Moving my old upright piano

(Ronne, in front of his new toy–Wei's old toy under overhaul)

In 1985 Dad took out a loan of NTD 100,000 to buy me a YAMAHA U3 upright piano when he earned just more than 10,000 a month. It did cost him an arm and a leg. Although I didn't become a musician like Leonard Bernstein or Daniel Barenboim, I teach music at National Taiwan University, which has made him a proud and gratified parent.

Sorry but I really can't bother to fork out an extravagant amount (at least NTD 200,000 nowadays) to buy another YAMAHA U3 for Ronne. Thus, I decided to move the one old in my parents' apartment to my place. I have also engaged a piano restoration specialist to start an overhaul of this 27-year-old pianoforte.

Fortunately, this black sound-producing device is still in very good condition. Only hammer butt flanges (something numbered 25 in the diagram below) need servicing. It'll take the specialist about ten days to restore all the butt flanges of the 88 keys to working order.

The black wooden case, enclosing the soundboard, strings and the keyboard, is now in my living room awaiting the butt flanges. In must more than a week's time, Ronne will be playing with this new toy.


(Image from International Piano Supply)

Mandarin cover of Jeanette MacDonald's 'San Francisco'

(Martha Su, or Su Mada 蘇馬大 in Chinese, image cited from Deng Xiaoyu)


(Listen to the Mandarin version of 'San Francisco' interpreted by Martha Su, on Regal (China) 41487B. Yes, it's in Mandarin Chinese. Can you identify any word?)

To usher in the new semester, I was reorganising all the files and folders on my MacBook Pro this afternoon. I found this long-lost 'San Francisco', a song adapted from the theme of the 1936 Academy Award winning San Francisco, set in San Francisco before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. (Thanks to Edwin W Chen's information about the film.)

This song, now one of the two official city songs of San Francisco, was originally sung by the leading actress Jeanette MacDonal in the film, for six times at six scenes respectively.

I don't know much about Martha Su, the Chinese singer who covered 'San Francisco'. The Mandarin 'San Francisco' is one of the only two songs known so far she had ever recorded.

Martha's scat improvisation in this song is fascinating and unprecedented, as well as unparalleled in the 1930s and 1940s Mandarin pop scene. I can't think of any other singer from the same period that could improvise with wordless vocables or nonsense syllables to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo like Martha.

Make a comparison between Martha's recording and one of Jeanette's performances in the film embedded below.

Hand dragon lantern

(Ronne and the dragon)

Time flies; the nearly 5-week winter break has come to the end. Spring semester 2012 starts on 20 February.

Surely there are a lot to be noted down during the long vacation, but the only thing I am able to write about on the day before the new semester kicks off would be Ronne and his dragon lantern.

This year the lantern festival, which is generally regarded as the last day of the Chinese New Year and after which all lunar new year celebrations conclude, fell on 6 February. Although we didn't visit any lantern fair, lantern parade, garden party or something like that, we celebrated the festival at home.

A friend of Fanne gave us a DIY lantern set. We (of course 'we' on this occasion is a singular which denotes 'I') managed to assemble the cardboard dragon lantern and we (now this is a plural pronoun which indeed means the whole family) had a good time in the evening.



As we failed to take proper, sharp images in the dark with our old digital camera, probably manufactured before you bought yours, what are uploaded here were taken during the day.

I'm Popeye The Sailor Man

(Listen to 'I'm Popeye the Sailor Man' by Billy Costello, the original voice of Popeye in animated cartoons)

Another recently purchased record for Chinese New Year!

Like many cartoons, such as Snoopy and Dennis the Menace, Popeye is a character originally created for a comic strip which is later adapted into an animated cartoon.

I can't remember if I've read any Popeye newspaper comic strips or individual comic books in my childhood, but I am sure I'v watched tonnes of Popeye animated cartoons on TV.

On TV Popeye always turned many hopeless situations around after gulping some spinach from a tin, which boosted his muscles and physical strength immediately. Therefore Popeye was taken as a healthy eating role model by parents to encourage vegetable-phobic (is there such a word?) children to eat more spinach.

I actually came to know this record through a radio programmed in an old newspaper circulated in Taiwan back in 1936. This record was once played over the air in Taiwan.

I was so amazed how producers at the then Taipei Radio Station (台北放送局, call sign JFAK) would collect and introduce music from the West, not only 'classical' works but also other popular tunes, to the audience in Taiwan. I then discover this record on eBay, bid and won.

Another DIY new year couplet for the year of the dragon

Although I am definitely not good at Chinese calligraphy at all, again I write my own new year couplet (春聯 chunlian) with a Chinese writing brush, rather than buying a commercially mass-printed one.

As usual, my DIY couplet must have something to do with music and the academia and thus this year I compose a pair of lines which may be translated roughly as

"Joyfully play music and spread [it] throughout the globe (喜奏笙歌傳四宇);
Graciously welcome guests and converse over the history (高迎雅客論春秋)."

I have to admit that the handwriting gets even worse than the one I did last year. It looks indeed like homework or something at secondary school level.

However, I can't blame myself, as I do it only once a year. Thus, happy new year, the year of dragon. Have a happy and prosperous year.

New Year's Day before the New Year's Day of the Year of the Dragon

(Click to enlarge and see how I have changed over the past few years, from 1st January 2007 to 2012)

The Chinese New Year of the Dragon falls on the 23rd of January in 2012. Before running towards a whole series of traditional rituals, I am obliged to herald the Gregorian New Year with thousands of revellers on streets.

For the sixth time in a row since the year end 2006, I went to the Taipei 101 fireworks show again last night, with my wife of course and, as I had spoken last year, my son, who is old enough now to join us.

While I am busy marking students' essays, striving to finish the manuscript of a paper which is scheduled to be published by the end of January, blah, blah, blah, I insist on maintaining the ritual of counting down to New Year at the same spot and then taking a photo thereafter.

I am so glad that Blogger is still in business and I am able to upload a set of comparative photos this year.

I Want Your Love

(Listen to 'I Want Your Love' by Grace Chang released in 1957 Hong Kong on Pathé label)

Haven't purchased records from eBay for a while and thus haven't share with my readers great music transferred from 78 rpm records.

There you go—'I Want Your Love (我要你的愛)' by Grace Chang (or Ge Lan 葛蘭 known to most Chinese speakers ).

This is a 1957 Chinese cover version of Georgia Gibbs's 'I Want You To Be My Baby', which is indeed a 1955 cover as well of Louis Jordan's original recording made in 1953.

The instrumental arrangement of Grace Chang's version is quite similar to that in Georgia Gibbs's, and a huge part of the original English lyrics are kept to make this song a Mandarin/English combo. However, Grace not only articulates each English word with precision, but also creates her own interpretation, even with more of playful allure in a commanding tone.

Below are the English lyrics in Grace Chang's combo version. See if you can follow.

Listen to your mama and you never will regret it
And if anybody wonders you can tell them that I said it
The only thing I know is that I never can forget ya
I've been longin' for ya baby ever since the day I metcha
I gotcha where I want'cha and I'm never gonna let'cha
Get away from me

Hear what I tell ya
I'm the gal for you and so you'd better start to face it
If you ever lose my love you know you can't replace it
I think it's time for you to start to give me some lovin'
Carryin' a torch for you that's hotter than an oven
It's time for you to give me a little bit of lovin'
Baby, hold me tight and do what I tell you

I can, with my eye, but cannot with my tongue.

Enjoy Georgia Gibbs's to make a comparison with Grace Chang's.

A Rubik's Cube that never makes us frustrated

Ever got frustrated with a Rubik's Cube? Now there is an alternative version that never lets us down.

From time to time I see news clips on TV showing how some people can
solve Rubik's Cubes in an amazing way. How can some nerds solve this mechanical puzzle in one minute, even solve it with their feet or while blindfolded?

These video clips always leave me totally flabbergasted, for I can't even solve this bloody puzzle with my eyes wide open in one hour.

Fortunately, there is a self-solving Rubik's Cube which requires no effort to solve. It has been solved in the beginning.

Well, actually it's a 3D logo of the Second Northern Taiwan Teaching Resource Centre.
The idea behind this logo comes from the well-field system, a and distribution method existing roughly between the 9th to 2nd century BC.

A square area of land was divided equally into nine sections, with the outer eight cultivated by eight individual peasant families and the centre jointly cultivated for the landowning aristocrat.

Whatever idea there is behind the design, the 3D version is absolutely great consolation for people like me who cannot solve a six-coloured cube.

Ronne drumming on his milk tin

Fanne is running a promotion for her products, which invites parents to enter a competition by uploading videos of toddlers or young children dancing, rocking or taking any form of exercise to the official promotional song.

This promo song is a cover version of an advert tune from years ago with lyrics rewritten. I was requested to take on the task to produce a newly arranged backing track, coach the singer (actually a staff member of Fanne) and make the recording.

Fanne decided to let Ronne do whatever he liked in front of the milk tin, a sample of her products under promotion, and shoot a video as well. Crikey, nobody gave Ronne any instruction; he just started drumming on the milk tin.

However, his father, as a musicologist, couldn't figure out any rhythmic patter or relationship between his beating and the soundtrack.

What can you make with a handkerchief?

Last Monday was the national day in Taiwan, which commemorate the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911, which led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.

As this Chinese Republic nowadays has only its sovereignty over Taiwan and is not recognised as a country by the UN, it's alawys under debate whether Taiwan is still part of China and whether ROC still exists.

I don't bother to bother join the debate any more; those issues will be settled after I die, I strongly believe. Therefore, I celebrated this day with my son by playing a with handkerchief.


A cocoon.


Now a wrapped sweet.


Now a carrot.


And finally back to a handkerchief, and it can also become a cap.