Hong Kong pop star back home in Gympie

Hong Kong pop star back home in Gympie

Picture: RENEE ALBRECHT

"SOME things you can't explain," Gympie's very own Hong Kong pop star Gregory Rivers told The Gympie Times when he returned home for a flying visit this week.   The modest crooner who grew up in Tamaree was home to shoot a Queensland tourism package for the Asian market.  

It's all part of Gregory's new level of stardom, which shot through the roof when he won two major awards at the acclaimed Top 10 Awards Distribution in Hong Kong.   He took out the best song award and most welcomed male artist, spiralling him into one of the household names in Hong Kong.  

The industry is not new to Gregory who spent 20 years on Hong Kong TV, but everything changed when he tried his hand at singing.   "Now it's gone up one notch," he said. "I went from TV celebrity to people wanting photos on the street."   Gregory used to wait one or two years between each decent role, but now he's booked six months in advance, with two Cantonese operas on the cards.  

He now gets stopped on the street about eight times a day, he said, and probably features in more selfies with swarming schoolgirls than he can count.   Gregory, who grew up on the outskirts of Gympie, fell in love with the Hong Kong culture when he lived with people from Hong Konwhile studying at the University of New South Wales.   He was half way through his medical degree when he decided to be a pop star.  

He learnt Cantonese from records and worked three jobs to get himself a one way ticket to Hong Kong. He was picked up by an agent and that was the start of 20 years on Hong Kong television which eventually led him to the music scene.   When Gregory was nominated in January for his rendition of a satirical song about a dying TV network, he had no idea it would be such a sensation.  

And he had no idea the Cantonese rap song he performed at the awards, which were watched by 700,000 people live, would take Hong Kong by storm either.   "And that's when they took all my sleep away," he joked to The Gympie Times.   "I haven't had a spare day since."  

He loves life in Hong Kong - a country of seven million people, where he lives with his wife and seven rescued dogs in a 60 square metre house with no yard.   But he loves coming home to Gympie, where the smell of the air and the feel of the sunshine reminds him of his childhood.   And his parents Bob and Noela, who are his two biggest fans, love having him home.   "We've always been proud of him; he never gave up," Bob said.  

While he'll deny it, it sounds like he's got a one-way ticket to super-stardom.   "I'm a celebrity not a superstar," he said.   But it probably doesn't get any closer for a boy from Gympie.