Author: Wilfrid

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Announcement Linguistic My Hobbies

Band Website Revamped Relaunched, Plus My 5th Spanish Lesson

Before I get to how I honestly, unintentionally got our Spanish teacher Anna blushed in front of the entire class, let’s talk about how I nearly felt asleep during the lesson.  I was revamping, relaunching our band’s website http://www.NoEyeCandy.com till two in the morning.  See that new banner featured in this post?  Besides a list of past events, each of my band member has written up something to share.  Most of y’all know about me, I’m sure.  But not them, perhaps.

Looking at that list of events – that probably only make sense to me – took me back to the fond memory lane of how our journey started.  As we begin to approach event organizers, I think it is a high time to put up something in public.  If we do make it, I will open up a new website like I have done it before.

Now, back to my Spanish class, on one hand I appreciate that learning a language involves the absorption of the basic albeit long set of verbs and nouns and grammatical constructs.  On the other hand, it has to be fun and relevant to today’s day-to-day life.  Correct?  While I understand the necessity of going beyond the number 0 to 20 as we have learned in the last lesson, learning a long list of not frequently spoken professions such as milkman and shepherd and even fireman seems a bit dry.  So I would – within the scope of the lesson – ask questions to take us beyond the textbook materials.

Questions such as … how to say “happy birthday” in Spanish?  Yesterday was Anna’s birthday.  The answer is: ¡Felicidades!  Feliz cumpleaños and we kept repeating, and repeating the sentence.  I would be very happy if the entire class say “happy birthday” to me, even if it is one day late.  And then I asked how to sing the “happy birthday” song in Spanish.  It is hard to describe in words.  The atmosphere was warm and there was lots of laughter.  We all sang the birthday song in Spanish a couple of times and got Anna blushing towards the end.  For those who are curious how it sounds like, the lyrics is as follows.  The third line literally translates to you-we wish-all or in English, we all wish you …

cumpleaños feliz
cumpleaños feliz
te deseamos todos
cumpleaños feliz

Categories
My Hobbies Oil Painting

My 9th Oil Painting – Monument of the Unopened (Day 208 of Being a Teetotaler)

Last Sunday marked the 208th day of I being a teetotaler; this oil painting is 208 days in the making.  My story of “From a Borderline Alcoholic to a Teetotaler” will be posted here another day, I promise.  Today I wish to write about a hobby that I’ve left behind for about one and a half years.

Ever since I told Cynthia that I refrain from use of alcoholic liquors, on more than one occasion when we were scratching our heads on what gifts to bring along, she always pointed to the bottles of the unopened wine.  “I don’t understand why we can’t give them away since you are not drinking anymore,” she would comment.

For the past 208 days, I have five bottles of white wine, one bottle of red wine, one bottle of VSOP, and two cans of cold beer lying somewhere in my home.  I am not opening them because I have made a decision and I wish to stick with it; I am not giving them away because I wish to paint and immortalize this moment.

I swear when I lined up the bottle readied to start painting, I had this sudden urge.  But that urge was soon overwhelmed by the smell of the turpentine.  Do artists get addicted to oil painting because of this thin volatile essential oil?  That certainly gave me the lightheadedness.  How I miss oil painting.  To get the perspective right, I had to sit on the floor.  Not a very comfortable position to paint.  But it is good to try something different.  In retrospect, I don’t think I have got the color of the white wine bottles right.  Perhaps next time, I will do a better job.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

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Everyday News

Singapore Won A Medal, I am Ecstatic

Early this month, I mentioned that Singapore needs more good news.  Today, Team Singapore delivers us a silver medal.  I don’t know how my fellow citizens feel.  I am ecstatic.  And in my state of ecstasy, two questions still linger on my mind: What does ‘Singapore will at least get a silver medal’ mean?  And how do you measure Singaporean-ness?

The first question is a strange one.  Of course any country that enters the final match will get a gold or a silver medal.  So why this mindset that we would at least get a silver?  No clue.  I have watched the match and I think we have proven to be a worthy opponent against China.  Well done Team Singapore.  You guys have done us proud.

The second question puzzles me too.  No offence to some of my friends who may not regard our national table tennis team members as Singaporean as they could be.  I too come from a far away land and call Singapore my home since 1998 – the year that I sworn in.  Is a one year old Singapore born baby more Singaporean than a new citizen who has sworn in for a year?  Hmmm …

To measure Singaporean-ness, I guess we can only observe actions.  Check these out:

  1. One who is born or sworn in as a Singaporean
  2. … and he/she has done something very patriotic
  3. … and he/she has done something very unpatriotic

To me, only case #3 makes me roll my eyes.  Otherwise, you are my beloved country mate whether or not you have yet exhibited observable patriotic actions.

Last October, I was at the airport waiting for Cynthia’s plane to touch down.  There was a huge crowd with people all cheering.  That puzzled me.  I would be shocked if I was to come out from the gate and meet this crowd.  Some foreigners smiled in awe.  Then I caught the Welcome Back Team Singapore signboard (see picture above).  And that was the first time I heard of Team Singapore.

To those who are in the Team Singapore and are out there in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, many congratulations.  You all have only yourself to challenge and better.  One world, one dream!

Categories
J Pop Music Reviews

Anna Tsuchiya – Strip Me? Where Do You Draw the Lines?

I thought long and hard before buying the new album by a Russian/American/Japanese singer, model, and actress Anna Tsuchiya (土屋アンナ).  Exactly how do you draw the line between a good rock abum and a not so good vocalist (*ahem* I am looking at my band)?  Call it a Japanese album when 98% of the lyrics are in English?  A half Japanese who is not fluent in English but yet deliver an album not in Japanese? It’s hard to draw the lines.

One thing for sure though: She is hot!

“Strip Me?” is a rock album, no doubt.  And since I love the rock genre, I can overlook the vocal ability of Anna Tsuchiya.  Her opening track “Zero” does remind me of one of my favorite Japanese star Aikawa Nanase.  Where is Aikawa these days?  I have no idea.

Japanese artists these days like to cover English songs.  Mai Kuraki (倉木麻衣) does “Over the Rainbow”; BoA does “Last Christmas”; Yuna Ito does “My Heart Will Go On”; Mika Nakashima does “What A Wonderful World”.  They all stick to the original arrangement.  Mika Nakashima does create an offbeat version of  “My Way” that is not necessarily pleasing to the ears, but it’s fun to listen to.  And what about Anna Tsuchiya?

Some may say she (and her band) murders the song “True Colors”.  OK.  At first listen, you may not like it.  I thought the arrangement is pretty refreshing.  A lot noiser I suppose.  But she is a rock star, no?

I have been listening to the slow song “Forever” on repeat for many times.  It’s just Anna and the piano and the song is so, sad.  Below is the video clip for “Rose”.  Now come I am not surprised to find out that this song is related to the Nana amime series?  “Strip Me?” comes with a 15 tracks CD and a DVD of 4 songs – one of which is from her previous album I suppose.  OK, the song “Slap That Naughty Body” is so so but video is anything but.

Categories
My YouTube

1st Random Video Filmed During Band Practice

This is for you, my loyal readers, my undying fans.  Erm.  I hope nothing will change after this broadcast.

The fact is, for the past number of days, my mind has been spinning as though I was mind-plucking the invisible flower petals murmuring “I show you”, “I show you not”.  And.

I did show this video to some friends of mine.  To see what the reaction is like.  Thank you for your brutal honestly and your encouragement.  My favorite constructive feedback is to pump some irons.  That, I can gladly do.  And it is very doable too!  Results not guaranteed.

OK.  The choice is yours.  Wanna have a peep?

Categories
Linguistic My Hobbies

Hard Work Pays Off, Sort Off – And My Degree in Spanish Is Ingeniería y Ciencias Informáticas

I hope none of my colleagues at my office reads this.

Anyways.  I know I have been massively lagging behind in my Spanish class.  But I was inspired by Women’s 400m Butterfly.  Never mind trailing behind in the initial three laps.  It is how much burst energy you have in the last lap that counts.

This morning, I was determined to practice how to write the number 0 to 20 in Spanish.  Cynthia can memorize the spelling in two runs.  My first language is Chinese.  And I learn the language by memorizing the pattern of the character construct, not the sound of the word.  So, I am in for the brutal repetitive drilling exercise to get it.

This morning, I was summoned by my director at another office building.  To sit with him to go through something.  Before we even began, he was summoned by his boss for a brief meeting.  I could …

  1. Space out and look stupid.
  2. Feverishly texting my friends and look busy.
  3. Take over my director’s computer and Google the latest Olympic results.
  4. Or I could …

I opened my laptop, created an Excel spreadsheet that generated random numbers between 0 to 20, pasted these random numbers to a Word document, set the language to Spanish, and started to type the numbers in Spanish (see picture above).  The first set was slow.  By the time I reached the 100th number – I kid you not – I typed like a native.

From 0 to 20 that is.

My effort sort of paid off.  Anna, our Spanish teacher, asked me to write some Spanish on the white board.  Guess what I wrote?  OK.  You get the drift.

I like today’s lesson.  We all shared with each other what we studied and what our professions are.  Overloaded with Spanish words, certainly.  But it was fun not in a Bingo sense like the last lesson.  But getting to know some new friends that is.  There were four of us working in the banking industry!  Amazing.  Time to pass the CV around!

Now, why do the nouns ”˜office’, ‘restaurant’, and ‘factory’ take the feminine word form while ‘hospital’, ‘supermarket’, and ‘hotel’ take the masculine word form?  I still haven’t got the hang of it.  To further illustrate, a female architect is arquitecta.  A male architect is arquitecto.  When Anna taught us that a male lawyer in Spanish is abogado, I couldn’t help but screamed ‘avocado’ as a reflect action.  That got everyone laughing.

Oh well.  Baby steps.  I know I can do this!  ¡Adiós!

Categories
Travel Blog

Speed Touring Chennai Pt 2 – Pictures by the Sea (Mamallapuram)

If you recall, last month I shared with you the pictures from the city of Chennai.  Today, I wish to share wiith you the pictures I have taken during my visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Site – Mamallapuram.  Since last year, I have attempted to track all the World Heritage Sites I have visited.  And I certainly wish to visit as many as I can.

To view the picture collections, please click onto the links below.  I do enjoy visiting these historical sites.  Kind of make me ponder what would someone’s life be like hundreds of years ago.

Related Article: Speed Touring Chennai India

Categories
Music Journal My YouTube

Hella Good Is Hella Tough! Here Is Our Voodoo Mix

I did not wake up this morning and went, “Ah, I am going to make a video blog today”.  Our new drummer Wieke has made a request to play No Doubt’s “Hella Good” as she wishes to – in her own words – implement some of the ideas or techniques into our band’s materials.  So I spent some time last week to learn the song.  Boy, I am really not good at playing cover songs at all.  But I guess it is one for all, all for one.

Cynthia, our talented bassist, has decided to put aside part of her Sunday to figure out how Tony Kanal plays the bass line.  And I said to myself, why not make a video out of this little insignificant day of ours?  And we did jam on the National Day holiday after all – though it was just the two of us.

OK.  This version you see is just a rough demo.  The original intend is to record our interpretation of “Hella Good”, shoot it over to Wieke and Jason to do their parts.  On a side note, recording the acoustic sound of the Indonesian Gendang was not easy.  I think it turns out OK.  We joke that this version should be named as the “Voodoo Mix”.  The sound is so tribal!

Categories
Everyday News

Singapore Needs More Good News, Perhaps? Happy National Day, and Others

OK.  It’s the first time in my life seeing a Singapore flag sticking up from someone’s head.  Cynthia couldn’t resist to take a picture; I can’t resist not to share.

One great thing about having your website is that you can almost trace back on what you’ve done the same day last year, the year before, and etc.  This year there is no jamming session for me.  Instead, I am glued to the TV watching the Beijing Olympics.  Weightlifting games (Women’s 48kg today) captivate me, move me to tears.  The tearful joy of the Turk (silver), the fighting spirit of the Taiwanese (bronze), and the celebrity-like entrance of Chen Xiexia (China) whose first lifts placed her wide ahead of her opponents.  One moment I was wondering if China was going to participate, another moment Xiexia came in and grabbed the gold medal, unchallenged.

And that is precisely my dilemma here.  The Beijing Olympics seems like a bigger event to me today rather than our National Day Parade.  The Obama versus Hilary race seems like a more entertaining piece of news to follow than our local news.  Even our neighbor’s how-many-times-a-man-can-be-charged-with-sodomy is certainly juicer than anything we have here.  Go Anwar, go!  Reformasi!

Change, we can believe in.  That, is one helluva tag line from Obama’s presidential campaign.  Give the polar bears back their homes.  That, is from my recent video blog.  Thank you for not hating it.  End of commercial messages.

So, in this fierce competition of global news squeezing its way into my radar of current affairs, what sort of local news sticks to my mind?  Mas Selamat?  Certainly.  The rise in the price of a bowl of rice and the arrays of electronic road pricing (ERP) gantries added in around the city center?  That too.  And to quote from a gas station attendant in my area: our oil price goes up in a lift and comes down by stairs. 

But there must be some news worth celebrating, right?  After years of dispute with Malaysia, the tiny faraway island Pedra Branca belongs to Singapore.  The catch is, it is not final, awaiting for new evidents to be uncovered.  From this episode, I have learned a new Latin expression: terra nullius.  It means nobody’s land.  Actually, there is one more for you: a titre de souverain.  Go figure.

Now, back to the Beijing Olympics.  I don’t think it is an understatement that the Chinese has waited for hundreds of years to have a moment like this.  Sure, it is the pride of a nation, pride of a race.  And why the Western’s negative media coverage day after day?  Like my African boss said: If you watch CNN and believe that that is Africa, you are so wrong.

Face it.  There is a reason why the smart ones from the West are moving into Asia for a better career and financial opportunity.  The world is changing; China is rising; not even the Western propaganda is going to reverse that.

Anyways, happy birthday Singapore.  What talking me in this post?!

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

After Dark by Haruki Murakami – A Dark Beauty of Novelette Filled With Dualism

After reading the short story collection of “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman“, I was left with the feeling of wanting more.  The synopsis of “After Dark” (paperback 201 pages) intrigues me.  It is midnight hour when Mari sips coffee, a young musician walks in, and they have a conversation.  Later, as Mari is alone again, a girl from a love hotel walks in, and they both head to the hotel.  A Chinese prostitute is hurt badly by her client.  Meanwhile, parallel to the main story, Mari’s sister Eri is at home, sleeping so perfectly pure.  Something is subtly wrong with this picture.  The world of imagery meets with the world of reality and how these two concepts morph into something so beautifully, something so surreal, and something so dark in the ending chapter.

Each chapter begins with a clock that tells the time spinning a story that lasts from 11:56pm to 6:52am.  The main story of Mari is engaging and the side story of Eri is surreal.  I mention dualism because if carefully observed, most characters have a two-side.  The story has the light and the dark running side by side too.  The dialogues are lively and when it comes to words that describe the vision.  They are beautiful.  An excerpt as follows (the beginning chapter).

Eyes mark the shape of the city.

Through the eyes of a high-flying night bird, we take in the scene from midair.  In our broad sweep, the city looks like a single gigantic creature – or more like a single collective entity created by many intertwining organisms.  Countless arteries stretch to the ends of its elusive body, circulating a continuous supply of fresh blood cells, sending out new data and collecting the old, sending out new consumables and collecting the old, sending out new contradictions and collecting the old.  To the rhythm of its pulsing, all parts of the body flicker and flare up and squirm.  Midnight is approaching, and while the peak of the activity has passed, the basal metabolism that maintains life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of the city’s moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor falls but is pregnant with foreboding.

The influence of the Western culture, particularly Western music and literature, continues to exhibit in Haruki Murakami’s work.  It is full of vision and sound and a worthwhile book to read if you enjoy stories that are dark and artistic.  At times, you will find yourself living inside the story, short of interacting with the characters.  Almost read like watching a short film.  For best result, start reading “After Dark” at 11:56pm – the exact time when the story begins.