21 March 2013

A couplet for Edwin's new studio



So many people believe that regular exercise is an important part of a balanced stress management programme and are willing to pay high membership prices to join gyms, health clubs or yoga classes in hopes that nervous tension arising from the fast pace of life in the industrial and metropolitan environments could be antidoted by shaking their bodies in a well organised fashion.

I totally agree with it.  I ran three miles both in the morning and in the late afternoon everyday when I was under extreme pressure during the final days of thesis writing in Scotland.  However, I opt for Chinese calligraphy.

Chinese calligraphy requires deliberate mental design and concentration on guiding the soft writing brush.  Both strength and agility are essential for fine artwork.  Therefore, I believe composing couplets and practising writing Chinese characters is a good way to extricate me from academic abyss.

Apart from writing new year couplets at , I compose couplets and write them with a Chinese writing brush for friends on various occasions, such as weddings, birthdays, graduations and etc.

Edwin, a director, producer and historian, has recently started his own studio, light-heartedly named 'Golden Haze Arts and Culture Heath Center', in Taipei.  To celebrate the formal establishment of this 'Health Center', I produce this, roughly translated as

With sining voices and dancing images a rainbow appears (歌聲舞影虹彩現);
In souther sphere and northern horizon hundreds of flowers bloom (天南地北百花開).

The couplet also comes with a banner:  What an immense cinematic world! (銀海無涯).

I wish him all the best and look forward to producing more interesting audio-visual, theatrical or whatever works with him in the near future.

06 March 2013

Ronne's third birthday

(Three-year-old Ronne making birthday wishes)

Yesterday was my son Ronne's third birthday.  Time flies; he is three now.

Thanks to the development of digital cameras and other mobile devices with the function of shooting photos or videos, we can now catch important moments of our life nimbly with confidence.  Therefore, look at these three photos taken respectively on Ronne's last three birthdays and see how Ronne has grown over the last three years.

(Two-year old Ronne clapping hands and singing the birthday song with grandparents and mum)

(One-year-old Ronne patrolling to safeguard his birthday cake)

Thanks to the invention of weblogs and social networking websites, many people can now express their views and distribute multimedia works in the cyber world across temporal and spatial boundaries.  I have been sharing with my readers sounds of the gramophone records for quite some time, as well as photos of my son.  Although, Principal Wei's Weblog stopped for several months in 2012, it resumed on the New Year's Day in 2013.

As the first entry I created this year is a photo of me and my son, I am now fully assured that when you have a baby and happen to have a digital camera, the number of the photos you would take for your child within a month will probably far exceed that of the images you have captured for yourself in the first half of your life.  Moreover, if you happen to maintain a blog, it will become an online album for the photos you would take for your child.