My contribution to the Course Database for General Education

I've spent almost forty days since the New Year Day 2010 and now finally completed a package of course materials for my award-winning 'Musical Cultures Around the Globe'. I can now relax and waiting for the baby to come.

After receiving the award, I was soon commissioned by the General Education TW to make a package of course materials, including PowerPoint sides, audio-visual clips, handouts, reading lists and other necessary stuff, for the Course Database for General Education. These materials will be added to the database and soon available for all the university lecturers and professors in Taiwan.

Apart from the introductory chapter, there are 14 units in this course – an opening chapter dealing with general ideas of music in different cultures and the record industry, 12 chapters on specific regions or peoples and a concluding chapter on music and culture exchange among different regions and in the global market.

It's good to be recognised; it's also good to be requested to contribute.

One day, if my son takes a course at university in world music (or musical cultures around the globe, the title I personally prefer to 'world music'), he will probably encounter the slides and reading lists designed by his father.

Grannie's dining table and chairs

(The house partially concealed by the huge blooming bougainvillea tree on the right, where Fanne spent her childhood and teenage years before she went to university)

Fanne has just transferred from her digital camera to my laptop some photos we took last December when we had a holiday in Hualian, the harbour town where Fanne grew up.

It was not a holiday; we actually went to Hualian to arrange delivery of a dining table set, which we were to take by order of her Majesty, my mother-in-law.



As the table-and-chair set were bought in 1993 when Fanne left home for university and she didn't dine at it very much, I suppose, my mother-in-law would like her grandchild to be fed and raised up at this table.

Because the house has been vacant for more than ten years, a pane of the exterior doors was jammed and the table could not go through the gateway. As a result, it took me some time to take apart the windows so that the table could be moved out of the house.



Hey my lad, since, about ten weeks before your due date, we went to Mum's home to collect Grannie's dining table in sweated labout , you'd better cultivate good table manners or you'll be ordered to take them back to that house.

Here comes 2010

(Click to enlarge and see how slowly my hairs grew in the past few years)

As mentioned in the blog post last year, I've taken another new year photo.

For the fourth time in a row since the year end 2006, I went to the 188-second fireworks display staged at the Taipei 101 Tower ushering in the new year.

Of course Fanne stood beside me as in the last three times, but we had one more member, who had no choice but was forced, to accompany us—our expected baby. I'm sure this member will be with us again counting down to 2011, with no choice.

What year-end surprises

On the last day of 2009, I received two official papers, one in the morning when I walked into my office and the other in the late afternoon just two minutes before I shut down my laptop and said 'see you next year' to my assistants and other colleagues.

The morning paper informs me that my proposal for an industry-university collaboration project has been approved and TWD 2 million (USD 62,000) will be granted by the University to recruit more full-time research assistants for my database construction project.

The afternoon paper confirms that my postdoctoral contract has been renewed, with a pay rise.

Taiwanese people believe that children always bring their own fortune so that parents will have necessary financial resources to raise them up. Although I was a bit disappointed when I came to know it was a boy, not a girl as I wished, well, I believe he will be a source of strength and confidence for me.

Adiós, 2009.

A tight daily schedule for a weekday

It's been two months since Fanne and I moved to our new flat. In order to look after pregnant Fanne and the expected baby, I conduct my weekday life according to a strict daily schedule.

06.45 Leave my four-poster bed without any hesitation

07.00 Cook breakfast

07.20 Have breakfast with Fanne

07.45 Wash crockery, cutlery and pans, as well as clean the kitchen

08.00 Empty rubbish and recycling bins

08.20 March to my office with my chin up and shoulders back

08.50 Have a cup of Lipton Yellow Label

09.00 (a)Make simple facts more complicated in my office so that they become esoteric and understood by only a small number of people with compartmentalised and specialised academic knowledge; or

(b)Explain complicated matters in an effortless during lectures in an undemanding manner so that students will never learn know enough and I remain authoritative

14.00 Figure out if I have had lunch and, if not, feed myself and then keep working on the aforementioned task (a) or (b)

18.00 Return home in an anxious fashion

18.30 Have a cup of tea made from Taiwanese loose-leaf green tea which was brewed in the morning and left unattended during the day

18.45 Cooking dinner

20.00 Welcome Fanne back by giving her a tepid greeting, and then serve and dine with her

21.30 Wash crockery, cutlery and pans, as well as clean the kitchen, again

22.00 Embed myself firmly in the sofa, watching Japanese drama on TV and reading whatever printed publications at the same time

23.30 Shower myself with chilly water to remind myself of my existence

24.00 Call the day a day and enter my four-poster

This is my weekday life and life will go on.

The Shamisen Club without a shamisen

(London Shamisen Club, live in Taipei 101)

Requested by London Shamisen Club, I am writing lyrics for two pieces, which the group will deliver in their upcoming gigs in Taipei.

London Shamisen Club consists of a mandola, a tablah (or darbuka, the goblet drum from Middle East and neighbouring areas, not the Indian tabla), a violin, a clarinet, percussion and sometimes other guest instruments. This group plays their original works, as well as rearranged folk music from a wide geographic range, including Greece, Argentine, Algeria, Cuba, Uyghur, Tajik, Malaysia and Turkey, with a 1950s retro-electro/dancehall flavour.

The key person of this group is the mandola player Tommo, who writes all the works and makes arrangements. Tommo has lived in London for so many years and thus, I believe, this Shamisen Club is called after the name of the city. However, I'm not sure about Shamisen, the Japanese three-string plucked instrument. Perhaps it has something to do with 'zen' or certain ancient Asian philosophy: because nobody plays shamisen in this group, it has to be named so.

Tommo would like me to give the two pieces a hint of showa kayo (昭和歌謡, 'ballads from the Shōwa period') and emphasises that showa kayo must not be confused with enka. As a purist who is obsessed about definitions and details, I have to listen to more song examples to discover the differences. I should write another entry for showa kayo later.

Anti-stress kit

As we are approaching the end of 2009, many people are ready to go for Christmas celebrations and Hogmanay, while some academics are busy crafting term reports about their scholastic achievements and concocting project proposals to solicit more subsidies and secure their jobs.

I'm sure that most of my academic colleagues are really under pressure, just like myself, at the moment. In sympathy with some of my professional brethren, I would like to present an anti-stress kit, which I got from a member of the management team of NEXT, the shop where I worked as a cleaner when I studied in Stirling University, Scotland.

This kit worked very well on me when I struggled to finish my doctoral thesis, and thus I believe it will just run greatly for those who are under academic pressure. Some of my friends and colleagues in Stirling also found it useful.

As it's copyright-free, those who need it may print out as many as they wish or probably make some drink mats, and deliver them, as free samples, to their academic colleagues.

Right, let's fighting against stress.

I miss my first Spanish textbook

Whenever I can't find an item, whatever if may be, and get wildly insane, my mum or Fanne usually calms me down and then assures me that one day it will turn out, especially when you pack up all the stuff for home moving.

However, although we've moved into our new home for three weeks, I still can't find out the Spanish textbook which I've mentioned to a lot of Spanish-speaking friends. It is definitely more than a language textbook; it is creative writing in practice.

I bought this textbook when I was a senior high school student at a secondhand bookstall in Taichung 16 years ago. It was printed by certain California-based publisher and seemed to be a textbook of Latin American Spanish, as I was told later that a lot of expressions in this book, such as comemos juntos y platicamos, were only used by people in Latin America, particularly in Mexico.

Nevertheless, what impressed me most was not those Latin American expressions, but the materials for conversation practice. I still remember the first four lessons in this book.

Lesson 1 is about daily greetings, such as Hola (Hello), Buenos días (Good day).

Lesson 2 teaches how to count in Spanish.

Lesson 3 gives some basic words including days of the week.

Lesson 4 starts conversations.

What a huge leap! How can you chat with others only with a few basic words and daily expressions? I'd never forget the two dialogues below for the rest of my life. They are certainly not from a textbook, but from an anthology of poems.

(I)
A: Hay un elefante en la estación.
     (There is an elephant in the station.)
B: ¡Es absolutamente ridículo!
     (That's absolutely ridiculous!)
A: Es mío.
     (It's mine.)
B: ¡Qué hombre tan raro!
     (What a strange man!)

(II)
A: Hay un gorila en la escuela.
     (There is a gorilla in the school.)
B: ¡Es absolutamente terrible!
     (That's absolutely terrible!)
A: Lo adopté.
     (I adopted him.)
B: ¡Qué hombre tan valiente!
     (What a brave man!)

This is literature, poetry, not language learning. I want this book back! Where is it?

Fanne's portrait

We brought this portrait with us when moving into our new home two weeks ago.

This pencil sketch portrait was finished in 1995, when I was a second-year undergraduate student. It took me three months. I still have no idea how I did it and don't think I can do it again for the rest of my life.

Since I never took any sketch lesson, I read a lot of 'how-to' and 'for-dummies' books and practised all the necessary skills for quite a long time before I really started.

Moreover, Fanne rejected me and refused to give me a photo when I started my courtship, so I could only watch her from a distance and draught as much as possible. It was really a tough task for me.

However, it's now part of our fond memories of undergraduate days and the portrait will surely be passed down for generations.

The Lonely Accordion

I received a request, probably an order, from May to learn a new song, 'The Lonely Accordion' (Gudu de shoufeng qin 孤獨的手風琴), the screen song of the latest film Prince of Tears (Lei wangzi 淚王子), so that I can sing it in a KTV (ie, a karaoke box, which consists of multiple rooms containing karaoke equipment to be rented for time periods).

It's a story which took place in a 'military-dependent village' (juanchun 眷村) of the air force in Taiwan during the White Terror era, the years when martial law and one-party dictatorship were imposed by the Nationalist government and numerous political dissidents and innocent suspects were imprisoned, tortured and eliminated.

The film is going to be screened tomorrow (30 October) in Taiwan, but the original sound track has already been released. May sent me a link to YouTube, the MV of the screen song, by the veteran Hong Kong singer Goerge Lam (林子祥).



The song is origianlly a famous Russian song 'The Lonely Accordion' (Одинокая бродит гармонь), composed by Boris Mokrousov in 1947, with lyrics by Mikhail Isakovsky. It's about a young accordionist walking alone at night in search of someone, against a backdrop of apple blossoms and a chill blowing in from the fields.

In the film the army pilot, who was imprisoned for suspected espionage, plays the accordion, and thus this melancholic Russian tune is especially chosen and adapted into a Mandarin song. It is the original Russian song that May asks me to sing.



Well, I found the Russian lyrics last night and will study it over the weekend. Next time when I visit a KTV, I shall sing in Russian while other singing the adapted Mandarin version.

Снова замерло всё до рассвета,
Дверь не скрипнет, не вспыхнет огонь.
Только слышно, на улице где-то
Одинокая бродит гармонь.

То пойдёт на поля, за ворота,
То обратно вернётся опять,
Словно ищет в потёмках кого-то
И не может никак отыскать.

Веет с поля ночная прохлада,
С яблонь цвет облетает густой...
Ты признайся - кого тебе надо,
Ты скажи, гармонист молодой.

Может, радость твоя недалёка,
Да не знает, её ли ты ждёшь...
Что ж ты бродишь всю ночь одиноко,
Что ж ты девушкам спать не даёшь!