Eye Mask???

Rugby Dinner

I was invited by my big boss to a rugby dinner last night. Over 95% of the participants were Gwei Lo. Rugby is truly a Gwei Lo's game. I never liked it, even when I was in the UK. They asked me to play ('cos I am sort of big and tall), but I refused, and said I'd better play table-tennis!

My boss and I were the only Chinese for my table. The dinner was boring enough: Two ex-rugby players (I guess they were famous) went onto the stage and talked for 45 minutes each. Their speech was full of English jokes, which probably could only be appreciated by the Brits. I only got 30% of them.

As usual, the dinner started at 7:45pm with a drink and did not really start until it was 8:45pm. It finished at around midnight. Boring boring boring...

I bought this DVD set from a second hand shop. Only HKD550. What a good bargain it is. I watched the rehearsal CD. It's exciting to watch Bernstein conducting. He gave his all to it. He said there should be maximal intensity even for the softest passage of Mahler's symphonies. Although not everybody likes Bernstein's Mahler, he is definitely a legend. I was impressed when he talked about Das Lied von der Erde at a piano, with a cigarette in his mouth. He was like a Hollywood star!

I like his No.9. A bit of self indulgence, a bit of over-emotional. That suits Mahler No.9.

Mengla Huang and the HK Sinfonietta

I attended the HK Sinfonietta concert last night. I was looking forward to listening to Mengla Huang live after listening to his CD. It was his first time to play a concerto in HK (not sure whether it was his debut though).

The concert hall was full. Many youngsters attended. And I suspect because of this, the hall was quite noisy during the performance - mobile phones rang, endless coughing, one of the girls sitting in front of me slept with her body lying sideway, children were complaining about the Elgar Concerto being too long, chatting, you name it. It was the worst occasion that I have been to. I think LCSD should seriously consider disallowing children of 12 years of age or below entering the hall.

Mengla Huang was charming. He was full of confidence. His bowing was good, in the sense that he produced some very full and bright sound in the Elgar. There is no problem for him in playing the difficult parts of the concerto. His technique was even better demonstrated in his encore piece, which was a showoff piece and got a lot of left hand pizzicato. What is interesting is that his interpretation of the Elgar was actually quite mature (especially in the second movement). In fact, it surprised me that he chose this relatively unpopular piece as the first concerto to play in HK.

Incidentally, I saw Lee Chuan Yun attending the concert as well. Mengla Huang was probably more charming than Lee Chuan Yun in terms of appearance. I am looking forward to attending Lee's concert with the HKPO playing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto this summer. I am sure it is going to be an event for music lovers.

Gunter Wand Edition Part II

I got this from Shun Cheong the other day and only got a chance to see one of the discs today. It was Bruckner No.7. I didn't have time to listen to the whole symphony. I just listened to the second movement. It was magnificent. It is amazing to see Wand conducting Bruckner. He was a natural Brucknerian. The tempo he took was fast (contrary to Celibidache - both are good recordings). This set is not expensive - just under HKD600 for 4 DVDs. HK Records was selling at over HKD700. Got to find a holiday to finish Part I and II together (Part I got Bruckner No. 5, 6, 8 and 9. Part II got Bruckner No. 4 and 7 plus Schubert's symphony 5, 8 and 9 and Brahms Symphony No.1). Good bargain.

Chasing Daylight

This book was recommended by Hung Siu Lam of HKEJ this morning. I am so interested to read this. The book is about the CEO of KPMG in the US, Eugene O'Kelly. He was told he had only a few months to live, because he was suffering from an advanced form of brain cancer in May 2005 (the last chapter was written by his wife after O'Kelly died). He wrote about how he managed his final months alive; saying final goodbyes to friends and family, rememebering "perfect moments" he had. Among other things, the book has a great message to all of us who lead our lives at a speed that we should slow it down, accept certain things the way they are, and value moments with family above time at work. I am thinking of buying this book.

Incidentally, I received a message today, which talks about basically the same thing. I'd like to share with you all:

THE BRICK

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed downwhen he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared.

Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up agains a parked car shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?" The young boy was apologetic.
"Please, mister...please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do," He pleaded. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop..." With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. "It's my brother, "he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up."

Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. "Thank you and may God bless you," the grateful child told the stranger. Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy! push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: "Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!" God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It's our choice to listen or not.

John Field

I read about this composer in a magazine and bought two of his CDs. He composed Nocturnes even before Chopin. I briefly played one of the CDs when I got home the other day. The music sounded very romantic and melodic. It was a NAXOS CD and costs only HKD49.- . If you like romantic piano music, I would recommend it to you.

Embarrassing Moments

Talking about embarrassing moments, there is a classic one that I think it is the most embarassing moment of all. It is real, ok? One of my colleagues went to see a customer for the first time. And she was going to meet two people from the company. When one of them came into the room, my colleague was offered drinks and they sat down. And then they chatted for a few minutes. My colleague then said, "Mr X, our meeting today is to explore business opportunities...", and the customer replied, "ehhhh...I am a Miss!".

I don't think she got the business that day. And if I were her, I would say goodbye immediately.

五件最瘀的事

I was named by 梁巔巔 to disclose 五件最瘀的事. There were quite a lot for me:

1) I was cooking in the dorm kitchen when I was still at university. I realised that somebody was cooking rice using a normal pan (without the lid). It was running dry. I tried to find out who that belonged to, but at the same time, I used my finger to test how dry the rice was. The guy who cooked the rice was standing right behind me!! And he was wondering why I used my finger to touch his rice.

2) I was singing as a guest performer in a high school 18 years ago. My friend composed the song for me and I started to learn it on the day of the performance. I sang the song in the evening with more mistakes than I have ever made in my life. It was awful.

3) I told a girl that I quite liked her (1st time in my life!) when I was at the university but she said she was alredy with somebody else. Biggest defeat at that time.

4) When I started studying high school in the UK, I couldn't quite get the accent of those Brits. One day I was waiting for somebody and a teacher walked by. He asked me a question. I couldn't get what he was saying but I sensed that it wasn't an important question. So I guessed the safest answer on earth is "I don't know". He said, "What? Andy, I said who are you waiting for?".

5) I was taking a shower at my uncle's house in Malaysia. When I finished my shower, I went down to the dining room and enjoy the TV programme. Suddenly, my sister called me loudly from upstairs, and when I went up, she told me that I had left my underwear in the bathroom and worst of all, it was discovered by my cousins (females!).

Sorry that most of them happened quite a while ago. I don't seem to find any 瘀事 that happened recently. Perhaps some are forthcoming soon ...

Tag another five:

yuen yuen yuenlukluk

snoopy 史路比的天空

chauli 瑮律無窮

Tungpo Tungpo

Ruth Ruth's Thoughts