An artist who took China to the world and brought the world back to China, Rebecca Pan has had a prolific career in Hong Kong’s arts and entertainment scene lasting six decades. Best known as a singer, she was born in Shanghai in 1930, moved to Hong Kong in 1949, and started performing as a cabaret singer on the city’s growing hotel nightclub scene in 1957, with her ability to sing in English, Mandarin, Cantonese and French making her a rare hit with both the local audience and the growing community of expats. She also toured extensively, around Asia and to the Middle East, Europe, North America and Australia, one of the first Chinese singers to do so, helping to popularise Chinese music globally and also bringing back songs from around the world, often adapting them with Chinese lyrics.

Inspired by a trip to New York in the early 1970s, she produced Hong Kong’s first Broadway-style musical, Pai Niang Niang. She also appeared in a number of films between the late 1980s and late 2000s, including Wong Kar-wai’s Days of Being Wild (1990) and In the Mood for Love (2000), Ann Hui’s Starry is the Night (1988) and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai (1998).

She became a fashion icon for the qipao she wore while performing, and remains one in her 90s. In 2023, her influence was celebrated at With the Sun, She Quells the Night—A Tribute to Rebecca Pan, an exhibition at the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile.