MUI WO’S WELL-LOVED SHOP AROUND THE CORNER JUST TURNED 4 – AND GARY’S CELEBRATING. Elizabeth Kerr reports
PHOTOS B Y Tal Shahar – www.magnificent-hkg.com
For the record, Mui Wo resident Gary Brightman has an alias – Gary Brown. It’s actually his government name. No, he’s not wanted or in witness protection or anything like that. It’s just an artistic choice.
Like Archie Leach is better known as Cary Grant, or Arnold Dorsey is famous as Engelbert Humperdinck. The movie and music similes are apt, as Gary has found a second wind as book and music shop owner, filmmaker, music promoter, podcaster and audiobook producer.
“My grandfather was adopted and his parents gave him the name ‘Brown,’ so it’s only a couple of generations old,” explains Gary of his no-very-shady name origins. “My mum’s maiden name was Brightman and I loved her dearly, so when I left IT and started doing creative stuff, I took that.
There’s only three of us on social media that I can see.” So, we’ll obviously stick with Brightman. It’s more fitting for the youthful 62-year-old too, folded into his home’s Studio 114. On this day Gary is chatting via Google, and he’s happy for the distraction.
Aside from sound production work on an audiobook (more on that in a bit), he’s busy with preparations for the fourth anniversary party of VIBE Book and Music Shop (www.vibehk.com), the little shop that’s very nearly visible from the ferry pier in Mui Wo.
THE BACKSTORY
Looking back to VIBE’s founding in 2018, Gary says: “The local bookshop guy here told me he was leaving, to which my wife said, ‘Why don’t you run the bookshop?’ It was a place to work, I love books, I love film and I love music. It was easy to add DVDs and vinyl and music.”
And so, Gary dove into his second career as a book and music shop owner half way around the world from his hometown just south of London. “In 1977 I wound up with an IT job before it was a thing,” he says. “I fell into it by luck, but it wasn’t really me. It was a good career and good money, so for 38 years I did that and just waited until I could do something more creative.”
While he was making a living in banking and nascent IT, Gary’s brother moved to Hong Kong, to Mui Wo, compelling Gary to start what he calls “a long love affair with Hong Kong” in the 1980s. It was also in this period, 30 years ago to be exact, that Gary met his eventual wife, Stef, when both worked for Parisbas. They got married on Valentine’s Day five years after they met, which Gary jokes was a really dumb idea. True, neither he nor Stef forgets their wedding anniversary, but… “Good luck getting dinner reservations.”
Just like that in 2009, they both quit their banking jobs and relocated to Hong Kong. “We’ve never looked back,” he comments. The pair is quite happily child-free in Wang Tong Village, with three dogs and a cat. “I come from a huge family with lots of nieces and nephews, which is plenty to keep me going, so we decided not to have children,” Gary says. “Every so often Esslin at TAILS drops a dog on us. We have lots of room for them so it’s great.”
THE CREATIVE
It was never Gary’s intention to be a shop owner. The idea was to be a filmmaker. After leaving banking and IT behind in 2013, he learnt filmmaking at the (now defunct) International Academy of Film and Television Hong Kong in 2014 and promptly set up his own production company, ManBright Films. Check out his IMdB page. He’s written and produced a number of Hong Kong-based documentaries, including GDJYB Eats Music (2014), a documentary following the local girl-band’s appearance at Clockenflap with the backdrop of Occupy Central, and Graham Street Market HK (2015), a short about the demise of Hong Kong’s oldest street market.
Gary’s prescient, 2017 six-part science fiction series, Transformed, about an alien infection that puts Hong Kong in panicked lockdown, is available to stream on Vimeo.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the film led to all manner of media. It was only a matter of time before Studio 114 was born. “I now have the capability to produce audiobooks and any other voice-orientated work from Studio 114 in Wang Tong, Gary says.
He’s currently producing the audiobook of The Duel of the Sorcerers for local writer Patrick Dransfield, and he’s branched out into podcasting. Hasn’t everyone? “Yeah, I guess so,”he admits with a chuckle, though VIBErations is less about Gary sermonising (“Do I have anything to say?”) than about giving an analogue store a bit of a digital presence and showing off what Lantau and its most interesting residents have to offer. Oh, and there’s a Facebook Live channel. Oh, and a YouTube channel, Live at Vibe HK. He wasn’t kidding about being creative.
THE LIGHTWORKER
VIBE’S birthday bash on May 21 welcomed The Mutineers for live music, and Gary as decided to stretch the festivities out through June. On tap this month is a live set by Black Velvet Collective, a book talk with A Field Guide to the Snakes of Hong Kong author Adam Francis about his new volume covering turtles, a junk trip, and poetry readings courtesy of Peel Street Poets Society.
“I see us as a community service,” says Gary of VIBE, which in many ways explains how the shop has gone from used book store to much more under his direction. Amazon hasn’t sold just books in a long, long time. Why should Vibe limit itself? Admittedly its scope expanded quite organically.
“At VIBE, we support local musicians, writers and artists to give them an outlet for their creativity,” Gary says. “I’ll play their music, sell their goods and hold book signings and lectures. Very quickly people came out of the woodwork, people living on Lantau, asking if I’d run concessions on a book they’d written or play their music in the shop. We’ve diversified in that we support local people – local Lantau artisans. When they ask if we’ll sell or promote their stuff, we say yes.”
In the days before the pandemic, Gary would film the book talks and jamming sessions that he organised for local residents. (He says that going live really stepped-up VIBE’s Facebook game). “So, you know, the community told me how they wanted me to operate, and I willingly went along with the plan. But then I’ve further developed it as I’ve gone along. We became, I suppose, a content creator after becoming a shop – that was our add-on.”
Needless to say, VIBE enjoys a healthy turnover of locally produced books, goods and records. Outside of that, the shelves are packed with new and pre-loved books, as well as vinyl LPs, CDs, DVDs, record turntables, stationary, t-shirts and other “cool stuff.” Gary says, fiction, language books and biographies are the most popular. “We only sell about five vinyl records a week,” he adds. “But that’s enough to keep me happy. It’s my passion.”
VIBE’s collection of books (and music) encompasses many different languages, including Chinese. “What I didn’t want in setting up VIBE was a gweilo shop,” he says. “We’re probably at 60-40 in terms of expats coming to the shop.”
THE MC
VIBE’s slogan is, ‘Love Literature, Love Music… Love Life!’ and Gary’s aim is to provide a relaxed space where residents can listen to music, browse books and settle in with a cup of tea or coffee.
He’s turned VIBE into a local hang; a spot where readers and music buffs can just sit and relax and check out a book or record. The shop got a revamp just prior to its birthday and VIBE version 2.0 includes what Gary describes as a “chill out room,” about the size of a phone box here browsers can listen to music, like people used to in music shops.
A couple of DJ decks inject a bit more cred. So, who is Gary’s cinematic avatar? Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail? The guardian of the gateway to hell in The Ninth Gate? “I like Empire Records and High Fidelity,” he blurts before a brief pause. “You know, no one’s ever asked me that? I need to have one, don’t I? This is a bookshop but in my head it’s a music shop.”
Whatever it is, it’s got a good vibe.
