Lai Kam Fai was also an intellectual who took education as his mission earlier, running a newspaper, working as a civil servant and teaching language, art, music and history as an elementary school teacher.
During the May Fourth period, he participated in the Peking University Music Society, chaired by Cai Yuanpei, and became the leader of the "Xiaoxiang Music Group", which mainly played folk music. At this time, Lai Jinhui realized that "Chinese musicians were all authentic Western musicians, and would be laughed at if they sang Chinese songs", and resolved to "publicize the art of music and assist in the new movement".
When Lai Jinhui first arrived in Shanghai, he was still working as a composer of children's songs for a music education organization.
To expand his influence, he occasionally composed pop songs. Little did he realize that his first hit would be a breakout hit, and "Hairy Rain", composed in 1927, soon became a hit.
Despite the fact that it was still sung with much of the old-style opera style, it became the first pop song born on Chinese soil.
Lai Kam Fai and his daughter Lai Ming Fai, the original singer of "Hairy Rain"
The song was later covered in the movie and TV drama "Love is Deep, Love is Misty".
And the song celebrates the innocence of love, replacing the crude, vulgar and even obscene ditties that had been circulating in the marketplace.
After his success, Lai found that composing pop songs was actually a good way to help him run his music education organization.
He continued to tour with his troupe, and when he was stranded in Singapore in 1929 due to a shortage of money, he accepted an order from a bookstore to write a hundred pop songs and send them back to Shanghai in a short period of time.