In a spellbinding deleted scene from Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung dance the hand jive together, a small detail that calls to mind the popularity of Filipino jazz musicians and their lasting impact on Hong Kong’s postwar music scene, as scholar Neferti Tadiar has pointed out. Plucked from the bars and lounges of Roxas Boulevard in Manila, Filipino musicians were recruited by talent scouts to play jazz across Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong, helping popularize the genre throughout much of East Asia. As a member of the Filipino diaspora in the United States myself, sensing Filipino presence in places where our influence seems invisible to others has become routine.

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