March 2008 Archives

Happy Birthday to an individual once very significant in my life. Hope all the best to you.

Amber is an experimental play directed by a very famous play director Meng Jing Hui (孟京辉). Written by his wife Liao Yi Mei (廖一梅). The story is roughly about a woman falling in love with a nonchalant playboy who received her late husband's heart. Saw this in National Grand Theater with Chloe last weekend. She managed to get orchestra seats, I know, I've been lucky with tickets lately, I think its because everyone knows my mood is sorta "Meh"-ish. Chloe also had dinner with the director, his wife, and some cast a while ago, his wife supposedly is stunningly smart, I don't doubt that.

My favorite line in the play: "I can resist anything except temptation." (除了诱惑，我什么都能阻挡。)

Taiwan pictures up, click here to view. Comments are welcomed.

Nick, Vanessa, and friends, they look all lovey dovey while me on the other side of the camera alone :-/

Father and son.

Beijing's olympic standard baseball field is really really ... up to standards, sitting here i could've mistaken my self watching the game in Chicago, or SF.

Before Taipei weekend, I went to the first ever Major League Baseball game in China. Despite the fact that Chinese people haven't a clue what baseball is about, nor care, MLB decided to try to come into the country just like MBA and NFL.

I personally don't really care for the game either, but I really do enjoy sitting with friends on a sunny afternoon eating hot dogs and drink... coke, sorry, my liver can't really stand any alcohol at all. Nick's lovely girlfriend Vanessa managed to get some hugely popular tickets 1200 rmb each, and the extra one managed to land in my hand.

The game is between Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, when I told this to Adam Dines, he almost cried, hehe, and when I told him that MLB China's logo is the same logo except its red and yellow, think he did cry. Anyways, I loved the venue, except... THEY DON'T SELL HOT DOGS IN THE STAND!!! and there were only one food vender outside. We stood inline for half an hour and managed to get some beers and sprites. The game is alright, there were some exciting high lights, and in the end Padres won in the 8th. Thanks Nick for bringing my name up to Van.

Pictures of taipei will be up soon. In the mean time, I can show you these. Various hip and trendy clubs/bars I got taken to by some friends.

Bathroom of Primo, Taipei. It was a soft opening night that night. I was introduced to some of the nicest people. Even shook hands with the owner of the ever so famous Bar Rouge in Shanghai.

Club 18, I've never seen a club filled with so many people.

Tila Taquela, met Faye Wong's manager in this bar.

Post election celebration. People were ecstatic about the result.

See those shots? I wasn't kidding about people being happy that weekend.

Ex-collegues invited me to a field trip couple weeks back. Just got them back today.

View from the top of Houhai hill. The weather in beijing that day sucked, but the forbidden city still looked glorious in the smog.

View of the hill from the boat.

Former Ogilvy colleagues. Thanks Vivian Guo for the invite, I had fun :)

I saw Chasing Pavements' music video a while back, liked it and couldn't get the song out of my head for a while. So.

Lyrics After the Jump

Tibet Tibet, you are China's forever. We love Tibet more than Dhalai, more than Bjork. Tibet can't leave, not during war, not during peace, not during economic difficulties, not during Olympics, not during anything.

I'm absolutely infatuated with these brand new mega constructions in Beijing. Looking out from HP building and seeing the CCTV tower being finished, I wonder what's it like to work in there. Its a massive 550,000 suare meter development housing the entire porcess of tv program making. There's a second building cleverly named "TVCC" next to the tower, which you can kind of see through that "window" of the tower. It'll be a hotel and visitor center.

I personally don't have a whole lot respect for the station its self though. Its a massive bureaucratic entity much like China its self. Its channel idents are pathetic, CCTV logo is a knock off of CNN's, no consistency cross the board. For example, while CCTV news channel's identity being a spinning yellow+black globe. CCTV money / finance channel just plagiarized the ever so famous Sony Bravia "balls" commercial. Its a bunch of bouncing red balls instead of multi color robber balls going through a city.. and... they waited for traffic lights.

anyways, back to HP meeting, and for those of you curious souls that still haven't seen the Sony Bravia spot i mentioned, here is the link : http://bravia.sony.eu/bravia-html/balls-thead.asp

PS. from now on my polaroid pictures will be presented without borders.

"Chinese Maza Bling Baby... Jello, Famas Western Delicacy." This actually is one of my favorite commercials. I still remember that day where I watched in John Evan's Class and laughed really hard about it. Despite its over the top racial connotations, it's one of those rare moments where I think the intention is possitive. It's to make a Chinese baby look cuter than he already is. A message to Chinese people, our Chinese babies were actually considered cuter than western babies once upon a time. Not the other way around like now in China.

Ever notice most songs are written about love? From a secret crush, to love at first sight, to heart break, to longing. Desire can be beautiful and scary at the same time. Does love make us stronger? Then why do we reveal so much vulnerabilities to a loved one? Does it make us weak? Then why do we abuse a loved one's trust sometimes? As we move on, we become skeptics, cynics, and sometimes, abusers, and yet, we put our selves in this loop. I'm not in love. I'm not in doubt. I am... despondent.