You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2007.
It’s going to be a hectic month ahead, I just realised. My driving test’s in slightly more than a month’s time, so I cannot afford to go on holiday for too long. If I want a two weeks holiday, and still have a week and a half to brush up on driving, then I need to leave for my holiday in a week and a half’s time! To make matters worse, I haven’t booked flight tickets. Actually that’s not a really big concern. I’ve checked and found out that some tickets are still available. I’ve yet to ask my boss for leave. If he refuses to approve my leave, I’d have less of a tight schedule, but I’ll also feel really miffed. And then there are my students, who need extra lessons during the semester holiday. The next 6 weeks will rush by really quickly.
It has been planned. I’ll be in Japan for the next 2 weeks!
I need the getaway, seriously. I’d appreciate not hearing from most people I know during this hiatus. Except for the few. Thanks to the bunch of you who have deftly avoided your share of sh**. Give me a break.
These few days have been great. My friends were probably taking it a little too far when they described the pain. It didn’t feel more intense than a mild ache. These few days away from the mindless drivel in the office have been fulfilling. Wisdom teeth are so called for a reason. Heck, just to get away from the office, I don’t think I’ll mind a mild flu or cold.
I discovered an informative site devoted to Chinese instrumental music. It’s rather complete — with scores, video recordings, forums and all. The yangqin forum makes for an interesting read — I actually browsed through all 78 pages of it! I got some good advice from there too… like raising the height of my seat, which did help my arms relax.
More than two weeks back, I attended an erhu recital which featured Tian Xiao, a recent conservatory graduate and principal zhonghu player in the SCO. He was accompanied on the piano. The virtuostic spin to the recital was unmistakeable, with pieces such as Monti’s Czardas (or Csardas), Sarasate’s Ziguenerweisen, and Wang Jian Ming’s Third Erhu Rhapsody on the programme. Tian gave a dazzling performance of the Third Erhu Rhapsody, though I felt something was lacking between him and the accompanist. The “Song of Protest” was performed on the gao-hu sans accompaniment. While the piece was delivered coherently, I felt Tian didn’t quite “get into the style”. I was expecting a more melodramatic and operatic interpretation, but he sort of played the entire piece in one breath. I guess playing traditional works predisposed to a certain regional style is never easy, and that’s why I wouldn’t choose them for my music exam piece, if I can help it (more on that in another post).
Tian stayed back for the Q&A session after the recital. Some of the questions were fairly lengthy, but they weren’t challenging nor awkward. Credit must go to the compere who took on the tricky job of translating the questions and responses into English and Mandarin. Even if her translation was a tad shaky at times, she did better than the comperes I’ve seen in the past. Tian revealed that he gets at most an hour of personal practice time these days due to his work schedule, which is surprising, since that’s about how much practice I get every day. He also added that he practises at work too whenever he finds the time. Anyways, I was wondering… don’t professional musicians get a lot of practice time? What does a typical SCO musician do during the day, besides practicing for upcoming concerts and juggling teaching engagements on the side? Well, I should have asked.
I don’t have an answer to the “identity” question yet, but to the people who think they know themselves and me well enough to gush on about definitions and labels, at times on nationalist and ethnic proportions, I just felt like quoting this:
What if the whole deal – orientation, knowing where you are, and so on – what if it’s all a scam? What is all of it – home, kinship, the whole enchilada – is just the biggest, most truly global, and centuries – oldest piece of brainwashing? Suppose that it’s only when you dare to let go that your life begins? When you’re whirling free of the mother ship, when you cut you ropes, slip your chain, step off the map, go absent without leave, scram, vamoose, whatever: suppose that it’s then, and only then, that you’re actually free to act!
— “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”, Salman Rushdie
April just went by without any posts. Not that there wasn’t anything to write about. Between updating this page and many other free-time pursuits, I tended to choose the latter.
Many Sundays ago, I watched the free screening of the film-documentary “Match Made”, directed by Mirabelle Ang. Synopses can be found at these links:
http://www.cinereel.org/article1187.html
http://www.asianamericanfilmfestival.org/2007/films-events/film-detail/?i=73
http://www.viennale.at/en/programm/filme/2011.shtml
Like most in the audience, it was the first time I witnessed the bride selection process, which can be passed off for an interview for domestic helper type work than for marriage. I watched the film with conventional local expectations on pre-marriage rituals, so it seemed alien that the 4-days proceedings following the interview should lead to marriage. As if from a script written by the bridal agency, the couple held hands, “dated”, took some photographs, slept (this was explicitly communicated in Vietnamese to the girl by a member of the bride agency), and went through the customary rituals. Without the drawn-out process of flirtation and courtship that I’d come to associate with a relationship, I found it incredulous that the outcome could be marriage. It was a union out of necessity for the two oppositely gendered humans. For the 19-year old girl, it was a ticket out of poverty. For the guy, well… he was in his late thirties, and earning a decent living as a furniture salesperson, IIRC. He did ask about the girl’s ability to take care of elder folks. When asked about his family, he revealed that his other siblings had married and moved out and he is living with his parent. The audience was tickled when he asked about “zodiacal compatibility” as he was screening his propectives brides. For example, he remarked that someone born in the year of the Pig was not as compatible was one born in the year of the Ox.
The film stopped short of capturing the couple in their new homes. To end off, the film reported that the man sent her back to Vietnam three months into their marriage. The crew was unable to contact either parties thereafter.
It also came as a surprise to me that two of my friends, both in their mid-20s and drawing steady incomes, should entertain the thought that they might need to travel overseas to buy brides, one day. Do they believe they are that ineligible, locally? While I can logically understand and speculate the reasons men resort to buying brides, I can never empathise with them, given my background and beliefs.
