Yellowjacketstudios » Shanghai

May Holidays shortened, but not without its craziness…

Administrator — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:41:47 +0000

May holidays is upon us here in China again, but it’s not without its craziness. With the shortened holidays lots of people won’t be traveling as long, but it doesn’t mean they won’t be traveling. I think a lot of us here are expecting a lot of tourists to come into town and generally making the already crowded shopping and tourist areas, well, more crowded.

This May holiday will be even more interesting with the ongoing protests that many locals are supporting against France and, unfortunately, in turn, our regular French-based shopping paradise (for families), Carrefour. If you’ve read some of the latest news articles (here or here), it seems that a lot of people are planning on not shopping at Carrefour over the holidays to make their statement.

Chinese nationalism has been on the rise the last month or so, aptly timed before the Olympics and in face of resistance found during the Olympic Torch relays. Perhaps you might have also noticed in your MSN friend lists that some of your Mainland Chinese buddies now have a (heart icon) China at the beginning of their name. Yup, they’re related. For some interesting takes on the recent Chinese nationalistic movements, check out this link.

Usually the best things to do during May holidays is to hibernate in your home or to head out of the country. But this year, I will be heading out to Shenyang in a couple of days, traveling with a bunch of friends helping out with an event. Should be exciting going to a city that I’ve never been to before!

What are your plans for the holidays?

Tags: China

You know you’re more local Chinese than the local Chinese when…

Administrator — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:48:02 +0000

1. You jaywalk streets that locals don’t even dare to. 你干闯红灯，可是你的本地朋友们都不敢。
2. Locals call you out for spitting in public places. 本地朋友们骂你在公开的地方吐痰。
3. You crowd people so closely on the bus that other passengers ask you to stand back. 你在公交车上挤到别人要请你让点空间。

Obviously, I’m not talking about myself…
当然我不是讲关于我自己。。。

(Feel free to add others)

Tags: China, life, Shanghai

Kids these days…

Administrator — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:05:30 +0000

Life in Shanghai includes the excitement of new additions to my friend’s families. I used to joke around with my friends in university that our get-togethers would end earlier and earlier because we’d be spending most of our time taking care of our kids. Well, that time has arrived! However, it’s quite amazing to see how each of these kids’ personalities are so evident at such a young age.

Take for instance, the little boy on the left. Logan has probably one of the kindest hearts, caring for me especially after my tonsillectomy. In fact, he was so concerned that he began mentioning my name to his parents non-stop, everyday. I haven’t seen him since, but I still get messages from his mom saying that she gets awakened by Logan calling me. Such an adorable boy.
Dylan, on the right, is a very personable kid, loves running around and hugging people. Good of you to visit Dylan!

Probably one of my closer friends, Skylar and her baby sister Sydney, are bundles of fun. Skylar has amazing interpersonal skills and is already so good at taking charge or situations. She is also a very skilled dancer and guitar player. She is absolutely adorable.

Pictures courtesy of John’s and Morris’ flickr pics…

Tags: China, Kids, Shanghai

Check out Tim Kao’s music…finally online

Administrator — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 07:02:15 +0000

Well, it’s finally online. That’s right. My buddy T. Kao’s put a handful of his songs online for your listening pleasure.

For those gear freaks interested in knowing what we used to put together the four songs on there right now (Sunday Morning Sleeping, Beautiful World, Simple & True, and the infamous unnamed track), there were:

pieces and parts recorded in Garageband and ProTools
different guitars parts using diff. amps, Pod effects, mics, mic configurations (special thanks to J. Hsu for lending us his Martin!)
portions recorded at my place were done in my dining room and living room
synth sounds were done in Garageband and also through Propellerhead’s reason
Other sound effects that were done consisted of various ProTool plugins (including Sony Oxfords for Simple and True, and Vinyl Scratch for Sunday morning sleeping), Reason, sound bytes from different places.

It was super fun cutting my teeth with his music, because it had such variety of instruments, and found out a lot about what works and what didn’t.

I had a great time working with T. Kao with all these songs. If I wasn’t so darn busy, he would’ve been living at my place right now. I hear Mie sighing with relief.

Go listen.

Tags: Indie, Music, T.Kao

T. Kao’s farewell show

Administrator — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:42:30 +0000

I’ve mentioned in a previous post somewhere that I’ve been helping a my friend Tim record a few of his original songs. As great as a songwriter he is, I personally think he’s an even better performer. Last Friday, Tim held a special farewell concert for his students and invited a handful of guest stars to perform with him. And what fun when I was invited to be a guest musician!

It was an interesting mix of people in the audience that Friday night, with school kids from elementary to high school, couples, young families, locals, school teachers, and giddy schoolgirls wanting his autograph, the show went on without too many hitches. Best move Tim pulled off was to hire a professional team to do the sound. The venue he played in is notorious for poor sound and Friday night sounded….Gooooooood.

Finally had the chance to use all this equipment that I’ve hauled from overseas to its full potential. I can say, my 2nd week of June was complete. I played electric for one song and bass for another, using my ES-335 with my Valvestate, and finally, the Acme Bass Amp that was turned up to half of max volume for the first time! Yes, I was one of those giddy schoolgirls.

All in all, it was a fun one-and-a-half hour show, with entertained friends and HK style food for late night dessert. I consider that a night well spent.

Tags: China, Music, Shanghai, T.Kao

新年的习惯与理发师的历史课程

Administrator — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:18:05 +0000

回家前去了理发学了很多关于中国历史。你知道剪头发时候就不能作别的东西，而且不想听也很难避免。这位理发师是从四川来的，跑到上海工作。他分享了很多关于四川，觉得我该去看一看。他也分享了关于上海我是从来没学过的。很多年前，上海是个非常笑的城市，只有城华庙的地区是算上海。他说如果想找到真正的上海人要跑到松江去因为他们保留的文化是比较稀释的。

这次过年就回了一唐家。应该对我父母和家庭一个很开心的时间，终于可以全家都能一起庆祝新年。你们的家乡有什么过年的习惯呢？我们红包传统是结婚后才要送红包。羡慕吗？过年也有瓜子，年糕，桔子吃。你过年是吃什么的？

Tags: China, Shanghai

Dial-up Nostalgia and Earthquakes

Administrator — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 14:45:16 +0000

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and I apologize if I didn’t get back to you earlier with a reply. If you weren’t aware of of the earthquake that took place off southern Taiwan just yesterday of a magnituude of 7.1 and 7.0 on the Richter scale, you probably wouldn’t have been aware of the impact it’s had on us poor people here in China. You might be wondering how does the earthquake in Taiwan affect your internet connection in Shanghai? Well, supposedly the earthquake has had a severely deterimental effect on the internet cables in the ocean.

So this morning, I woke my computer from sleep but wasn’t able to get to any sites. I originally figured that it was a broadband issue (as it almost usually is). When I got to work I realized that it wasn’t just my connection at home but EVERYONE had this problem. Then my friend and I deducted that the load times of web pages only affected international sites and local sites didn’t have a problem. You know the feeling you get when you want to find any recent news or if anyone else on the internet has had the same problem, but you can’t access it? It’s like giving me a guitar pick with no guitar…

But fortunately I was able to squeeze some information from some RSS feeds and from word of mouth about the earthquake affecting it. So my question is to why I was able to access the internet at normal speeds last night at midnight, since the earthquake was earlier in the evening? And if they’re to repair the lines, what do they have to do to fix them? If they’re broken do they have to re-lay the lines into the bottom of the Pacific? I mean, how in the world do you do something like that? And how long is that supposed to take? It’s not like I can snorkel under the water surface with a soldering iron or some duct tape and fix a tear in the line? Welcome any thoughts…

Oh yes, if you’re reading this from within the country, you can probably access this news article faster..

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百度2006年“十大” Baidu’s 2006 Top Ten search lists

Administrator — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 07:16:22 +0000

最近在百度搜索网站找到许多的2006年“十大“列表。我跟大家highlight几个：
Just recently found a bunch of search top ten lists from Chinese search engine Baidu. Will highlight a few for you…

十大电视节目：第一）超级女声 – 如果你没看过，你应该住在大陆之外。
十大男艺人: 第一）周杰伦 – 几年以来还是那么火，真的不容易！
十大女艺人：第一）李宇春 – 好失望，好失望。。。
十大网络红人：第一）芙蓉姐姐 – 几年以来还是那么火，真的太BT!
对我最有趣的搜索的题目是：十大为什么: 第二）为什么活着. 大陆的在线社会还是有很多人问同一个问题。如果你点进去的话，你能看到许多的答案，可是很多都讲道德，可是这些道德该有个愿根，对不对？

Top 10 TV shows: #1 – Super girl competitions – If you’ve never seen this before, you’re definitely not from China…
Top 10 Male artist: #1 – Jay Chou – to be top for such a long time is very impressive
Top 10 Female artist: #1 – LiYuChun – oh so sad, so sad…
Top 10 Web Personalities: #1 – Sister Furong – to be top for such a long time is very disturbing…
To me the most interesting fact is that the #2 item in top “Why..?” questions is “What is the meaning of life?”. Seems like the online community also face these problems. If you click into this item and read on the answers provided, a lot of them list a lot of characteristics, morals. But the question remains what grounds these morals stand on…and if they don’t have grounds then are they worth seeking in their own self?

Tags: China

And the Christmas season is underway!!!

Administrator — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:34:37 +0000

That’s right, only a couple days until Christmas, and not surprisingly, only a handful of people are running around getting Christmas gifts. Though the real reason of celebration is not known here, the Christmas season does take Shanghai by storm. You can pick up your Christmas tree, lights, decorations all at very cheap prices and wrapping paper is still being sold at non-inflated prices!

What will I be doing this holiday season? Playing piano. Yup, they’re runnin’ me ragged playing the ivories for various choral and solo pieces, as well as congregational, but it should be a blast this Sunday. Last Friday I performed a song from 雪狼湖, a Cantonese musical that was most recently performed by Jacky Cheung 张学友。It was a most nerve wracking performance that I managed to pull out, since memorizing lyrics, Mandarin, Cantonese, or English, is definitely not one of my strong points. Perhaps one side of my brain has been lying dormant for too long of a period?

Some of the more memorable performances included a Korean fan dance performance by my PR colleagues. They danced to the theme song of 大长今, an incredibly popular Korean soap. You can read more about their preparation and see some pics here.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Musikmesse Shanghai

Administrator — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:55:31 +0000

Every year Shanghai holds a large musical instrument exhibition and I had made plans months ahead to attend. I ended up going on the last day, and unfortunately was an hour later than I should have, as it started to close down at around 3:30pm. But it was an adventure!

在上海每年会开个乐器展览会，邀请很多人来到新国际展览中心去参观。我早几个月已经写在我的日历里，希望去看大陆的乐器选择。我去的是最后一天，可能晚了一个小时，不够时间轻松地光。可是还是满好玩的！

First sight walking through the piano section…Steinway. Like Frankenstein, you wouldn’t be able to miss them if you were blind and in the dark.
这种钢琴应该是最经典的。无论在什么展览该会看到他们。

And no piano show would be complete without Kawai as well….but onto other instruments I find more interesting..
还有kawai的钢琴，没有他们就不完美。

Hello Zelda! I thought an Ocarnia was an fantasy instrument, one which only elves and possibly hobbits play! But no, these are made of porcelain and some made of wood! I guess I now know better!
真的没想到这种乐器是真实，一直以为只在电脑游戏的zelda才有的。。。

Ahh…much better…yes, I feel much more at home now. These guitars are locally made but quality-wise, they won’t beat a Larivee but they’re pretty darn good!
哎。。。好很多。终于找我的家乡。这些吉他还好，没有Larivee的吉他那么好，可是还能接受！

However, these are a little over the top, no?
是不是有点夸张呢？

But finally, i found someone who spoke English, and it happened to be Mr. Epiphone. Thanks for reading, and we both wish you a wonderful day!
终于找到一位会讲英文的。他的名字是Epiphone先生。谢谢你们读到这里，我们两都祝你今天快乐！
Answers to last blog (starting from top left, going clockwise): 361 degrees, Anta, LiNing, TeBu, GuiRenNiao, Deerhui

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