One surprising pattern in my company is the number of musicians. In Tokyo our business manager played violin in a string quartet, our head of financial control had studied piano at the elite Julliard School in New York, my former boss played saxaphone, and my boss before that was an accomplished concert pianist. And our part of the front-office had enough rockers to form a rock band, 'the Tan Videttos' which played at company events and fund-raisers.
And this pattern continues in the Hong Kong office. Colleagues in my department have a band 'the JV' which plays regular gigs in Hong Kong. My current boss leads with vocals, guitar and general charisma, while our accounting specialist plays virtuoso lead guitar.
Elsewhere in the company enough other departments have bands or band members for the social club to hold a 'battle of the bandkers' competition. This was held on 10th of May at the 'sky lobby' in aid of a local charity. In all, five bands took part.
Picture : Our rock gladiators wait nervously to enter the arena.
The competition was to be decided by a panel of judges and an audience vote. The judges were led by Hayley Legless, Australia's 11th most popular folk parody singer. The audience vote was led by weight of cash, since you could buy as many votes as you like. This seems to be a Hong Kong tradition, and in the absence of any clear direction from Beijing, I followed another tradition and voted early and often for my boss.
Video: 'Battle of the Bandkers'
The best band were a group of Hong Kong chinese who were technically impressive and sang in Cantonese. But since they had only one member actually working in our company, they didn't stand a chance. In the end a tsunami of cash from my colleagues swamped the audience vote and overturned the judges decision. So the JV were crowned winners!
Picture: the triumphant 'JV' plays an encore
