Chinese Folk Music Concert at the 22nd Macau International Music Festival

On Sunday, October 26, 2008, four indigenous choral and dance groups from mainland China – Tu Brothers and Miao Sisters from Yichang in Hubei Province, Yuxi Nie'er Bamboo Music Ensemble of Yuxi City Cultural Center, The Dong Group from the Dimen Dong Cultural Eco-museum and the Miao Group Dou-Die-Dou-a – literally turned Mount Fortress from an idle structure into a dynamic world cultural heritage. Although I was on an emotional high note watching the beautiful girls from the Yuxi Nie'er Bamboo Music Ensemble and their sexy skirts during the first half of the performance, the primitive yet powerful Dong and Miao music during the second part of the performance truly touched my heart as they were incontrovertible faithful to their history, traditions and spirituality. The large lusheng (bamboo pipes more than 3 meters in length) proved to be a dazzling presence on stage, even when the performer accidentally hit the lighting draws a big round of applause. This definitely fits my definition of a great evening out – great music, culture at a historical monument, and free admission tickets.

Watching Fish at Hotel Lisboa Macau

I was strolling aimlessly during lunch hour - unwilling to rush back to work after stuffing my stomach with a cheap and tasteless lunch box. Then I stopped and accidentally found a newly installed large fish tank at the basement of Hotel Lisboa Macau. I was totally attracted by the beauty of the fishes. I was also impressed by the fact that it's free. I don't have to travel all the way to Ocean Park in Hong Kong and pay a few hundred dollars to look at fish tanks of similar quality. Although I had a rather dreadful morning, the colorful fishes really cheered up the rest of my afternoon. Another great place to kill of my excess boredom. Isn't that wonderful?

Hilary Hahn and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presented a powerful performance of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 at the XXII Macau International Music Festival on Tuesday, 14 October 2008. The movement on Hahn's passage was inspirational and as it gradually intensifies, reached just right balance of both harmony and thematic contrast between the soloist and the orchestra. When the music concludes with the powerful finale with which it began, everybody in the audience had turned himself/herself into indubitable fan of Hilary Hahn and Bramwell Tovey, conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Four encores at the end of the performance after rounds and rounds of applauses turned an extraordinary night of classical music into a lifetime experience. I'm just glad I was part of it.

Premarital Agreement

A female friend showed me a draft copy of a premarital agreement provided by her British boyfriend she met a couple months ago. This is the first time I had ever came across such kind of legal documents, and I was totally amazed by the complicity of this particular premarital agreement. This documents is almost 40 pages in length, covering over 700 clauses. Some of the terms simply couldn't ask any sane and normal to understand, here is one of the examples, "Neither parties will make any claim during the marriage to the property in the separate absolute beneficial ownership of the other and both parties agree to release all rights and/or not pursue claims in respect of any rights which either may acquire by reason of their marriage over the property of the other whether acquired before or after the marriage." I have no idea what it means. This guy owns one small house in Wales that does not worth much money, a few lots of UK bank securities, and almost nothing in savings accounts. I did some quick arithmetic in my head and concluded that his total assets was less than 1 million patacas, or around 6,000 pounds. And they are paying over 10,000 patacas in legal fees to get this premarital agreement done by the lawyers. She told me that her totally assets were of substantially higher value than his boyfriend, so she took his initiative to sign a premarital agreement as a joke and she was more than happy to sign this premarital agreement, given that she's not paying any of the legal fees. This will be his fourth and her third marriage and they are both in their 30's. That makes me wonder why they were taking such as casual attitude towards relationships and marriages while taking their personal financial issues so seriously. If they take their relationship just as serious as they look at the financial matters, we won't be having so many kids raised in single-parent families.

Hac Sac Beach: Three Weeks after Typhoon Hagupit Hit Macau

Another Regret in My Life

Trash pins on the streets of Macau were usually full of broken umbrellas after typhoons. In the aftermath of a series of typhoons in September, it's quite common to see broken umbrellas all over the place. Sometimes I almost picked up some of the umbrellas that were not completely broken. But I didn't. Within a few days, all the broken umbrellas were cleaned up by the municipal contractors. I also threw out a few of my own umbrellas damaged in typhoon yesterday. This morning, there is an advertisement posted by the StarWorld Hotel and Casino in local newspapers. It said people would bring a broken umbrella to the hotel and exchange for a new umbrella with their logo on it. I was so saddened by the news that my blood pressure almost went over the ceiling. The only thing I can say now is: "Life is full of regrets."

Protest on Chinese National Day

I saw a small group of protesters marching on October 1, the Chinese National Day. They claim to be unemployed local workers and demanded the government to reduce the number of foreign workers in Macau. With only 40 protesters and very little coverage from the press, they won't get much out of this except for sun tan.