Who is interested in paying several thousands for a Bela Vista Villa like suite?

Last week, someone forwarded me this link, about a recent promotion launched by Harbour Plaza Metropolis.

My first reaction is: Who is going to pay several thousand dollars just for staying in a suite decorated by Kelly Chen with Franc Franc or even other "dim stars" whom I don't know they are really gifted in design and have good tastes?

No doubt Kelly enjoyed  a very successful careers during her years active. However her overall status and influence is not comparable to her rivals like Sammi Cheng or Miriam Yeung, who have demonstrated some personal breakthrough no matter you are their fan or not. We witnessed their climax and trough, and how they brought their life experience into their music and acting. It is not Kelly's fault that she has been living in such a easy life which has shaped her to a boring star. I suspect who will gonna come and check in the suite only to see her decoration?

But when you move down on the list, you might quickly agree that Kelly is already a decent choice in the list. At least she is once an grade A star, with a design degree. Most "stars" (not all) right there are of low popularity, some even I don't know their existence. So are they good at design? Let's have a look on Rubberband's design. That only reminds me the interior design of Bela Vista Villa (東堤小築), a notorious place that HK people will immediately put an equal mark next to "burning charcoal". I don't know who is interested in renting expensive suites which look like Bela Vista Villa except for those who would like to be served with a nice glass of champagne right before committing suicide. Look at Vincy's design. It's no difference to a TV programme about home renovation projects produced by a Singaporean production house that I watched in J2 months ago. But it's the before scene. And let's don't forget Stephen. Don't you think the picture is too plain for someone who owns an art studio? It's just like a receptionist desk inside a tutorial school nearby!

I am not saying singers or actors (hey they are not "artists" that they always claim)cannot design something great. But is there anyone can tell what's amazing about the decoration done by someone either not popular or talented in design? PolyU is right next to the hotel. I guess they can get some good pieces from School or Design there. Even we know Mandy, an ex-EGG singer is very talented in designing. Or they can invite someone really loved by most of us to draw our attention. (According to the list, I guess the target customers are local Hong Kong people. Can you imagine any kind of foreigners will check in because of Hotcha or Jinny Ng???) OK, I have to admit I don't understand what this promotion campaign is about.

What’s the difference between a higher degree collecter and a LV bag collecter?

Sometimes I think Hong Kong people are the most loyal followers of “Knowledge changes life”. Many parents struggle about how to make their kids stand out from the others at interviews just for a place in a famous kindergarten. Well before kids are capable of speaking Cantonese well, they have other challenges – learning foreign languages including English, Mandarin, Japanese and so on. Kids are expected to be proficient in a skill apart from studying well with a nice academic record. Very often they are arranged to learn a musical instrument. This is not for amusing themselves but serving as a proof of they are talented kids able to do many things competently just for competing for a place in famous primary or secondary school later, and finally the ultimate goal, university. That’s why a primary school teacher once said, “Piano is no more considered to be a musical instrument.” Yes, there are too many kids are graded piano players so that playing piano itself is nothing special.

Even after sucessfully attatining a degree, that does not mean you have got rid of the spell of further education. Not to mention how torturing the professional examinations are, wager earners are trying to advance on their career stairways by achieving higher qualificatons, hoping for higher pay in return.

It’s good if qualifications can help you to achive your goal. However, except some professional or academic jobs, most vacancies available in the market do not require higher qualifications at all. Although it is not out spoken, most taught master is just a new proft generating machine of institutions. Low entry requirement and loose grading are ways to please students who are willing to pay for a diploma.

I heard that someone was upset he was not promoted even he had a master degree, losing his place to a degreed holder which was hire outside, while some people kept studying a master programme after another, seemingly to be thristy for knowledge. But to me, these person might be want to do something to make themseves feel good. They might think attaining a higher qualification is showing they know more than their counterparts therefore respect from others, promotion, praise are expected. These people consider they have already fulfill their responsibility. However, in the eye of bosses, to promote whom is not a game solely depending on qualifications. It is about picking a reliable person who can get the job done, lead subordinates, take higher responsibility and be discussed with for important matters. Similarly, whether a person is knowledgeable enough does not counts on how many diplomas he is holding as long as we all know it is not particularly difficult to get one if you have money. Such kind of qualifications collection game is no different to a lady who loves to embrace herself with LV bags and brand fashion. They are distinguished by the former one would like to depict himself as a wise man while the latter one is tendy. Both of them in fact don’t really concern what they are doing. They only want to look great without pouring genuie passion on knowledge and fashion.

How a dignified blogger make big money without stepping down from his altar?

Recently a high profile food blogger (but on the other hand self-claimed low profile) is going to publish his book and busying on promoting his piece. In one of his interviews, he shared his life as a food blogger, complaining how hard his life is since restaurants were not willing to pay for him to write critics andcomment in the media about them. He did think being paid to write is no bigdeal, just like his counterparts in beauty and fashion field.

Every body thinks he is doing brilliantly and should beat all others working on similar things. However, a piece of personal opinion is not neccesarily from a fair point of view. Toanswer his doubt, we should stand on his supposedly potential clients’ feet.

As a businessman or a PR, what makes you decide to hire somebody to write for you? No one will concern how much thewrite have contributed into. Instead, they will ask for the value of this kindof food critics. They expect acclaims, priases, and all kinds of good thingswhich can boost their revenue. Of course it would be more than ideal if thewriter is a respected and convincing one. But as a respected and convincingwriter, you worked very hard to win all these from readers for long time.Surely you don’t want to give up his pride, becoming reluctant to accept theidea of giving positive comments for awful food. So, is there anyone damp hismoney for something dragging him back? Absolutely not.

As he said before, to be a successiful food critic, he should eat more to experience a variety of tastes so that he coulddistinguish good food from bad one. This is time consuimg and costing you a lotof money. Being paid to eat is one thing, but I am hesitated to trust arrangedtasting dinings. For a dinner intended to be discussed in the public forpromotional purpose, how dare you feed your guests with trash? Leave alone paid food articles. Some serious food critics overseas even try hard to avoid beingrecoginzed when they go tasting. Maybe the food blogger is more honest to whathe has tasted. But it is just another myth of “All PRs are pretty and nice”.Being accompanied by a pretty PR or chef who note that he is a food critic whois known for his honesty, I am sure he gets most delicate and attentive foodand service that is you and I can ever imagine. If PR arranged meals havepotential cheats, paid ones are even dangerous. That would possibily erode thelong time built trust from his readers. Do you think paid news is news? Idon’t. I will say it is an advertisement. We all can tell the difference.

The food blogger mentionedthat he would make 2 offers to restaurants for negative comments: post it orhold it, but anyway, he still responded and commented honestly for therestaurants for improvement. I don’t know how confident he is about his fame,ability and influencing power. But he doesn’t know his position for sure. Hemight be have some knowledge in cooking (as he claimed), but still uncomparableto a professional chef. For restuarants seeking improvement in recipe, whydon’t they turn to a professional who can provide details of how to cook betterbut now you a food critic who merely comment a few words for the food is goodor not? Unless you are an auditor, you hardly make money from your client likethis. The truth is, if you are not prepared to step down from the altar ofcredible bloggers, please accept that you can’t win them all,  and keep accusing beauty bloggers who areoften paid for writing as these bloggers agree to acclaim low quality productswhich you don’t give a damn. 

Stopmaking yourself feel good by showing off how you are devoted to food andcomplaining how people are unfair to you. Try make use of your fame onprofitable business. No one even Choi Lan or William Mark manage to makethemselves rich by merely offering articles to newspapers or appearing on TV.

Little words about jobs

Just finished the first, and most likely the last EO interview in my life.

To be honest, I feel a bit strange for telling people about my application. Firstly, my competitors are mainly fresh university graduates whose supposed to be under my supervision if they join our research team. Secondly, EO is a general grade position, my training or even my higher degrees will be meaningless and I shall start from the horizon if I really got this job. It is not wondered that my friends asked me to think deeply when I decided to sit for the interview.

When I was very young, I wrote "scientist" as my dream job. Later when I knew more about how this world works, I wrote "civil service" as my target in my friends' contact books. I think I can marginally call myself as a scientist now because of my degree, publications and the number of them being cited. Even it may be a bit later than my expectation, at least part of my childhood's dream comes true. It's time to look into the reality now.

Job security and structured promotion opportunity is the two major reasons that I focused my job seeking in government jobs at this moment. I am willing to work hard, but I want to have a target. It is bullshit or even cheating if you tell someone "You work hard and develop your personal skills now, then you will find a bright career outside!", especially if the outside won't think your working experience in university is value or useful. I worked and paid tax for 8 years already, but most of the outside company will only consider me as a fresh (PhD) graduate.

I like doing research, but it is just too good to be true if you think you can get money and career from your interests. Working in the government or semi-government organizations at least can have some kind of work-life balance, and this is what I want in this stage of life.

Hope all of my friends can have a suitable job in the near future!

Last week, TVB aired a very interesting episode of Hong Kong collections, discussing whether the song “Chok” Raymond Lam is an indication of the death of Hong Kong music industry.

I pretty much agree that the overall environment has been changed. In the 80’s, HK dominated the Chinese music industry, providing songs to local, overseas and mainland markets. Talented people rushed in because here was where they could develop their careers. China at that time was still far from capable of having their own culture and rich enough to make its own. As center of attention, HK was always wealthy and stylish. The rival between Alan Tam and Leslie Cheung is still a legend today. Leave alone superstars like Alan Tam, Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui who could easily sell millions copies of records, we have many classic names like Pricilla Chan, Danny Chan, George Lam, Sam Hui and etc. Even when it comes to the 90’s, when the industry has began to be perplexed by pirate CDs, we still had the “Four Heavenly Kings Era” with some other unique but stylish stars like Shirley Kwan, Sandy Lam, Andy Hui, Sammi Cheng….and many many other big names.

But when we have come to the late 90’s, suddenly it seemed that no one is willing to buy CDs. Every body turned to the internet to download new songs. This once highly profitable industry had struck into a dilema, and failed to produce best sellers or commercially successful mega hits. Superstars to hold a concert for a whole month had become a legend. People came and fell like shooting stars. Some even blamed the Karaoke culture had led popular songs more Karaoke oriented, which narrowed down lyrics of songs only focusing on love and relationship with similar kinds of melodies.

OK, should we put all the blames on K songs and illegal downloads for the fall of Cantopop? Think about it, songs what we call “pop songs” are actually easy to remember and sing, to express our emotions. It is not the first day love songs dominate in the area of pop songs. We just didn’t go to Karaoke in 80’s, which was considered only naughty guys would go. Only after the 90’s Karaoke has become so popular that kids would go after school. All record labels did not miss out any chance to share the market by releasing Karaoke LDs. The trend had been swung to cater the K lovers? May be. But on the other side, we learn and discover so many side cuts inside the K room, which is seldom plugged in mainstream media. (Well, still there are peoples who want to stand out by singing less popular side cuts.) Karaoke has become a new channel to promote new songs. Then a far more powerful channel appeared, which is called the internet. Back into the 80’s, although we could get illegal copies by dubbing tapes or recording songs from radio, it never had been this easy to access songs by downloading mp3. But don’t forget other emerging markets has been facng the same problems too. They still be able to make big money and even export their music to HK. As Taiwan drama, Korean drama has become popular in HK, this also arises our interest in their music. Yes, not only Cantopop, HK drama, movies are no more the center of the world. We are now facing keen competitions from other Asian regions. Those once can satisfy audiences no longer works. People are demanding something better and interesting. Facing the uncertainties, HK producers take a more conservative approach to make more love songs, K songs to secure the attention from majorities. They just can’t take the risk in such a fragile market. It has entered an vicious circle: Weak market > conservative approach > monotonous style to carter the majority > boring > audiences give up cantopop> weaker market > more conservative. (By the way, do you know which industry can attract the most talented and creative people? Finance of course. That’s why now the industry can provide so many creative financial products which is tempting but hardly to be understand.)

The arise of internet and new media have distracted some attention from the old types. I remember when I was small, every one in HK knew how to sing the most popular song at that time because the radio and TV aired it day and night. We received message and information very passively. Now we make our own choice by searching those we think suit our taste. Taking the song “hooking little fingers” as an example, I really have no idea of the song and the singers until one day when I watched JSG ceremony the song was awarded a whatever prize. Later I was told it is very popular among the teens. I was very skeptical about the fact but the hit rate of nearly 3 millions has convinced me. I think it’s like blogging. An extremely popular blog may be very influential but only limited to a certain type of audiences. There are so many different types of choices out there. Audiences will find their own taste. No one can take the whole piece of cake any more.

So how can an industry like this be able to attract talented new blood? I don’t know. But I think people who want to stay in the industry now have to be passionate enough to survive, especially for the new comers. The success of Kay Tse and recent come back of Shine has demonstrated that people wants more other than love songs that are playing safe. There is still something unreplaceable for Cantopop. What’s better than to express our emotion and love to Hong Kong? Of course it’s our mother language, Cantonese.

Outpatient helper

Paying a visit to a public hospital or a public clinic is very exhausting, especially for elderly. Even though you have already got a booking, it does not guarantee you can soon finish your business. Every one is waiting for doctor consultation, picking up drugs or waiting for confirmaton of next visit. Workers there are just too busy to be attentive to all patients. You’d better take care of yourself and turn back so that they can keep the queue moving.

This explains why suddenly there is a demand for outpatient helpers to take patients to hospital and take care of what they needs. Some patients are too weak to deal with the workers there. Old people may even need someone can take them to toilet and help them around. But as a usual working guy/ girl, you don’t have the luxury to constantly accompany your parents to hospital. If someone can offer you a helping hand, that will definitely reduce your burden. At least you will feel more relieved than letting your parent to go alone.

Most outpatient helpers are housewivies who would like to make extra income to susidize their household expenses. But this is not easy money. Taking a weak person around requires a lot of physical strength, leaving alone that you have to be careful enough to avoid hurting her. Plus a sick person often does not feel good, leave alone kept waiting in somewhere she can't take a good rest. Working hours are not regular and sometimes you are held and unable to leave for picking children up or prepare dinner while you may have no order received next day. It seems a quick way to earn easy money but not every one enjoy doing it.

What I talk about when I talk about Shine...

Yes I know the Wyman concert has become hot topic of the town but I did’t go to see it. Before the show was held, as an iconic lyrist, with many star friends, it would cause Wyman no pain to make big names on his guest list. But who surprised me is that Shine appeared in the show! It truly makes me regret to give up a ticket!

Shine is a boy band formed by Wong Yau Nam and Tsui Tin Yau debuted in early 2000’s. While most boy band usually sold their handsome faces, vitality and cool appearances, they took an other approach by expressing sensibility of local yourg peoples. Taking their first album as example, names of songs all were adopted from famous movies, with themes of covering from signs about fast changes in the city (Swallowtail Butterflies, 燕尾蝶), buddies leaving for girlfriends (One One, 一一), teens wandering on streets in Mong Kok (The MK Lords, 旺角渣fit人)to identity as a common boy (Jules and Jim, 祖與占). They sang not particularly outstanding, but remarkably capture the spirt of the songs. It might not be the very first time but had reminded young people what issues they were concerned about other than dating. I think their producer James Ting and Wyman should be attributed to for the success. If they were not smart enough to capture the essense of the band, the boys would be Boy’z, their major rival at the time.

Sadly this was not enough to make them a bright career as singers. Unable to make breakthrough, few years later they virtually disppear from stage. It is heard that they focus on acting now.

I suspect Wyman saw Shine as media to experiement his new form of teen oriented lyrics. I think his major contribution is that he never holds himself from exploring new issues with his unique , precise and therefore impressive wording. Shine had never shone like a supertar but still were luckily enough to meet Wyman or today we can barely remember them.

Meet the "Technologically Trendy Kids"(科技潮童)

In Hong Kong,“潮童”, a popular term in cyber space whch can be literally translated as “Trendy Kids”, is not about kids who are very trendy and dress up fashionably. Instead, it is often regarded as a disapproving term describing a group of teens who urge to prove themselves trendy and smart, sometimes being very childish, ignorant and disturbing, causing trouble to others. Today, as the power of the internet is becoming more and more pervasive to our life, here we comes second wave of trendy kids booming. They are similarly very childish, ignorant and disturbing, which always cause trouble to us. The only difference is this time they shows no interest in dressing up or going shopping in Mongkok. What they care is how they are able to be online.

Although the senior citizens in your family never stop complaining their children are too additive to the internet, finally the parents cannot resist the pleasure of digging up treasures there and join them. The problem is that they are not the generation growing up with digital device who can work it just liking breathing. We are ocaasionally stuck up with the deivce, but we manage to fix it like go googling, posting questions in a forum or send a MSN message. We all know how to take care of our cyber life. Compared to experienced users like us, they are curious and innocent juniors in front of a computer. They ask questions like, “The pop up window said I have won a big prize. Do they mean it?” “It asks me to install a software. Should I click “Yes”?” What’s the differnce between being a registered and a non-registered one?” “It ask me to agree the terms and condition before going into the site. What’s that?” These scenes repeat over and over. Yesterday you showed them how to edit bookmarks in the browser. Today they might ask for a demonstraton again. With a such passionate user but knowing nothing, it turns you to a 24 –hour technical support of the family.

But sometimes their stubbornness really makes you cry. My dad, a senior citizen who finds himself uncomfortable if he has not enjoyed enough his Chinese Opera videos in Youtube and other video sites. One day, he discovered a treasure providing some rare oldies, only with a little technical problem that the videos played audio tracks, with no motions and pictures. Luckily he found his way out to switch from IE to Chrome. But as a big fan of IE, he did not want to simply accustom himself to a new browser. He kept asking me why the web site was not compatible to IE and how I could fix it. As a an amateor IT support in a usual household, the only meaningful piece of advice was ask him to give up IE, which was the last thing he would agree to do. After hours of trying over and over, the reality he faced forced him to stop.

From the experience of dealing with my dad, the “Technologically Trendy Kids” drives you crazy because everything is new to them arising their curiosity. When you give a new device to them or install a new software in the PC, there will be another tons of questions. They are not quite as us who feel comfortable to dynamic changes in digital world. So I think they welcome devices highly comprehensive and very intuitive. And if you are patient enough, with good tolerance to repeatedly raised questions, it may be a new blue sea out there for you.

Idol as a professional in Japan

I know AKB48 is now on the top of all idols in Japan. But when I first noticed that the idol group even has taken top 5 places in the Orion best selling chart at 2010s, it’s a little bit shocking. To me they are no different to a group of teenage girls selling their youth and energy. How can they beat the others, including some of the best singers and experienced entertainers in Japan to make such achievement?

One thing that Japan has been always fascinating me is her magic to change nearly anything to a profession, no matter how silly it seems to be. For example, they do have a “Datsujin” (Expert) in Ramen not because of his ability to prepare a bowl of delicious Ramen, but because he has traveled around Japan to taste different types of Ramen for his whole life which turns him into a “Datsujin” to define what’s a good bowl of Ramen. (So, that’s why we have a self-claimed “Japanese Drama Datsujin”…)

OK, let’s go back to the idol thing now. We all agree every body who’s doing business in entertainment business must have her own specialty to draw attention from the audiences. Even good actors have their own characters to distinguish among themselves, for example, Stephen Chow, Wong Tze Wah and Sandra Ng are actually representing 3 types of comedians. So what’s the position of a species called “Idol” in the entertainment business?

Idols are simply selling fantasies which do not require much acting or singing skills, not necessarily very beautiful but must be charming enough as a sweetheart that can be an object of desire that cannot be found in real life. The cost of being an idol is so low that attracts amateur young people who have a super star dream rush in. It is a highly competitive area for any idol to survive long. If she is unable to demonstrate her real ability just to secure a place in the business before the audiences become tired of her, she is going to lose her place to a younger, cuter counterpart. It’s time to wake up from the star dream.

However, the Japanese have found their way to turn idol career into professional business. Many idols are arranged to start their career as early as there are still in primary schools. Johnny & Associate, a big name specialized in male idols first train the little boys to dance, sing and perform on the stage, being prepared to back performances of famous idols of the same agency. This is a way to make them be customed to the business and draw attention from the audiences by making use the fame of existing idols. The agency would later form groups for the boys who considered to have potential becoming successful stars. With the huge influences of the agnecy in the Japanese entertainment field, the boys are kept busying to appear in many variety shows, music programmes, dramas, concerts and so on. Johnny’s do everything to keep bringing exitement to the fans. The fans, who grow up with the boys, having developed attachment to the idols, never quit supporting them. Top idols like SMAP manage to maintain their status for years without fading.

This highly systematic idol generating formula is of course adopted by other producers and agencies who have equally incredible resources and networking. Like AKB48, positioning themselves as “idols that you can see in person”, schedule their periodic performances at their theater in Akiba to please their fans. Although it is the most popular group in Japan, the competition among members very intense. These girls, aged from teens to tweeties, all have their individual character. They rival each other exhaustingly not just simply to stand out from the group from the group, but to secure a place as a member as well since many apprentices are out there waiting to replace any of them. These apprentices come from recruitment, or waitress working in the café in AKB48 theater. From a cluster of girls of different styles, you at least be able to choose one as your favourite. If you are becoming tired of one, you can soon turn to another. Yasushi Akimoto, the father of AKB48, has created spin-off groups, such as SDN48 and SKE48. A member of a group can be transferred to another for business strategy. The world of idol is actually very complicated which is not simply about the appearance of a teenager. It’s more about the influential power of and supports provided from the agency.

Training a kid into a sucessful idol is an expensive and long term investment. This explains why agency act like a control freak, watching the idols tightly to ensure they are not doing anything to harm the interest of the agency. Top idols desperate for winning the right to control their fate may attempt to ruin the fantasy for fans by getting herself, or his girlfriend pregnant, and married quickly during their golden period.

On the other hand the idol has contributed her invaluable teenage time for future career in performing. Her only skill is entertaining people. After long time being exposed to a circle of fame and vaniy, it’s hard for her to adjust herself to a normal life.

13000 ppl sang K with me @ Concert YY

Cass didn't come tonight & the song was performed by Joey alone. Anyway, lyrics reminds me some bad things a few years ago, hummmm, OT...

The show makes me think of many good old days, most of the songs we used to sing in karaoke in the past..., weh, time flies....

The brain outsourcing our memories

Brian is the most mysterious part of human body. It is said that we are now using only 5% of brain function, which implies potential exploration is possible. This 5% has already been enough contributing to learning new knowledge, memorizing what we experience every day, inventing anything never existing before, and even conquering rest of the creatures in the world to become lord of this planet.

Ability to memorize is one of the most significant functions of our brain. With memories, we can learn from the past, judging how to make a proper response while encountering a similar situation, or improving based on previous failures. Dating back to prehistoric era, while paper, writing tools, or anything used for record and documentation had not yet created, the only database was human brains. Knowledge and information are transmitted orally. No doubt the elderly in any given tribe was highly respected since she was a living information centre. However, information is easily distorted or even lost during the process. As later paper and pens were invented, information being documented accurately became possible. However, no. of copies created was still limited as could not be replicated in mass scale. Although improved, the age of knowledge booming had not came until the widespread of printing technology, which finally ignited the fire of the Renaissance. By this time, our important memories could be easily reproduced by printing, portable for convenient reading, which are no more luxuries for modern people. Education, in terms of both quality and quantity has been tremendously raised.

But human technology never stops here. Thanks to the inventions of computers, optic fibres and the internet, when you need to check up something, there is no need to ask anybody or turn pages of reference books. All you need to do is to google. With a click or two on your mouse, you will have countless results for you only to select from. Some studies claimed that the generation who live on the digital planet relying it to help them to store and acquire information. They have poorer memory because they just don’t need it. The essential skill has now been replaced by the techniques to pick the right information you are exactly looking for and eliminate noise information. That’s too convenient that we just cannot resist the temptation to use the internet first before we allow ourselves to search and develop ideas in our brain.

The appearing of the internet has reshaped our brain to think and memorize. Given that it provides a massive pool of information, will it further stimulate our creativity because, or just make us lazier and worsen our memories? I think time will tell.