Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - My Cantopop Nights: A Memoir by Emma-Lee Moss aka Emmy the Great with Emma-Lee Moss

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

This week's book guest is My Cantopop Nights: A Memoir by Emma-Lee Moss aka Emmy the Great.Sara and Cariad are joined by the multi-award-winning author and musician Emma-Lee Moss aka Emmy the Great.In this episode they discuss motherhood, shedding, hair cuts, colonisation, therapy, and Björk.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclubProduced, recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Assistant Producer is Amy Townsend-Lowcock for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we created the weirdos book club. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and wonderfully and crucially weird books, writing, and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the up books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is My Canto Pop Night, a memoir by Emma Lee Moss, also known as Emmy the Great. What's it about? It's a personal exploration of music with the backdrop of political upheaval in Hong Kong. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, Emma once got the haircut of her favourite boy pop star. In this episode, we discuss motherhood, shedding, Haircuts, colonisation, therapy and Bjork.

And joining us this week is Emily Moss herself, also known as Emmy the Great. She is a British Chinese writer, musician and broadcaster. She's contributed to The Guardian, Vice, ID, British GQ, Wired. And as a singer-songwriter, she's performed under the name Emmy the Great, released four albums and written original songs for television, film, theatre and radio. This is her first book. Hello. Welcome to the podcast, Emma Lee Moss.

Oh, thank you. So excited to have you. Thanks for having me. So you are the author on the podcast that's had the biggest effect on my life personally, out of everyone that we've interviewed. Why is that, Sarah? Well, a long time ago, I broke up of a boyfriend that I lived with. It was emergency stations.

And Emily and I at the time had been working together. And she took her house off Airbnb so that I could go and live in it. This is what you want when you're heartbroken. So someone just go, do you remember this? I don't even remember this. I don't remember this. It was on the group WhatsApp. We were talking about Pride and Prejudice with Susanna.

And it was like, I've broken up with him. I'm going to go and stay in a hotel. And she said, you can stay at my house. So I went to stay in your lovely house. Where Dan was at the time? Oh, was he gone? No, he wasn't there. So it was in East London.

And then this is what happened when I was staying there. I stayed there for quite a long time. I feel like I stayed there for a couple of weeks. And you'd be so kind and so generous and didn't charge me any money. And I loved living there and I love living there. And I love being in that part of London. And then one day something very terrifying happened at 3 in the morning. There was a banging on the door.

and I was in this place where I didn't know anyone and I didn't know who to call it 3 in the morning. Obviously, I couldn't wake you up. I thought, I'm going to get murdered. And so the only person I knew that would be awake was an Australian in Australia, a man that I was friends with at the time. And he said, you have to go and answer the door. The banging kept happening, kept happening.

And then I went and answered the door on the phone to him, and it was a black cat who was really friendly. Starling! Yeah, who wanted to come in. And then this boy on the phone said to me, that's Gary Barlow in spirit coming to be your friend to calm me down. so I can go to bed. And now that man is my husband.

Oh my God, I had no. I also love that we got the reveal that it was Starling the cat, not in the cat. Starling's moved to Barcelona now. Oh, yeah. Not Gary Barlow. When I told you the next day, so you were like that cat that is used to coming in. So he was just insistent, you will let me into this. Starling could be very aggressive.

We never fed him. I just want to say that if the owner of Stalin is listening. We never fed him, but he could still be very aggressive. I'm sorry about your experience. I'm so grateful to you. I can't believe that. I'm reading your book, I felt like I had so many memories from that time. Oh.

And we should say that you wrote, you adapted Pride and Prejudice. Yes. And Emma, you did the music. That's how you guys were in a WhatsApp group at that time. Yeah. And then I wrote a little bit about Pride and Prejudice because it was writing about Pride and Predudice while in China was quite a big experience. I could believe all these things were happening to you.

And then you were coming back to England and I was just talking to you about pride and prejudice. Well, it was all I was thinking about at the time. I recently got asked to rate my top five favorite songs of my own and I couldn't do it but like a huge amount of them are things that you gave me the brief for because getting a brief from you is one of my favorite pieces of work that I can get because it's like can you do the worst

worst music that you could play at a baby shower oh yes of course that is such that's of course Sarah's TV show out of her mind yes and your baby was born I was heavily pregnant during that show. Yeah, and it was your baby. People thought it was a fake bump because it was so large that the crew and actors went to pat it like, ha-ha, and I was like, no, no, it's a real baby.

Agent Emerson thought the whole time it was a fake bump. And all the work you did for Pride and Prejudice because we had lots of incidental music and obviously the music when the audience could come in and leave. And Emmy had researched and found all of this music by Regency female musicians. Wow. He just did so much work. Oh, I loved it. It was one of my favorite things.

So one of the best briefs you ever gave me was like gospel song about Joan of Arc, other famous women in history who have died. And how everyone in Pride and Prejudice is going to potentially die in childbirth at the end. I have no idea. It's in the script. It's like that just like you had written out exactly what it was. I was like, I get this. Well, I think before I had children, I was very laissez-faire of the whole, like, and nature just wants. women to die.

It's so dangerous. When did you guys work on that then? It was a while ago, right? Yeah. 2017, yeah. And you're here today to talk about your amazing, it is, a memoir and songs is the subtitle, My Canto Pop Nights, which is out now. June.

It will be out now. Yeah, which is out now. So lots of people know you for your music being Emmy the Great, which you were for a very long time. And then this is a departure, I guess, of sitting down and writing. writing a whole book rather than like songs. What made you think, right, I want to put this down rather than make a, say, another album about all these feelings are in this book?

I thought I'd had a new idea. I got, a publisher got in touch to me, said, would you like to write a book? And I thought about it. And I would like, I said, be really nice to write a story that was also about cantopocs. I'm really interested in cantopopop. So I started writing this book. So then I met my agent and I worked on the pitch and I ended up working with another publisher. But halfway through the book when I was going through old computers to check, you know, diaries and stuff, I found a draft of writing from when I was about 25 that was almost the exact same story.

Wow. And it basically opened to my memory. I woke up at the age of 11 in Sussex, you know, with no past. And here are some stories about canto-pop stars. It was the exact same book. So I've obviously been trying to write this book for a really long time, you know. And I think maybe the time that it came along was the only time in my life where I could ever focus on something that much. So I've been trying to write a book.

I've been writing several novels since I was like 11. Wow. You know, but just very distracted, but this finally happened. And in case anyone doesn't know, what would you define canto pop as? Canto pop would be the music that originates from Hong Kong. and it's sort of a hybrid of Western pop music and maybe Cantonese opera and Cantonese mannerisms. There's often in Cantonese, but it's also in English, Japanese and Mandarin. Yeah, a complete genre of its own.

Yeah, it's the homegrown genre of Hong Kong. I really understand that thing from a young age wanting to write. And so now that you have and your book is a completed thing and exists in the world, how does it feel? That's an amazing question. It feels good. It actually felt like, I mean, if you write a base, an overview of your whole life, it feels good. It's therapeutic. It feels like an achievement.

I used to finish a record and then I would just abandon it. Listen to it, listen to it, listen to it. The moment it comes out, I hate it. I agree with all the criticism. I'm going to make a new one that's better. So I've been working really hard not to do that to the story of my life. So I'm trying really hard to love it, you know. How does it feel when you write the book?

Well, I think actually probably my relationship with creativity is exactly what you're describing, is being obsessed with the thing, trying to do it to my very best, as a way of disproving how terrible I have always been at making things. So it's a redeeming act until it isn't. And then it's all about the, and the exciting process is the newness of the next thing. I'll do better this time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's always, it's always framed in that way, which also involves, I feel quite ashamed of everything that's come before.

So it's not a great place, self-esteem-wise, but it's quite a good place for creativity. It's a method of getting yourself into the next project, but I'm trying really hard not to do that. I think that's really healthy, because that's what I'm trying to say it's a framing, but I don't think you have to be like that about your past work. I don't think it's any a necessity and I think that how long it takes to write a book and how hard it is

I think there's a different kind of pride that everyone should have in themselves that completes a book and does edits of an entire book and also like you said it's a memoir so it's not a novel where you can be like well maybe next time

those characters will behave themselves it's like no this is my life and my memories and who but like why I'm here now is because of this path I've gone down and so with Carriads book

you wrote so much about your family in your first book. And it's a deeply personal and emotional and selective process. Yeah, I think because that was my first book, You Were Not Alone, the grief one. I did what you're saying is as soon as it was done, I was like, la la la la la. Like, I did the audiobook. That was the worst thing I've ever done in my life. And then I was like, well, let's never discuss it again. And then you have to go and discuss it. And it feels very strange to have like, but it's just, I think when something's so personal, but I think what you've done here so beautifully is like, it's personal, but you've also.

got the history of canto pop in there. So it was a really safe thing to have. Yeah, like to hold it in. Yeah, to something, you'd be like, oh, I've gone down a corridor here that's a bit too exposing and my mum's not going to want this said, you know. And then suddenly I could be like, hey, so Faye Watt, did this thing, you know. But it worked because I never wanted to tell the whole story of my family. And there's a lot of people whose privacy needs to be protected.

And equally, you have to protect the privacy. of the celebrities that you're writing about because there's nothing that you can truly know about them without talking to them. So it was a negotiation between both sides of the story. I think that's what I'm really interesting about this book and what I loved is like you're writing as a fan.

So we really get, it starts with, you know, young Emma in Hong Kong and being like getting her hair cut. Like what's the I forgot name? It's Aaron Quo. Aaron Quark. The image of you with this like bowl cart. Like I just was so sweet. Is that what it was like?

like. There's a picture in the book. In the back of the book. It's quite, so my friend Dan's mom did that haircut. Oh, it was Dan Shriver. We love Dan Shriver from no such things of fish. And so that's another thing I would say that's really great is if you do know Dan Shriver or anyone knows no such things of fish or so even sort of has a parasocial relationship with Dan Shriver.

Just what you imagine him as a little boy. Yeah, his mom cutting your hair. I think it might be before the bibliography. Yeah, it's funny because. There's a bit in the book where I say I hadn't seen him since he was moshing to Green Day. And he read it and he was like, yesterday I was moshing to Green Day. Dan is an eternal child and that is what's lovely about Dan. Is this? Oh, is this him?

No, that's me, yeah. Oh, my God. That's you. Oh, I hadn't seen. That's amazing. Oh, my goodness. It's a really good haircut. You look very handsome. Thank you. It's glossy, isn't it? The book starts with you getting your hair cut.

I guess it's almost like, is this a fair thing? sort of Justin Bieber figure, like this singer was maybe? I'm trying to like contextualise it. Was he a child? He was a full-grown adult who could do like leap in the air and do backflips and stuff. It's really hard to explain how much they were respected. You know, the way that we think about Justin Bieber, he could be brought down in the press. But the four heavenly kings were the four heavenly kings.

So these are four cantopop singers called the four heavenly kings that were a huge influence on you at this point. in your childhood and meant so much you. So yeah, will you name them just for everyone? Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai, Jackie Chung and Andy Lau. Andy Lau. And the reason why they were so respected is because they weren't just massive pop stars with unbelievable work schedules. They're also selling the biggest films at the time. You know, there was a lot of cross, like in Hong Kong entertainment, if you're a pop star, you have to do movies and you have to do the title track to the movie and then you better do the ads for the phone company and stuff.

Which I guess is like Elvis did and the Beatles. So those really huge icons in Western music, there was a similar like, people want to see you do anything. So let's put you everywhere we can. It was almost like that kind of early studio thing where the studio tells you what you're doing. You're not making that many decisions. They get as much as possible out of that star.

And so, yeah, they become the Four Heavenly Kings and they're doing concerts and films. And you're living in Hong Kong as a child. and that's when your sort of music, this is where the book starts, where like your music awakening, I suppose, is that fair? Where you sort of realise, oh, I love them. I love these guys. Yeah, I think, you know, around 10-11,

when you start to develop your own music tastes away from your parents. And I had got into other, you know, I got into somewhere. The first record I bought was Metallica and then Acer Bass, and then like a canto-pop. You know, I was discovering at this time. And because I went to a Cantonese, school, it really was my way in. You know, I was really, the only person in my family who spent

time in a world where these people were gods was me because I went to primary school. Yeah, yeah. So it was kind of my own thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like young, Emma, this was you forming your identity at this point. The book is like juxtaposed with Hong Kong being passed back to China. Yeah, so the history of that is something I'm completely ignorant of. I remember it, because it was 1997, it was handed over. So I remember growing up. I was only focused on myself.

Did you do GCSEs in 97? Well, it was the summer that Diana died. Yeah, so I remember that. But I remember it being such a big thing in this country and having to have explained to me that like, oh, Hong Kong is being handed over and being like, what do you mean? Like, what is that? You're such a worldly person, but let's go over it.

Let's go over it in case anyone. listening is also ignorant. Went over the world, colonising places, but when we colonised Hong Kong, we agreed to give it back? Yeah, we agreed to give it back. Initially, it was,

there was no agreement, but then they leased, because Hong Kong is an island. I only just, I'm quite ignorant. I found all this stuff out for the memoir, so I'm now, and there was loads of stuff wrong. I got loads of fact checking done

just a month ago. Great, yeah. I might be saying the wrong thing now. So they colonised just the island, and then they wanted the bits that are now called the new territories that are attached to China so they negotiated for another 99 years. Yeah, it was 99 years. Yeah, and then when, yeah, I think so.

And then when 97 came, or some people say that Thatcher maybe didn't have to mention it. They weren't sure if it was going to happen. But then she did negotiate it and then it came and it happened. All the other places we colonised, it was like, well, we're here until we decide not to be. And those countries had to be like to fight together. of us, yeah, to have their own autonomy again. And then there was like a timeline on it. It was a date where it will not be a British colony. Yes. And so as you're experiencing as a child, you're resident in a place knowing something huge is about to happen and not knowing what the ramifications of that might be. Yeah. So it was just always knowing that you have a time limit on life being the way it is. And after that point, anything could happen, you know. Yeah, because it's not just like, oh, it goes back to being Scotland. It's like China take over. Like that's like a very different situation. different political system. But for you as a young person growing up,

yeah, to be living there. With that timeline and going through it, because of your book, you talk so much about identity and I guess gaps or crisis in identity are trying to grip onto something, there's absolutely no surprise if you're someone of a dual heritage in a place that has a dual heritage and is going to make a change and say,

okay, now I'm this person. Like divorce, a divorce or something. It's a divorce, yeah. I thought it was really interesting, when I was writing the book that every identity crisis that I'd ever had could be plotted

to Hong Kong's identity crisis and the way that identities are manufactured like so in the 80s, early 80s Hong Kong has really had come to believe themselves very distinct from the mainland

I'm generalising but this is kind of like a narrative very distinct from the mainland perhaps even like better lifestyle you know just had

maybe even dismissive of mainland culture. And then by the mid-90s, you know, the power of structures are completely changing. And they had to deal with that. But if you actually look earlier in history, the reason why in the 80s, Hong Kongers might have felt distinct from the mainland is because the British government manufactured this miracle economy so that Hong Kongers would feel themselves distinct from the mainland and wouldn't rebel and try and go back. So just the way that we think we have so much power over the way we see ourselves.

But a lot of the time there's outside influences. Yeah, manipulating the narrative. And it's not accidental, someone's trying to do something. So, and the huge shift, and please correct me if this is a massive misunderstanding. I only know they handle it over. But you will. So the hugeness of this is that Hong Kong had a democratic government, did it? I don't think that they ever had universal suffering.

but it had a benevolent, like, Chris Patton. I know he's a Tory, but I think of him like a gentle grandfather that once visited me at Christmas, you know, I have a very, like, he was considered a nice person. Yeah. By the end of colonialism, I would say that Hong Kong was a unique place where a lot of people were quite happy with how things were. And I think there was because of an agreement that had been made in the 80s called the joint, oh, Sino-British Declaration, might be called something else.

But there was some wording which was that Hong Kong would enjoy 50 years transition period with a high degree of autonomy. And so there was this idea in this wording that maybe it will be democracy. We'll be different. We'll be okay. Yeah, maybe we'll finally have our own. power and, you know, it was, it was a dream. Yeah. I think, yeah, I don't think there was ever universal suffrage in colonial times. Okay. It's a really unique situation. Yeah. That's what I always thought about Hong Kong of like it's a very unusual, unique, bizarre hangover.

It is, yeah. And your parents, as you described them, are such original people. Yeah, yeah, God. And so, So I think you also come from a family of extraordinary people. I'm very creative. Your dad was selling art when he met your mother. Yeah. So my dad is a super creative person. He's an art specialist. He's a painter.

He writes. He like plays music. I got my ADHD diagnosis at the end of last year. And so now I'm qualified to diagnose my family. Sometimes I think my parents are geniuses. Sometimes I think they're just very neurodivergent. But they don't believe in that kind of thing anyway. So, yeah, no, they're very, everyone in my family,

especially like, and my mum's family are very, very particular, peculiar people. And that was my favorite thing to write about. Because I'd witnessed this. I have like a PhD in my family and never had an outlet to say, look at my parents they're so strange yeah well I think you write them up

magnificently your dad once went around to John Lennon and Yoko's house yeah played the piano I played their piano because he was assessing some of their Japanese art

but he wasn't an expert in no he was posing close enough someone reached out to him saying because he's a Chinese art specialist asking if he could

appraise their Japanese art collection he was like yes yes I can but he did bring a friend who could. So then he got the friend to do the appraising and he was just noodling on the piano and stuff. And so being told stories like that at a young age, I think these are the formative things that tell you what the world can be and what is possible. I think saying those kind of things to a young child, here's the most famous person on the planet and I was in their house playing the piano. It does make you think things are achievable. My dad has a special skill of just being in a room

and feeling like this is his room. Yeah. And it's lovely to see it. It's lovely to see. I love seeing my parents in their element because they have such a talent for being comfortable and happy. You talk about the canto pop and you're so... I listened to Faye Wong this morning because I was like, you know,

you're talking about so many different artists but Faye is a big one for you and it was... I didn't know, it was all in Cantonese like as in I wasn't quite sure the song I was listening to Spotify was not helping me. I'll send you a playlist. Thank you.

And it was in, I would really recommend reading this book and then listening to some of the stuff you're talking about. Yeah, I think you have to. Because I really appreciate, I was listening to a couple of tracks this morning on the way in that you had talked about, especially the really famous Faye Wong. The dream person. The dream person. I think I'm pretty sure that's what I was listening to because Spotify is like number one. And it was really, it's fascinating music. Like I was, again, which I do a lot, I was like, well, is this kind of Sleen.

Dionne or is this kind of Bjork? But I was like, it's not. It's of its own genre. But I think you describe it so well. But I do really want readers to go and, like, I feel like you should have, have you done a playlist to go on site? Yeah, I have. I'll send it to you. I love that.

You should put it on to public. I feel like everyone should be able to, like, tune them up together. I'll post it today. Yeah, yeah. I will up my engagement this very day. So I love hearing your fresh response to it. Actually, people used to call her the Chinese beer. Ah yeah, that's she remarked

I was like Her tone is so The breathiness or something You can hear a really brilliant singer So I was like oh and it's quite There was a sort of balladie to it But then I was like but it's not mainstream There's like this

And she's quirky Yeah quirky Adamant And said such groundbreaking things Yeah and I felt to my shame I know about Hong Kong handover But I've never heard of Fay Wong I've never heard of these people

That you were discussing And I felt like Fuck why have I never heard of all these people that are so successful. It's really interesting because sometimes, like, Aaron Kwok came and did Wembley Arena a few years ago. And it was just the arena, you know. And he is the most famous person in Hong, you know, top 10 most famous people in Hong Kong and among many Chinese communities. And he's only doing Wembley Arena.

And there's even like a story of Anita Moy going to America and doing a show, you know, and it's not a very big show. It's really interesting because these people are so. selling millions of records. But Faye Wong is often known because she's in Wonkawai films. Yes. So she's in 2046 and she's in Chunking Express. So she, in the West, is often known as an actor. Yeah.

But I didn't really, you talk a lot about Wonkawai and like how he captures Hong Kong and how you recognise that. But I didn't know she was a singer. And I was like, that's incredible that there's just this, again, especially I suppose for this country, like the connection between this country in Hong Kong, I guess, in comparison to America, is, you know, centuries old, hugely important. But then it felt like you were being asked to absorb two cultures, but the Hong Kong culture did not come over with you.

What you're saying, which I think reinforces something that you've experienced in your life and you express and go through in the book, is that the Western culture was dismissive. And it's always considered more important. It's like, this is the important one. Even in Hong Kong. And that's why I think as an adult when I went looking for canter pop, I was like, I'm discovering so much cool stuff that I didn't know about. Yeah.

It's because you have this hierarchy. You grow up with a hierarchy. Whether you're expat or local or a bit of both, you grow up thinking that Western culture is the dominant culture and everything else is the local culture, you know. And local can often mean kind of underground or word of mind. mouth. Even it was on, selling out stadiums, you know, on the radio, billion dollar industry, but it was still the secondary. It's exactly the same as something that you also described in your

book, which is that female being a category in music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That women, even though we are half of the world's population is considered as a small subculture niche category. Oh, you're into female? Yeah. I like Gagorian chanting. Whatever floats your boat, that's fine. Yeah, it's nuts, isn't it? But that's interesting, you're saying that it comes, it's also coming from the local culture that's saying that is more dominant. And then that sort of becomes the narrative.

It was just, it's something as well when I was writing the book that I was unpicking. It's this kind of like you just internalize power structures when you're a kid. And then you grow up and then you're sort of, and I think it's not just like, I don't think it's unique to me or like mixed heritage, but you have these conflicting parts of you being like, well, this one's the boss. Yeah. This one's really loud, though. So how do you get them to coexist?

You have to break down colonialism inside your own body. Another thing that you said in the book that you forgot your Cantonese. Yeah. I was like, that's really interesting that your body and mind sort of made a decision for you. So you come back to England having been fluent in Cantonese, right? And it just goes until like another 15 years or. I just sort of volunteer. I didn't want to stick out, you know, like the 90s in England.

Yeah. It was very simple. It was like, oh, just get, like, it's Euro 96, let me get one of these T-shirts. I'm really into Britpop now, actually. You know, and you just, you borrow away the things that you don't need to survive. Yeah. Or that hiding those things will help you survive. Yeah.

Assimilation. Yeah. Amitting, I guess, sort of dropping things. In terms of identity, because you start at the beginning of the book about Emmy the Great, and your stage persona, the name, the character you'd always performed with, and intentionally wanting to, I don't say lay her to rest because it's not killing her off. I did kill her off. Yeah.

Give her a break. Yeah. Or just shake her off. Exist. Take her, shed her up the skin. Shet on like a skin. Yes. And have a rebirth as yourself.

A divorce. Yeah. A divorce. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was really strange. I felt like I had to get rid of my stage persona. Like during the pandemic, it just, I could hear her loudly. You know, she was like, I'm bored.

We need to plot something. And I was like, I can't look after a baby. There's a global pandemic, not loud out of the house. And when an opportunity came, I thought the freshest thing I could possibly do for myself. It's been like I gave up caffeine recently. This was like before I gave up caffeine. I got rid of my stage person as like an attempt to kind of feel fresh, start over, be me again somehow.

I really related to those bits, not that I'm a former successful musician, but I used to do character comedy and I used to go on stage with like red lipstick on my face, a giant wig, like a cardboard hat I'd made. And after I had my daughter, I remember looking at these costumes and being like literally who's are those clothes like I cannot understand this person and I felt like yeah

very raw and new I don't know like a new skinless like a new sapling coming up and I would look at these costumes or photos of me or even like see clips and be like I don't understand

and it felt like the character comedy was very like a persona that protected me because I was too vulnerable to just be me and when you wrote about that I was like that feeling of like

it's not killing something but it's, yeah, shedding, it feels is a really nice positive way of, like, I just can't be there anymore. And the freshest, most exciting thing is actually to be slightly myself without all this hiding. Yeah, and this really interesting and helpful to hear you say that because I still don't know why I did it. You know, I still, sometimes I'll listen to my own music in the car and be like,

why? Have I done this to myself? Yeah, you know, like, for you that is connected to motherhood. Definitely for me, it was like having. a baby, being in charge of something, just made me feel like, not that it was silly. Silly sounds like not unfair, but it was like, it was a frivolity that I couldn't access anymore. Oh, interesting. Because I'm like a mum and I have to be something else now.

And it's like, it's not that that is worse or better. It's just, I just do have to be something else. And this person didn't know that. And that person who could stand on stage and be like, I'm that person doing it. It was like, oh, I can't. I can't make that come out my throat anymore. That's not who I am. That's how it felt for me.

Amazing. I was so foreground. It's not because I've had a baby. But I've always suspected that it had something to do with having a baby. And just needing, and it wasn't straight after, but just needing to reflect that something was different. That even just, like you say, your throat won't do the sounds. Yeah. Your throat changes.

and your hours change? Yeah. You know, the hours were not working. Yeah. The physical, like, carrying boxes of merch at 1am wasn't working. And I'm still unpicking it. But yeah, do you think you'll go back to that one day? Because I've always thought maybe you'll integrate.

I wonder. And I also, I have improv. So I have this, like, side where I can, like, still get that drug a bit. I can go and do an ostentatious show. I can put on a sort of costume, but it's not insane. or I can play a crazy character in that show and I get someone clapping me and I'm like not playing a teenage parkour boy

Yeah, yeah, I can get some I think if I didn't have improv I would be more like looking at it going Yeah, I need to get back to that drug But yeah, I don't know Like, I think I feel like when you have a baby You've got a new boss And I felt like I couldn't look her in the eye

And be like, guess why I wasn't here today I had to pretend to be a teenage boy So I just couldn't I felt like she'd be like, really that's what took you away My theory is it's ego death that you have a baby and nature knows exactly what it's doing in terms of the sleep deprivation and the hormones, which is an absolute breakdown of anything that might take your attention away from the baby. Yeah. And then what you have to do is rebuild something. And I think the mistake that is really hard is some people think they're trying to get back to a past self and it's not.

It's a new version of yourself. Yeah, they've gone. That version's gone. That's what I think is true with both of you and the word, the new version of yourself. And hopefully this is the journey for lots of people. parents, it becomes a more authentic version of yourself, what serves you now, not trying to fit yourself back into the timing, working at night, which I still do, with children who don't sleep and wake up very early in the morning. It's so, it's miserable. You're miserable at work

and you're miserable at home with your kids. I did one late gig and I messaged you, didn't I, being like, I got back at like one in the morning and I had to get all this cabs. And I was like, I was like, I'm going to be up since. Even if you sleep through till six, the best you can hope for is four and a half hours. Oh my God. And you're just, but you're also, you're acting like four and a half hours, but you don't, you're discounting the work you did before that, which was exhausting, being on stage, giving so much, there's no rest. It brains trying to process it. It brains have to process what's happened to not feel crazy.

Yeah. And then you don't. And then the cumulative effect is, you feel crazy. We just have a terrible life. Living your dream. It's hard. When you're writing about motherhood and going back to Hong Kong, I thought it was really fascinating that you, you know, yeah, what was it like going back to this place with,

as a mother. Well, you had your daughter there. Yeah. It was the, it feels like a dream now. We went, I went back. I had a daughter in the same hospital I was born in. Yeah. And then six months later, the protest began.

And society was unrecognizable. It was an, I had gone back to the place of my birth. Nice, lovely, cantipop. At this moment where, and I was like, I mean, I was, really anxious after my daughter was born, I was overthinking a lot. A lot of the time I'm like, why was I brought back here at this moment? I'm here to witness. You know, I can't do anything. I've got a baby. I can't go anywhere. I can't help. You know, I'm just at home in this like one room box and I know everything and I'm looking at things on YouTube. Why am I

here? Why was I brought back here? And at the time I was really, really into fate, you know? And I was like, what is the pattern? It's the magical thinking, you know, of after a transition. And I still, you know, what a strange thing to spend your whole life thinking, I've got to step away from this place. This place doesn't define me. And then define yourself back at the moment that it's trying to define itself. It was really, really weird.

And also very scary. It was a scary time. It must be very, very scary. You're writing about tear gas attacks and other mum's messaging you being like, oh, this place isn't safe today. Like, it's scary. And people were shot and were killed. And so things, very, very scary things were happening.

It was the safest place I had ever known. You could walk out in Hong Kong. I think still, you know, at night as a woman. And I've never in Hong Kong ever been, I've never held my keys in my hand. Right. At night time, you know, someone smiles at you and you're like, hey, neighbor, you know. And that hadn't really changed. You know, people weren't, like, hadn't started attacking you on the street.

But the idea that the place that I had always thought, okay, place I came from, don't want it to define me, but I know it is the safest place on earth. Suddenly, you don't know what's going on. People are dying. Things are spontaneously happening. You're reading about it in the news. People are texting you from around the world saying, are you okay? And you're just like, oh, it's obviously it's in the Guardian today.

Yeah. It was really scary. And I was at a point in my life where everything was scaring me. You know, I wouldn't take the MTR when the baby was born because other humans might be on the MTR. You know, I didn't want my dad to touch her because there's something wrong with his inks that he paints with. And it was really weird then being in a situation where my fears were valid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was really relying on people saying, you don't need to get a hard hat for the baby.

there are no poltergeists in your house and then suddenly even my therapist is like yeah it's bad probably should avoid that area I think that's really interesting because as someone who suffers with anxiety a lot

I've spent a long time being that it's not as bad as you think everything's okay and we are living through times we're like it is as bad as you think it's very strange to go from knowing you have anxiety and you're overthinking and worrying

and that's a voice you need to keep it down, keep it down, to just not being able to look at the world without being like, well, I'm right. I'm right, nothing is safe, right? Like, it's really scary. And I was really becoming that, I was literally just being, just rattling around my family

because I really only had my family, just being like, bad, you know, dangerous. We can't go here, we can't go here. Look, I've got a, you know, I was becoming the sort of hall monitor that nobody wants to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everyone's like, yeah, we know.

We have to live a life, though. Yeah. But it was, I mean, I think it's quite good practice because I've had quite a lot of therapy since all that. So now I'm able to kind of have this slightly, like the world is still very scary. Yeah. And I'm able to be a little bit more kind of grounded about it

and not kind of go around, you know, trying to create emergency escape routes of a normal day. having therapy before you let go of Emmy the Great? Yeah, I was having therapy in Hong Kong from basically from when the baby was born. Because did you ever read Sybil, the book, so it was about what they used to call multiple personality disorder, it's called Flora Rita Shriver, and it's about how the therapy was someone who, what do they call it now when someone has, it's been re-termed, isn't it, multiple personality disorder, something else? I've got, I'm so 90s in my psychology. That point in psychology, the therapy involved combining all of the people, the

personas that you had back into one. So I wonder if the process of doing therapy means that you actually have absorbed Emmy the Great rather than shedding her. Yeah, I wonder. I did actually feel her fly away. There's a really, yeah, no, but I feel like, I feel like she, she will come back. This is, I'm always very optimistic about the far future, always very nervous about, Tomorrow, but the far future is going to be fine. Do you like that as well? Yeah, that's fine. It'll be fine.

Tomorrow we need to, everyone needs to be ready tomorrow. Fuck knows what's going to happen tomorrow. That's an anxiety thing. Might be. Yeah, maybe. Because you soothe yourself. Did you ever read Priestaddy by Patricia Lockwood? Oh, no, I want to read Pre-study.

It's such an amazing memoir. Patricia Lockwood who wrote? Yes. Oh, they're the books. Yeah. So I read the poet. Oh, maybe a... She wrote a great tweet during the best days of Twitter.

Oh, yeah. She tweeted Paris Review and she said like, so is Paris only good. And that was the best moment of Twitter. But yeah, she wrote this great memoir. And at the very end, her mom mentions ADHD and you're like, oh my God, this is an ADHD memoir. And I always think if I had been diagnosed before I wrote my book, would the whole thing just be like impulsive decision? You know, like this was a result of, you know. That's the trouble. Once you get diagnosis every time you read something, you're like,

I did an episode with Amy and Harriet that we did Bridget Jones. Oh, Bridget Jones's Diary. And then it was just like, so I've written down all of the points where Bridget Jones has a PhD.

Yeah. She can't need the house. She can't get ready on time. She's late. She's impulsive. Yeah. It makes it much less. She's a quirky gal

and she has a neurodivergent brain and she needs support. Just a smidge of medication. Yeah. Smidgen medication. She's not going out with Hugh Graham. She's not marrying Colin Vass. She's behaving herself.

Yeah. I wanted to. as we finish up, like, a large part of the book is about identity and about different cultures. And now you've finished it and it's out of the world. Like, what is your hope, I suppose, for your, like, are you hoping other people who feel like dual identity, it will be useful? Or do you want yourself to feel like I've come to a piece more with these two worlds that I grew up in? And that's such a nice question. This is actually so nice to talk about as well

because I haven't figured out most of this stuff. So the reason I worked with my lovely editor, B, is because she said, oh, this is a book about identity. And I was like, oh, of course it is. It's not about Hong Kong. It's not about music. It's about identity. And I think that probably if anybody,

well, it's the same, you saying to me, reflecting back to me, something about motherhood and characters, you know, if anybody, well, first of all, that helps me, so thank you. But if anybody reads that and feels like, okay, I've figured something out for myself, or I've seen something here that makes me feel like I'm not the only person, that would be amazing because I think for a long time I felt like I was the only person, you know, and that's what books do for me. Yeah. You know, and so if, So also I wrote this book with its overconfidence because I like books. I was like, I know books, I like books, I will write a book, you know.

So now I kind of want mine to do for others what others do for me kind of thing. And your daughter as well, I wonder what her identity will be like. Hopefully less fractured than mine. We have a really nice, like, steady life. After I finished the book, we moved near East Grinstead, which is where I grew up in my teens. And I've experienced belonging for the first time, which is whenever I drive to East Grinstead and I go to the library,

I feel this intense sense of belonging, because it's a library I used to go to as a kid. And it just makes me feel, like I've completed life now because all my life I was like I don't have a sense of belonging you know don't belong here in this place these people don't accept me though they're my

my communities don't fully accept me and then I come here and it turned out I just needed the library in East Grinternet and now I have it whenever I want that's so brilliant because some people go through their life and they never get that and something you would describe being in your book

about being a musician and being on tour and basically being unhappy home and unhappy away. I think so many people have that experience of life, like a sort of itchy dissatisfaction. I get one life and I'm going to not enjoy every second of it. But I think that's also so lovely that it's testament that what do we need to belong? You don't need a whole place. Yeah, you don't need a whole place. You need a building maybe. An institution that offered solace and safety and to go back and know that you can take your child there. It gives you that sense of, oh yeah, like,

And I feel like that's taking my kids to a library that I didn't go to. But it's like I take them to this kid's library and it's really like they've really made an effort to make it a kids library. And it's beautiful. And I feel like I remember being happy in a library. I'm showing you you can be happy in a library. What's making me want to burst into tears right now is also because the whole point of libraries is that anyone can come in and it's successful. So it is community, neighborhood. Yeah.

And it's free. Exactly. You can enjoy something. And you pay no money. And even if you can read the books and you don't have to pay anything. And you can try stuff out. Like I love watching my kids be like, oh, I'm looking at this today. Oh, I don't like, I don't like this one.

And you're like, yeah, this is. But the place you can try stories. In terms of belonging into a place. It's like there are no outsiders. Anyone can come in here. Which, to be fair, sometimes is the problem with the library. Sometimes you get in there and you're like, okay. Yeah, guys, we can't stay in the downstairs bit today.

Who's there? Oh, like the crazy locals. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But they're welcome. Just not in the kids' library moment. I think that must be me. No.

It's wandering the library. I'm talking the man is shouting, you know, and is walking out, stealing a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm talking that man. But, Emma, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. I know.

I want to listen to music and I want to watch the films and I want to then understand so many things of what you're talking about. It would be a good, I would say, Fay Wong is a good place to start. but is there anything else you'd be like canto pop go here i think fei wong's um cocto twins phase is the best place to start because it's it sounds amazing cocto twins and mandarin is an incredible sound yeah and um it's just yeah it's just musically unique it's so good i'll send you the link then you can share the playlist thank you so much and in the back of the printed book there's all the songs and movies listed yes so the bibliography i thought was how nice to have a bibliography of music.

It was amazing. It's really funny Hong Kong movies. We might have to put this picture on our Instagram because it's so cute. Let's do that. Emma, thank you so much. Oh, thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. My Canto Pop Nights is out now. My book, Where Does She Go? A Kids Picture Book about grief is available to buy now, as is Sarah's brilliant fiction debut, Debbie Weirdo. Yeah. I mean, it says Debbie Bills out ages ago. You can still get it.

You can still get it. If you want to find out more, about all the upcoming books we're going to be talking about on the podcast. You can go to our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. And if you want to support the show, please head to our Patreon. There's lots of more weird and wonderful stuff and there's a lovely way to say hello. Make friends. Make friends with us. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.