July 29th, 2004 by Eshin
I seem to be just adding new blogs these days. I’m sure I’ll get more time to piss around and upload some more meaningful links. In any case, here are three more new blogs to amuse yourself with.
The first is a blog by my friend Ahsa in Hong Kong. Very local style of writing but then she’s a local HK gal and sort of explains the infrequency of the posts. Anyway, she’s a regular reader of my blog so I thought I’d link to her.
The second one is by Spirit Fingers. A relatively new blogger but whose cynicism I find all the more refreshing and even somewhat amusing. Check it out.
And the last is Simon World, who has kindly added me to his Asian Blog roll index. So here’s a courtesy plug.
July 28th, 2004 by Eshin
Now I’m sure I’m being premature on this one, but I think I’ve finally managed to fix my main computer. It was fixed last week but on Monday it decided to go kaput again. It would seem that all the latest updates from Microsoft, combined with McAfee AV and topped off with a Creative SoundBlaster card don’t seem to play well together. So now, after numerous formats, system restores, I’m back at the point where I was on Monday.
I think it’s my soundcard that’s the cause. So I’m now sitting in front of my most powerful computer in my flat and it doesn’t play sound. My two year old Dell and my four year old Sony Vaio laptop are surely laughing as I bang my head against the wall in frustration.
Anyway, I’m back online it would seem. And now I know how to restore the damned system to a previous state. Well, the theory at least.
No doubt Murphy’s Law will put me in my place real soon.
July 26th, 2004 by Eshin
I went to the Sammi Cheng Sau Man concert on Saturday and finally fulfill my wildest dreams come true. Only except without the whips. Or the chains. Or even the candles. To be honest, I wasn’t really planning on going since most of the people I know either wouldn’t be caught dead there or, for those that would suffer a Sammi concert for me, weren’t in the country. However, turns out my friend could snaggle some discounted tickets at $100 and after some convincing managed to get her to come along with me to keep me company. Turns out she did enjoy it after all.
There were other reasons for going to. As one other friend pointed out to me, Sammi seems to be winding down her career in music for the moment, so this might be her last concert for some time. So it might have been my last chance to see her while I was in HK or anywhere. I also felt that I needed to see what a Canto-pop concert is like so aside from the oggle factor, it was also a cultural observation.
While enjoyed the concert, I did feel it was a little more of a show rather than a concert. This had impact on the overall experience in some strange ways. Firstly, it meant that while there was singing, there was also a lot of time spent talking. This would be Sammi either chit chatting with the four walls of the audience or, at times, with her guest singers. The guest singers would come on and do a duet, chit chat and do a solo performance while Sammi went to change costume. We had the privilege of Juno, Candy Lo, Denise Ho (I believe), and some other woman sing with Sammi. They managed to also drag down Miriam Yeung from the audience for a “impromptu” performance.
For me, the show was a little stilted. While I do take into account that I couldn’t understand the conversations (hey, foreigner like me likes to listen to the melody, look at some eye-candy), I did think that the show was more of an opportunity for Sammi to interact with her audience rather than belt out all of her popular old songs and new songs like in a Western concert. It sort of explained why most people stayed in their seats for the whole concert and why my ears weren’t ringing at the end of it. All in all, rather civilised and subdued.
Apparently, if we screamed for her enough, she would come back and do an encore presentation. I guess this was the only time it really seemed like a concert with people shouting for their star and, the Chinese favourite, glow sticks waving in the dark. In this segment, she managed to get off her popular signature songs from her various movies over the years. One wonders if the audience members, a girl and a boy, and the celebrity who was sitting in the VIP section, were all plants a la Cox/Springsteen.
By Western standards, this was a show more than a concert. Any band or singer who deigned to talk as much and sing as little at their own concerts would be lynched. A conversation with the audience would last maybe five minutes while the singer caught their breath but even that would be considered long. But by Chinese standards, I believe this was the norm and it just re-affirms my suspicion that many of Hong Kong’s celebrities are more about performance than just singing. But who cares, I got to see Sammi.
July 22nd, 2004 by Eshin
Purchasing pirated software or movies is almost an adventure in itself. In Hong Kong, there seems to be designated areas where all these pirated software operators congregate. For all intents and purposes, it’s an accepted practice although the shops they sell from are usually temporarily unoccupied by the looks of things. The police do occassionally do their job and raid the place. One suspects that the half-hearted attempts to shut down software piracy has more to do with someone failing to pay the right people rather than any sense of IPR protection.
Gone are the days when you just walked in and bought the merchandise. It’s now a more streamlined affair with badly photocopied covers lined up along the wall. You either take the covers to the guy or write down the numbers. You pay your money first and then wait half an hour or so while his buddies go and burn the CD’s for you. Or something like that.
This practice of handing over the money first doesn’t often sit well with foreigners. You can usually tell who the out-of-towners are by the fuss the put up when they find out they have to part with their mullah and actually wait half an hour. Especially given the dubious moral ethics of the business at hand. But strangely, it’s a testament to the pervasive acceptance of the practice that allows Hong Kong pirates to behave in this way. If I fork over cash to some guy in Camden Town in London promising me illegal goods, I’d be naive to think he’d actually come back. One suspects a triad with an MBA and specialisation in customer service had something to do with that.
Yesterday was particularly amusing. Two English guys were kicking up a storm because they got screwed in the DVD place on the top floor at 298. Apparently, one DVD didn’t work and the other DVD was in Chinese when apparently the guy had asked to see whether it was in English. They were actually asking for a refund which the guy in charge wasn’t giving him and told him to pick another DVD. The English guy held firm and demanded a refund. They were still slogging it out when I walked by half an hour later.
I have heard of people actually returning faulty CD’s so I know that this wasn’t an unusual occurence. I just find it strange that people actually kick-up a fuss about faulty software or bad customer service (in this case getting a Chinese language version instead of an English one) in these places. What do you expect? Part of the reason why software and DVD titles are more expensive is because you have quality control costs put on at the publisher’s side. Customer service and refund policy costs are put on at the retailer. For 30 HKD, you can hardly expect any form of customer service and quality control. It’s a bonus but you shouldn’t really expect it.
I don’t think the guy got a refund in the end. I feel for the guy but at the end of the day, it’s potentially dangerous if he got it. I mean, imagine customer services and refund policy in other areas of the black market? Johns soliciting the services of hookers could ask for a refund if they were not 100% satisfied. God forbid that any punter should actually scientifically check the quality of the drugs they’ve bought. Errr…I didn’t get the high I was expecting, could I have my money back? Black market ettiquette dictates that if you aren’t satisfied with the goods or services, you don’t buy with them again in the future. Asking for a refund just isn’t done unless you’re connected; but even then, it’s usually not worth it for 30 bucks.
July 20th, 2004 by Eshin
I think I had my first dream about smoking a cigarette last night. Of course, you can’t always be sure since you tend to forget about dreams in the first ten minutes of waking up. But I remember this one for some reason.
The visual imagery was like watching an old silent movie in the 1920’s or something. I was in an old biplane and I had the sense that the timings were just after the emperor’s coronation in Japan, over who’s country we were flying. (Oo-er…a Watson style moment of writing there). These old bi-planes had two seats although on this occassion we had managed to cram in three folks - the pilot, the blonde haired 20’s starlet, and myself. I’m not sure how the subject came up, one is never sure about these things, but the pilot made reference to the fact that the plane had a cigarette lighter that heated itself from the engine. I was so impressed with that I lit up a cigarette. I was even more impressed when he told me the ashtrays were designed with pearl.
Although I don’t get cravings that much anymore, I could feel the smoke satisfyingly fill my lungs. Thankfully, I woke up and the feeling of wanting a cigarette left.
I have to look into why I’m always having these dreams about planes and flight. I think I know why I was thinking about lighters. Yesterday in CitySuper I noticed some girls looking at Zippo lighters and I remarked how young they were and how important smoking used to be for me. And cleaning out my flat yesterday, I noticed the five ashtrays I’ve got in my flat that will probably never be used again. I miss the habit occassionally but usually it’s a passing thought or feeling.
