部分八月份拍的上海世博照片在中秋（後；是的有點兒馬後砲）拿出來慶節倒有意想不到的效果。當然，我中秋期間拍的照片也一拼奉上。。。。。。Expo pavilions as lanterns? More plausible than you think, at least in photos, plus the real lanterns from the ‘carnival’ in Hong Kong!
Taiwan pavilion @ Shanghai Expo 2010 上海世博 台灣館
Macau pavilion, below on the right, needs some imagination, which you do have abundant supply, don’t you? 右方澳門館的白兔燈籠，不用憑空想像吧？
Macau pavilion, nicknamed Rabbit lantern
以下呢？是年復一年的香港康文署的中秋綵燈會，其實弄得十分不錯。在下有點雞蛋裡挑骨頭，請諒。
Now the annual, rigid and predictable stuff, the Lantern carnival, courtesy of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Hong Kong. Believe me, it was nothing as mean spirited as my introduction, haha.
fillette souriante 少女的微笑
Then there are the made belief arctic transplants: 望梅止渴，那望（北極）熊能止熱耶？
Polar bear and such, are they cool enough to cool you in 'mid-autumn' HKG?
and last but not the least, haibao, surfing on the six-month Shanghai Expo fame 無處不在的海寶：
part 2 of the separated at birth series. Normadie apartment in Shanghai is no less charming than the Flatiron in NYC. Paris of the Orient has a collection of mansions and buildings that are bound to open some eyes of architecual enthusiasts.
I’ve heard the video a few times over TV before I paid attention and found out the name of the song, the artist, where the video was shot, etc. Yes, heard it was, since I was multi-tasking like a central processing unit til the jingle-sounding melody finally unearthed my curiosity. Macy Gray didn’t pour me exactly my cup of mocha with her very popular single, I try, dating back to the her huge initial success with her first album. This latest, in 2010, Beauty in the world, videotaped at the Watt Towers, triggered another of my sequential flashbacks linkages.
Watts Towers up close, image from blangy.com
Watts Towers, image from filmforno.com
At first sight the Watts Towers reminded me of Antoni Gaudi’s la Sagrada Familia of Barcelona. The former brought to my mind the very district that had seen the Watts Riots in the 1960s, which I learnt of almost three decades later during the riots that erupted after the acquittal of 4 policemen in the Rodney King beating in 1992. I didn’t know about the Watts Towers when I visited Los Angeles in 2002, I hadn’t been to Barcelona then , and I couldn’t have made any connections or had any architectual curiosity.
la Sagrada Familia, Barcelona from travelvivi.com
Aesthetics or architecture aside, positive impression I have all along of Watts is U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who has been a prominent African American politician. She had worked in the district as a teacher assistant long before her political career took off.
Do you see blue skies? do you see butterflies? And are you gonna pick your diamonds pick your pearls, as chimed Macy Gray. ahhhh a feel-good song won’t hurt, will it?
snapshots of Watts Towers, NOT to be confused with la Sagrada Familia
九一一發生的時候我在紐約為人師表。我工作的地方是離時代廣場不到兩分鐘路程。那時學生、同事和我都覺得時代廣場這樣人多車多的地方沒有成為目標是不幸中之大幸。提到那所學校JKO，也就想起關於它校舍前身的演藝中學。這後者在短短的三十多年間已變成有名有氣，甚至電影 FAME 也已它做背景。電影裏的結局有一首 I sing my body electric 的歌曲，熟悉八十年代廣東歌的朋友們必會覺得旋律似曾相識！這一連串事件、 時空、地點的巧合交融自動地把它們連起來放在我的內心經歷裡。
Whenever I think about 911, I couldn’t help but retrace my path to the building of NYCBOE where I worked at the time of bombing on September 11, 2001. Among students and staff, there was always that eerie or should I, not being politically incorrect, say “lucky” feeling that Time Square wasn’t where the planes hit. We were closer than a stone’s throw from Time Square! Anyways, where we the faculty worked or our students studied, played and danced， JKOHS, occupies the FAMEd (the movie) site of Performing Arts (PA), after the latter settled uptown at its merged location with Music and Art as LaGuardia at Lincoln Center in the 1980s.
JKOHS is not as glamourous as PA, but many of my former students did dance, given we have the stage in an auditorium, but not a full fledge gym. If PA had achieved, through motion picture, national and international FAME in its fewer than 40 years of independant identity (from LaGuardia), I think JKOHS can have a bright shinning future if the formula is right.
Change of gear back to the movie, the accumulating climax in Fame as an orchestral pop I sing the body electric is therefore a double si elle n’est pas une triple entente. My Childhood, coincided with the then high-flying era of 1980s’ Cantonpop, included vivid memories of a smash hit Chinese version of the rendition by Deanie Ip 葉德嫻 and Elisa Chan 陳潔靈 called “千個太陽 (A thousand suns)”. No this is not six degree of separation… This is so corny but may those affected by tragedies like 9.11 or the recent 8.23 shooting of Hong Kong tourists find strength in the lyrics from the songs and rebuild their lives.
Je ne suis pas responsable pour la possibilité d’une entente quadrupède à cause de l’occasion présentée par la version chinoise en haut. C’était un événement émouvant lui-même.
J’ai oublié à vous dire un des chanteurs dans I sing the body electric devenu un medecin sur ER. On se trouve également une très jeune Irene Cara dans le rôle de Coco. Incroyable!
I wouldn’t have blogged about this if it were not for the madman in Florida wanting to burn the Quran making the news in the States and elsewhere in the world. Religion, it seems to me, creates more problems than solutions. The recent media frenzy regarding the planned mosque near ground zero presented another proof how NAIVE people are when they claim, think, suppose, assume the separation of church and State, in the USA or many other countries.
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un asiatique et son charabia 某亞裔噏得就噏 an Asian Guy's rigmarole 