When Song sent me the video it was in the middle of a flood of messages about everything and mostly nothing and I almost ignored it. Recorded more than a decade ago, it showed him performing at art school in a musical that he wrote, directed and choreographed himself, also playing the leading role. Set in the 1980s, the show featured music from the period and Song was singing Winter Fire, a Chinese adaptation of Sexy Music by the Nolans, which was a hit in China in 1987. Backed by six dancers dutifully going through their steps, he was in...