Dramas.

I’m known to my friends as someone who isn’t always keen on Korean dramas, as much as I (appear to) like all things Korean.  The one thing about dramas is that it takes too long to follow and sometimes it’s just so irritating to see the end of one episode and then have to wait for a while for the next episode to see how things unfold.  But lately I’ve been watching a couple of dramas and I thought watching dramas sometimes isn’t too bad a thing.

Recently I’ve started watching 별에서 온 그대 (He Who Came From The Stars) after I heard that it was pretty good.  To be honest, the thing that got me interested in watching this was Jeon Jihyun, who was making her return to dramas after a long while – to be honest I’ve always known her to star in movies only, so it’s always refreshing to see her in a drama.  And I must say that her acting skills are probably the most outstanding among everyone in the drama – of course she had to be – and I believe the effect just wouldn’t be the same if it was somebody else.  As for the rest of the cast, I would say that they are OK.  Can’t say they are fantastic, but good enough.  However I was slightly peeved about the character that Yoo Inna was playing – I actually like Yoo Inna, but somehow in this drama she is giving me the goosebumps.  Probably because she is portraying a character with two faces, and the irritating thing was that she was portraying it so well!  But of course, I’ve heard people say that her acting skills has never improved since “Secret Garden” (which to some extent I think is true too), but I guess because she’s acting opposite Jeon Jihyun, so the contrast is just there.  The story line of the drama is pretty interesting, and I think I can’t really wait for the end of the whole series!

To be honest, the last few dramas that I’ve watched have all been Korean ones.  Again, it’s not like I only like Korean ones, but it’s just that the dramas from other places don’t seem to interest me the way the Korean ones do.  I mean, I do think that the Korean scriptwriters nowadays do have something that scriptwriters from other places do not have.  For example, for a nostalgic drama, 응답하라 1994 was amazing (actually 응답하라 1997 was amazing too).  To be able to find all those things that were in use back in 1994, including magazines of those days, posters, pagers, etc, showed that the crew had made such a detailed effort in portraying the events back then.  And even for things they can’t find or replace, at least they made an effort to mask it up (for example, the Seoul Station sign on the old Seoul railway station in which Samchunpo was standing in front of when he arrived in Seoul).  Recently Hong Kong also had a drama that dealt with a nostalgic theme, but it was being slagged off all over the place for the poor attention paid towards details.  For example, there was a scene in which Kobe Bryant appeared in a sports shop advertisement, when the year portrayed was 1991 (Kobe was 11 then); and then there was a scene in 2001, the main character was using a computer with Windows 7 installed on it (it wouldn’t be wrong if it was Windows XP, but most people would probably be still using either Windows ME or Windows 98).  It’s like, from these small details you can tell how unprofessional some of these Hong Kong drama makers are.  Sometimes I do think, some people have only themselves to blame when people stop watching their shows.  And I don’t even want to start talking about variety shows, as well as the music scene.

The worst thing is, some people in the Hong Kong entertainment industry still have not woken up yet.  Collaborating with China is fine, but when even China is churning out better movies, better dramas and better music, Hong Kong is just going to lose out, and you can’t blame people about not watching your shows any more.

 

Emotion.

I know I shouldn’t be so emotional, but I guess I can’t really help it.  It’s not like I’m down, it’s just that my head has been spinning like a record these couple of days.  Too many things going on in my head and I guess there are some things I haven’t really gotten over yet.

In any case, one of the things that I’ve been bothered with – and it is just one of the things – is the direction that I want to be taking in my life.  I mean, I’ve been back in Hong Kong for 7 years already, and while I can’t say that I don’t like it here, I am getting a little weary and a little jaded.  I hope to be doing something else – like going back to school on a full-time basis.  For the past couple of months, I have been really harbouring the thoughts of studying again.  And this time round I wanted to do it full-time, i.e. putting down my work for one or two years and just study.  I wanted to explore the world again as a student, and I want to learn more things that I have yet to learn.  Make no mistake, working is great.  The experiences that I’m getting at work is great too and I like what I’m doing right now.  But it’s just that I believe in everyone’s life, there is always going to be a point in time when one feels that he/she wants to take an extended break.  I guess after working for 7 years, I might be getting to that point too.  Also, I want to be studying in a different environment, if I choose to go back to school again.  I did my undergraduate studies in Singapore and my first postgraduate degree in Hong Kong, so perhaps I want to do my next degree somewhere else – Korea would be a good choice (though if I can’t make it to anyone of the SKY universities I probably won’t bother) – but I haven’t really thought about what I want to study in.  I guess doing some international-related degrees would sound interesting.  And I would probably want to do a Masters degree first, and then decide if I want to do a PhD after that.  I guess I’m good at studying.

But please don’t misunderstand, I really like my job and it’s not like I’d go back to office and tender my resignation tomorrow.  Far from it – there are things that I still want to achieve at work.

Korea.

My memory of Korea (February 2014):
Mayday concert in KINTEX; My two beautiful friends Minjung and Erica; Marshal Yi Shunshin; Street band in Sinchon; My favourite Korean dish – the Budae Jjigae

So it was my seventh trip to Korea, and it was actually my most emotional trip to Korea ever.  How could a holiday ever be emotional, you may ask.  But for me, I went through many emotional ups and downs throughout the trip that even I couldn’t really believe it.

There was a main purpose for the trip for me, but, oh well, anyway.  It’s the kind of thing that I would only talk over chicken and beer.  Or maybe I just need some soju for this.  I could definitely do with a drink this weekend.

Another purposes of the trip was the Mayday concert.  And as I have said a few days ago, the concert was great.  But what I didn’t say was that it brought out the real emotional part of me.  I went to the concert alone, and honestly speaking, going to a Mayday concert alone isn’t always the best idea.  There were a lot of thoughts going in my head that day, and the songs that Mayday was singing really hit where it hurt inside my mind.  There were some things that I realized while watching the concert, and honestly speaking, while I’m glad that I realized that, it wasn’t a good thing to realize because it hurts more after realizing.

And then the other main purpose was to meet the folks at COEX Toastmasters Club again.  COEXTM has this special place in my heart, and it was all because of this Toastmasters club from Korea that inspired me to join Toastmasters again.  So it was brilliant to have been able to attend a meeting there again.  I recognized some old faces, and also got to meet many new ones.  The place hasn’t changed – it was still full of excitement and laughter, and I was just delighted to have been able to be part of that.  It was humbling to receive so many great comments after my demo speech – and I really appreciate all of them.

To make a long story short, I was really glad to have met my friends in Korea – some old ones, some new ones – and as I said over on Facebook, these friends in Korea are forming a very important part of me.  If my trip in February last year changed my life, this trip confirmed that the change was for the better.  Make no mistake, my friends in Singapore and Hong Kong are important to me as well, but the friends in Korea are giving me another perspective of things that I always find fascinating, and I am always grateful that I have the opportunity to meet them.  Korea is special for me, not because of the food, the culture, the dramas or the K-Pop.  It’s all these friends who are making Korea special for me.  And if only an angel could fly me to Korea every week to see them…

I have always maintained that I’m a really blessed person.  But of course, if some things could work out the way I want them to be…

Mayday.

I think most of you would have known that I am a fan of the Taiwanese rock band Mayday for a long time.  So when the band is coming to my favourite holiday destination for a concert, flying over to Korea became a no-brainer.

Getting the tickets was not straight forward though – apparently if I were to buy a ticket online, I would need to have a Korean credit card, a Korean phone number and a Korean address, which of course I have none.  But luckily my noona Connie, who had such a wide network of friends around the world, managed to get one of her friends in Korea to get them for me.  Once the tickets were secured, I was on my way to Korea!

So the concert was held last night in KINTEX, which is about an hour away from downtown Seoul.  It was a cold and snowy February night, and it has been snowing for the entire day.  The snow in downtown Seoul wasn’t heavy, but when I got to Goyang, where KINTEX is at, the snow seemed to be much heavier!  For someone who hasn’t experienced snow for a long time, it was always exciting to see snow, but after a while, I understand why people are getting peeved by heavy snow because it can get a bit unpleasant, as the roads get slippery and it was so easy to fall!

With this being Mayday’s first ever show in Korea, I guess the main purpose for the concert is to test the Korean market before the band decides if it would include Korean as a stop in future world tours.  As a result, the concert is rather different in terms of scale and size, compared to the other shows that I’ve been to.  For a start, there was only a very small variety of concert merchandise on sale, and none of them was Seoul-related.  And then the concert hall was also kinda small – I believe there were probably only about 5,000 seats.  Even the stage design has been simplified – all those mechanisms and pyrotechnics used in concerts elsewhere were not used in this one, so I guess in a way it was very much an experimental concert here in Korea.  After all, Mayday’s popularity in Korea isn’t as high as it is in Japan (of course it does help that the lead singer Ashin speaks Japanese), so I guess there’s no point in creating a huge concert and end up having empty seats all over.  From what I saw last night, the concert was about 90% full, though it was mainly made up of a Chinese-speaking crowd, which included Chinese students, local Chinese, and a good proportion of overseas fans who flew into Korea (i.e. me).  But interestingly, there were quite a lot of them in the crowd who was at a Mayday concert for the first time in their lives – that was a bit surprising to me.

The concert ended rather early – I’m not sure if it’s a Korean practice that concerts end early – it started at 8:15pm and ended at about 10:30pm.  In places like Hong Kong or Taiwan, the concert would probably end way past 11:30pm.  But then again, I’m not complaining.  Having the chance to see a Mayday concert in Korea was already way out of this world.  And I realized that it would have been better if it had started earlier and ended earlier.  What happened after the concert would be something that I would remember for a long time.

After the concert, I decided to take the subway back to Hapjeong, where I’m staying – I thought it would be straight forward, get on the subway at Daehwa, where KINTEX is at, and then get off at Hapjeong.  Except that the subway I took was the last train of the day, and it terminated at Samsong, which was still in Goyang!  So I was forced to get off the train and out of the station with the rest of the passengers, most of them also coming out from KINTEX.  And then a mad rush for taxis ensued.  The problem was that it was very cold out there, and for a split second I was contemplating finding a Jjimjilbang or a motel and stay over for the night and get the first train back to downtown Seoul.  Thank God as I was walking around rather aimlessly in the hope of getting a cab (or finding a place to stay over), a cab pulled over and the driver was willing to drive back to downtown Seoul.  So I hopped on, and told the driver to also pick up those who would be going the same way because it was so hard to get a cab.  In the end the cab picked up two other ladies who were staying somewhere around City Hall – a good deed done!  Fortunately for me, I could speak Korean and therefore managed to communicate with the driver on where to go and where to drop off the other passengers.  When the cab pulled over in Hapjeong, you couldn’t imagine how relieved I felt!

So the concert was over, and one of the key objectives of my trip is completed.  I’ve got 2 more days in Korea, and hopefully it would be as fun as the last two!

Champions League.

To be honest, seeing South China participating in the AFC Champions League, even at the preliminary rounds, is still giving me goosebumps.

So I was in Singapore for the past couple of days for Chinese New Year, and to be able to catch South China in Singapore was something quite memorable as well.  The match between Tampines Rovers was never going to be easy because we are playing away on a plastic pitch, so I guess the lads had it the hard way.  On the terrace, there were probably about 20 South China fans (though most of them I have never seen before in my life), and we were up against about 1000 others locals.  Surprisingly, the Tampines side was so quiet that apparently my voice was the really outstanding one  in the stadium.  In a way, I guess the few of us turned this into our home ground!  Admittedly, without my usual comrades on the terraces (there were 2 who were there, so that made it 3), it was a bit hard.  There was no drum beats to follow, and since there were only those few of us who are used to singing and chanting during the match, when we got tired, we really were and there wasn’t anyone who could take over from us.  So I guess it’s very important to form a big team of supporters who would sing and chant, not just to increase the volume, but also to cover for one another!  It felt good that the few of us who made the trip to Singapore did make a little difference for the lads.

As far as the match was concerned, I think it was a fair result, though I did think the referee was a bit too much on the strict side as shown by those two red cards which I thought were not really necessary.  Having said that, I thought the South China lads played well enough, though they probably might want to practice more on their shooting because if some of those shots have turned into goals, we probably wouldn’t have to endure such a nervy time!  Having said that, I was confident that the lads would pull through.  I was certain that our lads are better than the lot from Tampines and given that we are in mid-season, our form should be better than them.  Some of those “fans” might not be happy with winning “just” 2-1, but for me, a win is a win and I’m not going to complain too much about it.  You don’t get upset or angry with your team winning matches.

As most of you would have known, South China won the game, and would be heading to Thailand to take on Chonburi in the second qualifying match.  I won’t be going to Thailand for the game, but if the lads could overcome the odds and beat Chonburi, the next stop would be Beijing, where Beijing Guo’an awaits.  If the lads do make it to Beijing, I’m gonna be there too!