Through career setbacks and the pandemic: Karen Kong rethinks singing and faith

From a smooth debut to losing direction in Hong Kong

Karen grew up in Malaysia in a Christian family and had been exposed to church from childhood. After secondary school, she left home to study in Kuala Lumpur. Enjoying the freedom of living away from her family, she gradually drifted from church. She said she had not completely rejected her faith; rather, she kept thinking she could return to it later.

Looking back, Karen described the first years of her music career as relatively smooth. Within a few years she had released several records, developed her career in Taiwan and competed in Super Idol. Her later challenge appearance on TVB’s The Voice helped more Hong Kong viewers recognise her and opened a path for her to work in the city. That momentum did not last. The entertainment company that had been helping her enter the Hong Kong market closed down, while disagreements also emerged with her Malaysian management company. Living in an unfamiliar city without her usual circle of family and friends, and with singing work slowing down, a cross-regional career that had once seemed to be progressing steadily suddenly lost its direction.

A stalled career and an emotional low

The disruption affected more than Karen’s work. She recalled being troubled by persistent thoughts during that period and spoke in the interview about depression, anxiety and emotional fluctuations that also affected her relationships. For her, the difficulty was not simply a lack of jobs. A singing career she had believed was already mapped out had abruptly stopped, and she struggled to understand why events had unfolded that way.

A turning point came through an encounter in a television station dressing room. Karen met Lau Kong Yuen and Corinna Chamberlain, who invited her to join a Christian singers’ fellowship. By then she had also begun to feel that she had stayed away from an active faith life for too long, so she accepted the invitation. Returning to church and a faith community, she said, gradually changed how she understood the “freedom” she had once been pursuing.

A singers’ fellowship changed how she viewed past unfairness

Karen emphasised that the singers’ fellowship was more than a social gathering among entertainers. It included Bible study, sermons and personal sharing. Over time, the group became a place where she could reconsider what had happened in her life, rather than viewing every setback only through the question of why events had failed to follow her plans.

She was especially grateful for Lau Kong Yuen’s spiritual support, describing him as a kind of “spiritual father” whom she could approach with questions. She also recalled Jade Kwan opening her home for gatherings and personally looking after group members. That kind of relationship felt very different from the environment she knew in entertainment. For Karen, faith did not make previous disappointments disappear. It helped her gradually let go of the need to keep deciding who had been right or wrong, or how she could recover what she felt she was owed.

When the pandemic stopped performances, an old vlog led to a durian business

Another major turning point came during the pandemic. Live entertainment largely stopped, and Karen said singers almost immediately lost performance income. She worried about how to make a living and at times felt frightened. Friends in the singers’ fellowship reminded her that she did not have to wait passively for shows to return and could try other work or develop something online.

The opportunity emerged from an old vlog. While editing footage filmed at a durian orchard in Malaysia before the pandemic, she wondered whether she could source fruit directly from the grower and sell it online. At first she simply added ordering details below the video. The response was stronger than expected and gradually developed into her “Malaysian Girl” online shop. She also sought advice from singer and entrepreneur Ava Yu, discussing matters from the shop name to ways of running the business, before expanding into house-made durian products.

Around the same period, Karen and her husband, who worked in hairstyling, also took advantage of changes in the rental market to try running a combined salon and café. At the time the interview was published, these ventures were still being discussed in the context of operating through the pandemic. Karen said the experience changed how she approached the future: instead of continually worrying about things that had not happened, she wanted to concentrate on what could be done well in front of her. This reflects her outlook in the 2022 interview and does not imply the later operating status of those businesses.

She considered giving up singing, then rediscovered what performing meant to her

Even while building a second line of work, Karen did not leave music completely. She admitted that earlier disappointments had once made her resent her own gift for singing. She had even wondered whether, if singing caused so much pain, she should simply stop. Reading The Purpose Driven Life helped her shift perspective and stop measuring the value of singing only by career results.

What convinced her again that she did not want to give up was an experience after a day of delivering durians. Exhausted, she rushed to take part in an online gospel concert. Once she sat down, picked up the microphone and began to sing, she rediscovered the satisfaction of singing itself. That feeling was more immediate than the question of what position a singer was supposed to reach, and it confirmed for her that music was still something she wanted to continue.

Returning to King Maker III as a contestant

That outlook also shaped her decision to join King Maker III. As a professional singer who had already been active for years, she heard comments that someone with her experience should have been a mentor rather than a contestant. Karen’s response in the interview was straightforward: she loved singing, so if there was an opportunity to sing, she would take it.

In that sense, King Maker III was more than another television competition in the story she told. It became one step in redefining her relationship with the identity of being a singer. Instead of putting other people’s expectations about seniority or status first, she placed greater value on whether she could continue singing.

Wait for a Hug: taking on a leading role without much acting experience

Karen later took her first leading role in a Hong Kong film, Wait for a Hug, and also sang several songs for the film. She acknowledged that she did not have much acting experience at the time and was not fully confident that she could carry the role. During production, actor Anthony Chan as well as the director and producer spent time explaining the character and performance approach to her, helping her work through the shoot step by step.

Looking back at the stalled career, the loss of performance work during the pandemic, her return to a competition stage and her film role, Karen framed these experiences through her faith in this interview. She said she hoped to continue using singing and songwriting to bring love and hope to others. That was the direction and aspiration she expressed in 2022, rather than a claim about what later projects had already achieved.