hong Kong, and had sold 130,000 copies in Hong Kong alone. In the later awards ceremonies held by different media organizations, she won lots of newcomer awards together with Cecilia Cheung, who was regarded as a formidable adversary of Joey Yung.

In January 2000, Joey's apartment was set ablaze. In the same year, she made her appearance in her first movie 'Winner Takes All' and her first TV drama series 'The Green Hope'. This year, she released two CDs, including her second EP, "Don't Miss", and her first studio album, "Who Will Love Me". She, at the same time, became the spokesperson of many brands, like the Four Seas, the Red Cross, Netvigator, etc. Her career had flourished with her increasing exposure in public. She held her first concert at the prestigious Hong Kong Coliseum, titled 'Joey Yung's See You Everywhere Live Concert', in the same year.

Ups and Downs of a Rising Pop Princess (2001-2002)
In 2001, she released her first compilation album 'Love Joey', which later on became the Best Selling Album of the Year. This is considered very impressive for a singer that has been around for less than 2 years. She then released two Cantonese albums, "All New Summer Holiday" and "Solemn on Stage". In November, she held her second live concert and first concert series, '~H20+ Solemn on Stage Joey Yung's Live in Concert 2001' at the Hong Kong Coliseum and began her singing career in Taiwan after she released her first Mandarin album 'Honestly'. By the end of the year though, her career crisis arose because of the strain in her vocal cords and the criticism from the public of being plump.

In 2002, she was approved by her company to take a rest while learning dancing and make-up abroad. After two months of rest, she came back to Hong Kong and released her Canto-pop album 'Something About You'. She then became the spokesperson of Nissin and Nikon. At the end of the year, she released her second collection album 'Love Joey II'. She was said to have had plastic surgery and sex relationships with different businessmen in exchange for some of these job opportunities, but this rumor did not diminish her newfound stardom.

Breakthrough as the newest Pop Queen (2003)
In 2003, her song 'My Pride', which is also the theme song of the TV commercial of Banyan Garden developed by Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, became very popular and well-known among the public. This song was awarded 'The Most Popular Song in the Nation' by RTHK. In the same year, she became the spokesperson of a slimming parlour. In the fad of slimming in Hong Kong, Joey also had her body slimmed and presented herself as a sexy image. She held her third concert 'Joey Yung Live Show Up!' in Hong Kong Coliseum, which pushed her career to even higher height, and she was soon named as 'Canto-pop Queen of Hong Kong'. At the end of the year, she was awarded the 'Most Popular Female Singer' in all prize-giving ceremonies held by the media. She was the second youngest singer in history to have won this prize (youngest being Anita Mui. She also won another prestigious female singer award, the "Best Female Singer Gold" award at the CRHK Music Awards, and was the youngest singer to ever win this award. Following this, she began her world-wide tour including Canada, Australia, USA, Mainland China, Macau, Malaysia with her "Show Up concert" throughout 2004 to 2005.

Hong Kong's Reigning Pop Queen (2004-2006)
In 2004, Joey continued her sexy image in her CD album 'Nin9 2 5ive' and her first photo album 'The Real Joey, Glamour in London'. Her photo album was greatly accepted by the public and ran out of stock shortly after its release. Her second album in 2004, 'Give Love A Break', was greatly appreciated by the public. At the end of the year, she won the 'Most Popular Female Singer' prize of TVB and "My Favourite Female Singer" presented by the Commercial Radio, and many other honorable awards.

Around Christmas, a Cantonese remake of 'Chihuahua' (a song previously released in English by DJ Bobo) was sung by Joey as part of a Coca-Cola advertising campaign which included a portrayal of her buying a can of it.

In the year 2004, she had won more than 20 awards and received the highest honor award again: The Media Award, which is given to the singer who accumulated the most awards from the 4 music awards ceremonies in Hong Kong.

In 2005, Joey released her compilation album, Love Joey III, and a Canto-pop album, 'Bi-Heart'. Advertising her concert, Reflection of Joey's Live, which spanned a period of eight days in October and November, Joey exhibited a very sexy image in the poster. The theme song of the concert, 好事多為, was arranged and keyboarded by a Korean composer, which is a rare practice in Hong Kong. Funded by Sony Ericsson, EEG found the top production crew to produce the MTV of the theme song. Unlike the concerts she held before, she had invited many guests in this concert. Besides, she had added more dancing elements in the concert, which are greatly favoured by the public. After the concert, Joey suffered from sore throat owing to the strain in her vocal cord. Several days after, she worked without chatting with other people with a view to let her vocal cord relax. Under the heavy workload, she hardly managed to spend several days receiving acupuncture treatment in Nanjing to have her voice restored. Recommended by a producer Joey then started to take singing lessons with popular entertainment voice coach Christine Samson. On Christmas Day, in the prize-giving ceremony held by the Metro Radio Hong Kong, she won eight awards, being the artist to have gained the most prizes.

Sales of all her CDs reached at least 5 million copies in 2004, which is impressive, as Canto-pop CD sales are usually about 100,000 copies. She has also won IFPI Best Selling Singer Awards since she started her career. It is also estimated that the total income from field of advertisements in 2004 was about HK $10 million. In 2005, she has purchased two connecting flats named The Legend at Jardine's Lookout, Hong Kong for HKD $40 million. It is not surprising that she has invested since she has earned more than HKD $60 million last year.

In January 2006, she has received, again, many awards such as the most popular female singer award for the consecutive third time. She has also won other awards such as Golden song etc. During the Hong Kong IFPI record sales awards 2005, Joey once again for the 2nd year in a row, was the best selling female artist. Two of her albums (Love Joey II and Joey Yung X Hacken Lee The Music Is LIVE 903 id Club Concert) were of the top 10 selling albums. Following the success of the 8-night "Reflection's of Joey's Live Concert," her concert CD/VCD/DVD combined to have a sales of triple platinum (120,000 copies), quite a rare accomplishment in today's Cantopop Industry.

On Feb. 27, 2006, Joey released another album, 'Ten Most Wanted', her all-new cantonese album. More time had been put in the production of this CD than any other CD Joey's produced. Joey said that this album was to try new music styles, and worked with different musicians. One of the musicians behind this CD is well praised by Joey, Mavis Faan, who wrote the music of two of the ten songs out of this CD, Get Fit with Jane Fonda and Torn Tongue (lyrics of both songs written by Yiu Fai Chow). Both songs are fast songs that are completely different from the previous Joey songs.

Close Up (2007)
At the end of December, Yung released her Cantonese album 'Close Up'. Songs include "Burst of Joy & Beautiful Flowers" (her first collaboration with Hanjin), her biggest hit last year "Splendid Unexpected Meeting", and her third and latest plug, "One Love One Lesson". The album has gotten really good response from the general public, and the first version is out of stock at online CD stores like Yesasia, and many people has reported that it was sold out in stores all over Hong Kong as well. She released the second version on the 26th of January, and it included a bonus DVD with the music videos for "Splendid Unexpected Meeting" and "Burst of Joy & Beautiful Flowers".

She was the biggest winner of the female singers at the four 2006 year end music awards, also won the best CD seller through out all the female singers,and the most popular female singer in Asian, with 16 awards in total. At the end of January, Neway helped organize a musical for Joey, called "Safari". Joey was touched by all the singers and audience that came to help her make the musical possible (by performing in it), the singers include: Anthony Wong, at17, Hins Cheung, Yumiko Cheng, Vincent Wong, and Sun Boy'z. She hoped to do "Safari" again if possible in the future.

On 7 July 2007 she performed at the Chinese leg of Live Earth in Shanghai.

Ambassador Joey was selected to be Hong Kong's ambassador of "30 Hour Famine", which is organized by the World Vision. She visited Kenya in March 2007, and shared many of her thoughts about this trip on her blog and on radio interviews.

Joey released her 5th Mandarin album titled "Little" on 5 July. The title track was produced by Jay Chou. The album has received tremendous success, being the most selling mandarin album Joey has ever released.

Glow & In Motion (2008)
Joey held her sixth concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum during the beginning of 2008. The concert was entitled "StarLight", and the theme of the concert was "light". Joey performed a number of dance numbers as well as her famous ballads. The Power Medley, which was a 20-minute intense dance medley of her fast songs, was especially well received. The concert spanned over 10 days, proving her popularity as Hong Kong's most popular female singer. The concert was highly praised, and thus led to a Part II of her Starlight Concert, which spanned over 4 nights, making Starlight 2008 a 14-day concert. In mid Feb, Joey traveled to New York to attend dance lessons, in hope to further improve her dancing skills, and strengthen her reputation as the new dance queen. Joey also sang several official songs for the Beijing Olympics 2008. Her world tour began shortly afterwards, with shows in Malaysia, Canada, USA, mainland China, Singapore, and Macau.

2009-2010
2009 marks the 10th anniversary of Yung's singing career. To celebrate the occasion, Yung and EEG released two albums, a documentary, as well as a mini concert. This includes a Cantonese album and a Mandarin album, titled 'A Time For Us' and 'Very Busy' respectively. Her 10th year anniversary mini-concert "Perfect Ten Live" was held on 4 October and tickets for this concert were sold out within seven minutes. Unlike her past concerts that spanned for days or even weeks, Yung performed only two shows in one day. "Perfect Ten Live" was more a intimate and exclusive concert, and was held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre, where Yung won a championship in her first major singing contest in 1995. The "Perfect Ten Live Boxset" was released in December, being divided into two versions, the normal and the delux version. The normal version included two DVDs for the concert, the Perfect 10 Documentary and a photo album consisting of 20 or so pages; while in the delux version, two more CDs of the "Perfect Ten Live" would also be found and the photo album in this version would also include more photos.

In late 2009, Yung performed in her 5th concert, "Music Is Live", with Eason Chan and received commendations from different medias. Yung won the Media Award for the 3rd time that year, having previously won the award in 2003 and 2004 (i.e. Yung won the most number of awards in the four major music awards shows in 2009).

On 29 January, the 10th Anniversary EP known as Joey Ten was released together with the 'Joey Ten' Boxset. This EP consists of 10 different covers (9 for Version 1 and 1 for Version 2) and includes five songs. The Joey Ten Boxset includes a photo album, stickers, a thank you card from Yung, a Chofy bookmark, a comic book, a Chofy USB, a DVD and the new EP. The first and second plugs from the EP received very great results in the four major media, one getting a No.1 from all four of them while the other gets No.1 from three of them. The third plug, named 'Always seeing an Angel', is a song labeling Yung's character.

In March, Yung wrapped up her StarLight tour with two final shows in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. In August released her new EP 'Airport' and in November she delivered her Number6 concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, which was her sixth major solo concert (and seventh overall) held at the Coliseum. The concert received great reviews by critics and fans alike, calling it a worthy successor to her successful StarLight tour.

2011–present
For the first couple of months in 2011, Yung will travel the world and go on her first major break since 2002. She had earlier stated that in 2011 she will focus her time on the Mandarin market, recording a new Mandarin album and doing promotions in Taiwan and Mainland China.

Amsterdam-based European Chinese concert organizers Orientouch have confirmed that she will be performing a show in London, England on 26 April 2011 at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall, making it her first concert in Europe. This will make Yung the first female Chinese singer to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, and the third Chinese singer overall after Eason in 2010 and her mentor Roman Tam in 1979.

Yung will also star in a big budget film titled Diva produced by Chapman To. The story will revolve around a successful pop diva, which To cites is the reason why he chose Yung. In an interview, he stated "a movie about a diva obviously requires a diva to play the main role." He does not agree with the general consensus that Yung is a bad actress, and hopes that the film can show her true acting potential.

In Sep 2012, Yung released Cantonese album 'JOEY & JOEY'.

羅馬時差
容祖兒 Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

遠古的壁畫凝固花樣年華
和城牆對話哪一片塗鴉曾見過他
差一秒用一生
都觸摸不到他面頰

他走的剎那我卻剛剛到達
沒留一句話一封電郵都來不及發
從海角到天涯

隔一座羅馬路太多分叉

我們之間永遠的時差
他留給我浪漫的童話
如果早兩千年能不能遇見他

誰來調整愛情的時差
勇敢跨越宿命的步伐
公元前的密碼誰給我解答
再也沒有辦法回到當年的羅馬

風吹開面紗飛上枝頭懸掛
華麗的盛夏冷卻的感情留在寒假
多耀眼的陽光
卻把我頭髮灑滿了雪花

我們之間永遠的時差
他留給我浪漫的童話
如果早兩千年能不能遇見他

誰來調整愛情的時差
勇敢跨越宿命的步伐
公元前的密碼誰給我解答
再也沒有辦法回到當年的羅馬

誰來調整愛情的時差
勇敢跨越宿命的步伐

公元前的密碼誰給我解答
再也沒有辦法回到當年的羅馬

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of the song "羅馬時差" (Roman Time Difference) by 容祖兒 (Joey Yung) narrate a story of a missed opportunity for love. The first stanza describes ancient wall paintings frozen in time, and how they witnessed the object of the singer's affection but now the singer cannot touch him, even if they had a lifetime to try. In the second stanza, the singer was a second too late to catch the person before they left, and no words or message could be exchanged. The third stanza talks about the vast distance between them, symbolized by the city of Rome and its many paths. Finally, the chorus repeats the theme of the "永遠的時差" (eternal time difference) between them and asks who can adjust this difference and solve the "公元前的密碼" (pre-Common Era cipher) to bring them back to the time when they might have met.

The lyrics express a sense of longing and regret for a love that might have been. The ancient paintings and city of Rome serve as symbols of a romantic past and a missed opportunity. The song asks if there is any way to bridge the gap between two people who are separated by time and space.

Line by Line Meaning

遠古的壁畫凝固花樣年華
Ancient murals frozen in time, capturing the beauty of years gone by.

和城牆對話哪一片塗鴉曾見過他
Talking to the city walls, wondering if any graffiti had seen him pass by.

差一秒用一生
One second's difference can cost a lifetime's worth of regret.

都觸摸不到他面頰
Unable to even touch his cheek.

他走的剎那我卻剛剛到達
Just a moment after he left, I finally arrived.

沒留一句話一封電郵都來不及發
No words were left behind, not even enough time to send an email.

從海角到天涯
From one end of the world to the other.

隔一座羅馬路太多分叉
Separated by a distance too great, too many paths to choose from.

我們之間永遠的時差
The eternal time difference between us.

他留給我浪漫的童話
He left me with a romantic fairy tale.

如果早兩千年能不能遇見他
If only I could have met him two thousand years ago.