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Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Indigestion and irritating secondary school kids Hari Raya visits and all that curry has taken its toll on my stomach and today I am officially down with indigestion... I leave the rest to your imagination. I think even the toilet bowl wants to find a place to hide. :P Anyway I digress. My family and I were given free tickets to see a concert organised by the Kuching Oriental Chinese Orchestra. Top performers from China were invited as guest performers.Too lazy to list out all the names of the performers... I'm not paid to publicise them anyway. On overall the concert was ok, although I do think that the organisers could arrange the order of the programmes in such a way that the backstage workers do not have to run around the stage getting the seating arrangements right. The stage does not have a stage curtain where all the "action" and scurrying around of assistants with chairs, microphones, etc are safely hidden behind the curtains. Therefore half the time we were "entertained" by the workers running around carrying the heavy chinese musical instruments, positioning the microphones, etc. etc... which was, frankly speaking not very impressive. I was very annoyed by the ignorance of the audiences, especially the secondary school kids who screamed nonchalantly and made wolf whistles during the performance. This is supposed to be a serious and solemn concert, mind you, not a Michael Jackson world tour. I find it an insult to the performers. And the audiences always clapped their hands at the wrong time. Arrgghhhh! They should pay more attention to the facial expressions and body language of the performers, for goodness sake. A pause during the performance is not unusual. What is wrong with these people. Aiya. The quality of the audience is really terrible... I wonder if they could really appreciate the performance. And one more thing... being a hardcore Chinese satellite tv fan, I could not help but feel that the chinese solo performers were not performing up to standard... perhaps its because they are still trying to recover from jet lag or something? I know I know.. I should not be such a critic but I can't help but feel that these chinese performers feel that its ok to deliver below par because we country pumpkins may not know the difference whether it is an "A" grade performance or a "B" grade performance anyway. I feel strongly that you need to be a perfectionist when you perform, because you are setting a precedent for young aspiring musicians who may take after your performing techniques. I know for one that the composer of the song six feet under would be outraged if he/she heard a less acceptable interpretation of his/her music works. You not only have to respect your audience but also the original composer of the song as well. You need to look behind the intention of the composer and what message he/she intends to relay through the music. Your imagination will come into play and you need to incorporate your technical skills and your body language to give life into the music that you are playing. At least I think so anyway. ********************************************************************** Mandarin conversant "Ang Mos" I saw an Englishman serving as a master of ceremony in a tv programme in CCTV-4 (Chinese Central Television Channel). And he spoke perfect Mandarin. Wow. Not sure if you realised this... Foreigners take it for granted that Asians are proficient in English, French, Spanish and any other language for that matter.. but when we see a foreigner conversing fluently in Mandarin, its like seeing the 9th or 10th wonder of the world! When I was in university one of the English students staying in the same residence hall as I did confessed that English people are too lazy to pick up another language because they already know the world's most widely used language! However, with China steadily growing into the next superpower of the world, it is understandable that everybody wants to hop on the big Chinese bandwagon and grab a piece of "Chinese pie" before they are left behind. During my Bar course, one of my coursemates, an American, used to speak to me and my Malaysian classmates in Mandarin. Not very fluently, mind you but I respected him for making the effort. And of course the east asian students from Pakistan, Bangladesh were only too interested to know what we were talking whenever the Malaysian gang was having a "summit" conference among ourselves... usually it would be a "rojak" conversation consisting of Cantonese, Hokkien, a bit of Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia and very little English. Ah... the beauty of being a Malaysian... you speak so many languages, you confuse yourself. In 1996 when I went to Wuxi, China to participate in a summer camp I met an Australian lecturer who spoke fluent Mandarin to us. I will always remember his advice to us: " Be proud of your language and your roots...you must be a dignified member of your race." A common misconception among the Chinese during that time was that Malaysian Chinese were Mandarin illiterate. It was rather hilarious actually... because all foreign students were assigned a "family" each, who were the local residents in the city. So they came up to each of us, armed with dictionaries and started talking to us in English... for fear that we would not understand Mandarin. The moment I spoke to my host family, they were immediately relieved. It was a good experience. Malaysia is one of the countries outside China where all ethnic groups are free to learn their mother tongues without restrictions from the government. And we should be grateful for that. I remember reading an article which conveyed the message that the easiest way to wipe out a particular race is to deprive them of learning their mother tongue and eradicate all traces of their culture. The Indonesian chinese community would be a good example. Totally deprived of their rights and access to their language and culture during the reign of President Suharto, Indonesian chinese adopted Indonesian names and the only chinese character they know how to read would be their own chinese names. Therefore, I was thinking, we should be proud that the foreigners are learning Mandarin and the next time we see a foreigner, we should speak to them in Mandarin. Just like the French who are so proud of their language, there is no reason why we should not be proud of our own language. Right? Haha... what a turn of tables it will be. Ming Bai Ma? (Do you understand?) hahahaha by miracle8 at 09:34 pm
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Profile Right... four years exactly into working life and suddenly I found the urgent need to ramble about my not so interesting life...here goes:
I am: Liberal and radical on paper only. This is the basic description I would give myself. I am a good listener and usually offer sensible advice. If I don't sound like myself, its must be my evil twin at work :P I am passionate about: Music and Arts. Can't imagine what this world would be like without these two essential elements. When I'm not working my head off I like: Meeting new people from all walks of life and listening to their life experiences. I take things with an open mind (albeit not completely Zen like) and always remind myself not to take anything in life for granted. And I wish: All my friends, my family and everybody else who will somehow cross paths with me, a fulfulling life, in terms of work and relationships. And remember, you only live once. So make the best out of it. :) Tag Board Calendar
Links Affiliations: SARAWAK BRITISH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn Alumni Association, Malaysia Be a part of the blogger's community!  I read them: Bk's Homepage updated! January 2007 Matty Benji Firestorm's Portal Lily aka Helibely Songie The Angelic Grace Tony Pua 5xMom Competitive Malaysia The Cooking Engineer Dodoro May's Bloggie Kenny likes whisky and Cognac Rojaks Daily Gentle Ethereal Musings Xes Marita Paige Chets Corner Wilson's Digital Memory Wena's Mum-mum Kuching Kayaking Fish fish's blog Bujang Lapuk Abroad Nadai Nama Nama Jasmine Mikel Lian Dr Chen's Ramblings Benjamin the Violinist Ah Mok's blog Kent's blog Kenny Sia Joyce Lee Parisian 15 Kris's Memory Stick Irene's Sweet Surrender Pink Cotton Kawaras Andrew's da man Benjamin Sew cracks me up Jay So Rules Robin Wong Allen Kenneth Ivan Ann Kuching Fest I blog here too The Cook Blog Useful links on education and other youth programmes China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youths TinKosong.Com RECOM Educate, Deviate by Tiara Shafiq Up With People Doctorjob.com (Malaysia) Support Bolehland Read Blogs Malaysia Chinese blogs Estelle Xu's Journey With Good Friends Willis Double Happiness My other blogs My Nano '05 (archived) My Piano Diaries updated! My 2005 Nanowrimo Novel (By Chapters) Chapter 1-Memory of Fallen Petals Chapter 2-The New Landlady Chapter 3-The music room Chapter 4-A look into the past and some girly talk Chapter 5-The beginning of it all Chapter 6-The Proposal and a sea of memories Chapter 7-A story untold My Article Index-where you find links to my favourite articles! UPDATED December 06 online Online Casino  Credits |
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