“I Want To Connect With People”: The Voice Of Hong Kong Horse Racing, Dee Liu
For Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Cantonese racecaller Dee Liu, live horse race commentary is more than just a job, it is his calling.
THERE IS A STORY Dee Liu likes to tell when asked what makes a great race caller.
“A guy I met told me about a man he knew that was in an elderly persons’ home,” he says. “The man was blind, but he would sit in front of the television and listen to me each race day. I just thought ‘wow’, this really got me in my heart, it was so touching. Every meeting he is there in front of the television, he can’t see but he is listening. That angle to what I do is very special.
“Calling for the gambling man is one thing – who won, the odds and all of that information – but there is this other angle that I had never thought of, calling for the person who can’t see.”
We are meeting Dee in the revamped Central market on a typically busy Friday afternoon and on our way through the entrance to the ground floor restaurant a man calls Dee by name. It is a courier, on his break, sitting on a yet-to-be-delivered box: the delivery guy had been watching the preview show for the following day of racing at Sha Tin on his phone. The show features Dee as a panellist and when the delivery man looks up to see that same person in front of him, he is startled.
“Wah!” – the Cantonese expression of surprise – is his response to seeing the very man who was just delivering him tips via a smartphone in the flesh. Dee gladly stops for a selfie. The interaction speaks to racing’s place among Hong Kong society, especially the working class.
It’s the same excited reaction nearly every time the caller slides into the back seat of a taxi and the driver hears his voice.
“Yes, when I get in and ask to go to the racecourse they sometimes do a double take,” Dee says.
For anybody who has spent much time at Sha Tin or Happy Valley Racecourses, an in-person conversation with Dee is a surreal experience.
It is his distinctive voice you hear in the vast majority of areas at both of Hong Kong’s racecourses, not to mention the city’s busy off course betting shops, and it is his passionate calls emanating from the taxi radio speakers on race days. So when Dee speaks – particularly in his native Cantonese and its sing-song, expressive tones, and especially when he becomes animated about horse racing – it has a way of transporting you to the racecourse.
You don’t need to be a Cantonese speaker to understand why Dee’s is such a recognisable and beloved voice – just listen to his race calls. His passionate descriptions have been the soundtrack to some of the greatest moments in Hong Kong racing history. Dee has called a series of Hong Kong heroes dating back to the incredible 17-win sequence of Silent Witness through to the recent run of champions like Beauty Generation, Golden Sixty, Romantic Warrior and now, Ka Ying Rising.
If he had his way he would have been riding those horses rather than talking about them – Dee grew up in Happy Valley and his father and brother were both mafoos (the Hong Kong word for ‘stablehand’) – but some early experiences on horseback indicated a career in the bustling press rooms or the broadcast booth was a better option.
“I fell off,” he says of his attempts at riding. “I was friends with a couple of people that went on to work in the stables and my first job was writing small columns for the local newspapers. Going to trackwork early in the morning and making observations.”
That early experience with newspapers and the opportunities he was given inspired Dee to enter the competitive world of local horse racing media, starting his own racing newspaper.
Named ‘Call Ma’, Dee has sought to provide the same opportunities he was given and employed a host of young reporters and columnists with fresh perspectives.
“I want to innovate and do things differently but I also want to continue a legacy,” he says of his motivation to move into publishing. “The horse racing journals have a long history in Hong Kong and I don’t want that tradition to disappear.”
Just like Dee’s commentary, Call Ma has proven to be a colourful addition to a horse racing media scene sorely in need of class and quality. If it can maintain a connection with its readership that is anything like the emotion Dee’s voice commands, the paper will be a success.
“I just want to make people feel like they are part of the race,” he says of his commentary. “If you can’t be there, I want to make you feel like you are. I want to draw people into the race, feel like they are there and call with passion. I want to connect with people.” ∎
