Welcoming the (Chinese) New Year of the Ox

The year of the Ox 己丑 is almost here (just 6 more days), and like last year, I put my calligraphy brush to good use, writing a few 福 to put up in the house. The one above is in regular script 楷書 while the one below is in cursive script 草書.And not to forget, the ever famous 春联 below. This year, I spent a bit of time to think up of my own 春联, which you can see below. I tried to use repeating Chinese characters to form up a suitable phrase, but it doesn't rhyme very well when you read it aloud in Mandarin... sigh...Wishing everyone a happy Chinese New Year!

Calligraphy draft - 精湛

On the day of her commissioning, I have thought of a short phrase for Supreme, whose name in Chinese is 精湛.It means to bring stability to the country through a strong military force, and to govern the people with a high level of integrity.

I will get down to writing it one of these days...

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

This is the latest movie by Miyazaki Hayao (宮崎駿). It is about a fish girl who finds herself wanting to become a real girl, just like Pinocchio wanting to become a real boy.

Read about the plot here at Wikipedia.

I didn't quite like this movie, compared to the other animation films by Miyazaki Hayao. I think that a lot of things were not really explained well, like why Ponyo wants to be a real girl, how she really got the powers to become a real girl, and why is it that she sometimes revert to her fish form. Also, while Ponyo's father keeps saying that humans are bad, he never really explained why, and there was also no explanation as to why her father left the world of humans to live in the deep ocean.

But if you don't really care too much about the plot, I must say that this show is very well drawn, with good use of colours and simple expressions easily understood by children and adults alike. I am sure it will be a great hit with kids, who probably won't care too much about plots and backgrounds, and instead looking at the colours and cute characters.

The official site at Ghibli Studio

Learning an art form

Some thoughts I have on learning an art form, as I was practising calligraphy the other day.

When we first learn an art form, we start from the basics, learning the basic techniques of the art form, such as how to hold a brush, how to write the different basic strokes. Then we move on to learn about how to string these together, into something more complex, and also how to compose it such that it looks nice. We learn about positioning, about composition, about presentation. We learn about the different tips and tricks to make our art form look even better. Once we have mastered these, we then move on to learning about style. First we imitate the style of others. Then, we move on to give our works our own unique style, which we derived based on our understanding of the different styles and our own personality, our own likes and dislikes.

If we only focus on learning the techniques and the tips and tricks, we will never move beyond to the next level of having our own style. And having our own style is very important in an art form, because it means you have achieved a certain level of understanding and is now able to apply that understanding to create something unique. You are able to apply what you have learnt to something that suits yourself. And that is what sets an artist apart from an artisan.

Japanese variety shows

Whenever I go to Japan, I would spend quite some time watching TV, because the variety shows are so interesting. There are shows such as revealing the mysteries of the Egyptian mummies, quizzes that test the contestants' general knowledge, talk shows on current affairs, wacky shows featuring comedians, etc.

So why can't Singapore's variety shows be the same?

To say the truth, I have given up on Singapore's variety shows. There is nothing new on them, they borrow a lot of ideas from elsewhere, yet even when borrowing the ideas, they cannot duplicate the essence, and thus lack the sparkle when compared with the original. And why is that? Because Singaporeans are kiasu. They don't like to lose, they don't like to appear stupid or silly. Which makes us all so boring when on TV. Japanese celebrities appearing on TV are great entertainers. They know how to use appearances and words to draw out laughter from the audience, appearing silly and stupid at times. This is something that our local celebrities cannot do and thus no matter how we try to duplicate the shows, we can never achieve the same results. Because no Singaporean celebrity wants to appear silly or stupid on TV.

Kawasaki Shrine 川崎大師 2009

As part of our usual new year routine, we visited Kawasaki Shrine (川崎大師). You should see the crowd... this is along the street leading to the shrine, and we had about another 500m more to go before reaching the shrine's entrance.The main entrance to the shrine (finally!) and you can see the crowd queuing up to get inside.The main hall itself, with lots of people waiting for their turn to go in and pray for their fortunes. To the sides, we drew lots to see what our fortune is for the year. My lot says that I will have very good luck this year. Let's hope it is true!And once we are done praying, we move to the side of the temple grounds, where there were loads of food stalls selling all kinds of stuff, from alcohol to fried noodles to okonomiyaki. And of course, we just had to try some of the food... given the empty stomach after spending so much time in the queue.

Hatsumode 初詣

A visit to Japan during the new year season is never complete without a visit to the temple to pray for good luck. This tradition is known as hatsumode (初詣), and this year, we made a visit to the nearby Kashima Shrine (鹿嶋神社) instead.People queue up to pray for good luck and for their wishes to be fulfilled, after which they draw lots to see what their fortune is like for the year, and have a cup of ama-sake (甘酒) at the side.As you can see, this shrine is really a small shrine, found in the suburbs of Yokohama.

New Year in Japan 2009

Like 2008, we spent New Year's Day 2009 in Japan. It was a time spent with relatives, and taking care of my niece. Isn't she cute?
As usual, we also had osechi (御節料理) on New Year's Day, as per Japanese tradition. This is traditional Japanese food, usually prepared the day before, composing of boiled/steamed food, preserved food and dried food. The reason? So that the housewife working throughout the year can take a break on New Year's Day (she prepares the food beforehand). And dinner was wonderful again, with the remaining osechi items from lunch, as well as fried chicken aka kara-age (から揚げ).
And the view from my in-laws' living room is great! You can see Mount Fuji clearly from the living room.
All the great food over the festive season had me putting on weight... I was about 65kg before I went to Japan.
To end off this entry, here's a shot of Mount Fuji at sunset.

Happy New Year 2009!

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to 2009!

Ip Man (film)

I managed to catch this film, "Ip Man", yesterday. I didn't think very much about this film at first, thinking of just catching yet another action film about a martial art expert of the past, something like "Fearless". Making films like these must be the boom now. And to say the truth, I didn't know who Yip Man was in the first place... because Wing Chun was never something that I was interested in, even though I know that it does have something similar to taiji's pushing hands.

At the end of the day, I must say that the fighting scenes in the movie was very well choreographed, though some parts of the fighting was more for show rather than a true manifestation of how martials arts is applied. After all, real martial artists don't punch people repeatedly like they are training on a punching ball... rather, it is one shot, one kill. Each move is supposed to maime or kill an opponent outright, much like the scene in which Ip Man was fighting against the karate-ka of the Imperial Japanese Army's 5th Division.

The important message is like "Fearless", that there is no greatest form of martial arts, but rather how good the martial artist is (which means how hard he trains, and how well he understands). The other key message, even more important, is that a killing skill (which martial arts are) must be practised together with benevolence. With the power to kill or injure, comes the need to be responsible in using that skill. It does not mean not using the skill, but rather, being able to control oneself such that we do not use martial arts unnecessarily, and when we do use it, we only use enough to protect ourselves and those around us. If it means breaking someone's arm to stop him from slashing at someone, we should. But if pushing a person away is enough to deter him from trying to rob us, then there is no need to break his ribs or poke his eyes.

So do catch this if you are a fan of Wing Chun, likes to see fighting scenes, or enjoy listening about the morals of martial arts.

Official website

Pearl Harbor 67th Anniversary

Today marks the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Blog post on 66th anniversary

Recycling - Envelopes

Back in my school days, a friend of mine was very environmentally conscious, and it got me to think about recycling as well. So I started to reuse paper, print on both sides, etc. But my wife is even more environmentally conscious. As much as possible, we try not to waste anything. Recently, she has this bright idea to reuse envelopes, given that we receive so much junk mail from banks and property agents. What she did was to take those envelopes, invert them and stick them back together so that the clean, unwritten inside is now on the outside. And not just envelopes. She took our old calendar and folded envelopes out of them (the brown envelopes you see above).

Now, why do I need so many envelopes? That's because I need to send my calligraphy pieces to Japan for my calligraphy teacher to mark.

Tokyo Love Story 東京ラブストーリー

I wonder how many of you know about this great Japanese drama, Tokyo Love Story (Japanese title is "東京ラブストーリー")? It used to run on Fuji TV in 1991. I don't recall it ever having been broadcast in Singapore, though. I only heard about it from a Japanese friend when I was in Japan, that it is the greatest Japanese love drama ever and that I must watch it. So I came back to Singapore, found the VCD version being sold in a local VCD shop, and got myself a copy.

And ended up loving it.

The lovely character of Akana Rika (played by Suzuki Honami, she was so cute) really left me with a deep impression. Here is someone who is daring, fun-loving, out-going, yet deep inside, she faces her inner turmoils about how she really wants to go about handling her relationship with Nagao Kanji (played by Oda Yuji).

Arimoto Narimi, playing the character of Sekiguchi Satomi, showed just how good an actress she was. She played a character that was always hesitant, that emphasises herself as the weak and lost female. She played the character so well that she was hated by many of the female viewers in Japan when the drama aired, so much so that there were letters of complaints being sent to Fuji TV.

I am a sucker for love stories, like The Return of the Condor Heroes. I am intrigued by people who can love without reservations, who dare to express their feelings without having to worry about how the other people around them may disapprove. Guess that is why these love stories just seem to make their way into my inventory...

We were all once like that

We must always remember that, looking at those who are starting to walk the same path as us, we were once like them. We made the same mistakes, we learnt the same lessons. Thus, instead of laughing at them, or being sarcastic, we should instead help them along, so that they can learn quickly, so that they can draw from our experiences to further their journey down the same path.

Don't think that just because we are not making the mistakes now, we are better than them. We took the same pain to learn from our mistakes as well. Once, some of our seniors down the path laughed at us, or were overly sarcastic. If we didn't like that back then, we should not be doing the same to those who follow us.

The spirit of volunteering

I recently posted a post on volunteering at MINDS. Just the other day, someone was relating his experiences volunteering as a community grassroot leader. Both he and his wife are active volunteers in their communities, in various activities. But to me, it seemed that they were after the wrong goals... he was bragging about the perks that he gets as a volunteer, about the benefits that the community gives to recognise the efforts of volunteers. I felt very disgusted with his "spirit of volunteering" that I ignored him for the rest of the morning. I just didn't want to hear him bragging about the gifts and perks he got from his "volunteer" activities. To me, that is against the spirit of volunteering. A volunteer should be giving his time and effort because he believes in the cause, and not because he is looking forward to getting something in return.