(Almost) Chinese New Year

In January we began the long run-up to Chinese New Year as the Chrismas decorations were replaced with CNY decorations, celebrating the arrival of the Yar of the Sheep (or Ram or Goat).

Elephants Mall in ICC had an interesting display of cheery blossom trees and sheep

Including this massive sheep doing its knitting under a rainbow made of balls of wool.  

And temporary stors sprung up selling CNY decorations and lai-see envelopes

Part of CNY is the lantern festival (link) and Times Square had an lovely display of flying lanterns.  

Granny and Grandad were due to visit during CNY so I wanted to get tickets for the seated area of the CNY parade in TST.    Tickets went on sale at 8am on Saturday 7th Feb, at the HK Tourism Board at Star Ferry in TST.   They sold out within a couple of hours.

Tickets had to be purchased in person and were limited to 4 per customer.

Rika and I joined the queue at 7am and waited for about 90 min to get to the counter where we were given a chit and told to come back between 10:30-10:45 to choose and pay for our tickets.   So I was going to miss my tai chi class.

While we were waiting for our time-slot, we went for a walk up to Signal Hill,Garden which I'd never been to before.   Signal Hill is a small but steep hill behind the East TST station.  It has an old Time-Ball tower and small garden overlooking the harbor.  

Its well with a visit.  At 9:30 in the morning, the garden had a lively crowd of tai chi enthusiasts 

I love the fact that Hong Kong Parks are filled with people practicing tai chi.   Although to be honest  the Tai Chi I see in most parks is seldom of a particularly high standard.  (Which of course is fine, since it is better that people enjoy doing this healthy activity at a mediocre level than not at all).

So I was quite excited to see that the Tai Chi group at the Signal Hill Garden were pretty expert, with nice forms practice, push hands and an old master in the corner explaining some subtle self defense applications (what seemed to be joint locks)

And a nice view across the harbor to North Point where my club has its HQ.   We headed back down to the Star Ferry to pay for our parade tickets, and I managed to get to Wan Chai in time for my 11:30 tai chi class.

Shakuhachi Concert at Nam Lian Garden

I keep my eye out for traditional Chinese music concerts, but seldom see any Japanese music.

But on 7-Feb there were 2 shakuhachi concerts in one day!    So I booked the concerts by Fukuda Teruhisa.

The concerts were held at the Xiang Hai Xuan hall which is in the middle of the the gorgeous Nan Lian Garden at Diamond Hill in Kowloon.    It is a lovely garden and I don't need much excuse to visit.

I had booked tickets for Hannah and Rika in the afternoon concert, but instead they had to meet up with friends who were leaving Hong Kong so I went on my own.    

Then I queued up to get the last 2 tickets for the evening performance (it was sold out but 4 wheelchair tickets had been held back).  So we were able to enjoy the concert together after dinner at the Nan Lian gardens vegetarian restaurant.

I'd never heard of Fukuda Teruisa before but the concerts were both terrific.   Fukuda-san is clearly a virtuoso.  After listening to chinese orchestral music lately it was startling to be reminded of how expressive and otherworldly the shakuhachi can be in the hands of a master.  

The program was a nice selection of traditional honkyoku and contemporary shakuhachi pieces, played unaccompanied and accompanied by shamisen.  

I haven't heard many contemporary pieces and I hnormally don't enjoy contemporary classical music.  But I enjoyed most of the contemporaty pieces very much.   The ones I liked most were composed by Kineya Seiho (1914-1995?)  and Chan Ming-chi who hosted the event.  

Chan Ming-chi (standing) and Fukuda Teruhisa signing books

The afternoon concert was very well attended.  Afterwards there was an interesting question and answer session in Japanese and Cantonese.   I listened carefully, but although  I could understand about 30% of the Japanese,  I found I could only get the meaning if he said something I already knew!  So unfortunately I couldn't learn much.

Here is a youtube link (here) to  'Ichijyo' by Kineya Seiho.   "This song was composed by Kineya Seiho after the death of a good friend, someone who was at one moment living a very happy life and the next moment gone from this world. The song is a response to questioning how life can hold such a sudden change from happiness to sadness and an expression of experiencing that change".

Fantastic Mr Fox

On Friday we took Hannah to see 'Fantastic Mr Fox', a live play put on by Faust International,  a theatre school for kids that runs acting classes across Hong Kong.

The play was very professionally produced and all the performers were school-kids from 8-17.   Id booked seats right at the front of the stalls for a good view.  I was hoping H would be inspired and motivated to join a play.

The young actors all did a good job making the play come alive, and we loved the costumes, props and music.    "Diggy-diggy-dig, diggy-diggy-dig,...."

Hannah enjoyed the show much more than I expected, and she asked to see it again.   So we took her to the final Saturday matinee performance the next day.  It was almost sold-out so this time we had seats up in the back row of the circle.  So I could take a few sneaky photos.

Hannah seemed to enjoy the second performance just as much as the first.

And on our way home, a bonus performance!   An aunty jazz-dance group doing their thing outside the Immigration Tower.

Interpretative dance for 'please renew my visa!'