Fain In Spain, Stay Mainly In...Waterfront and Flamenco Show

By the time my train arrived Barcelona it was almost six o'clock in the afternoon already. It took another half an hour to reach my hotel, which located in the Waterfront area.



Compared to the hotel in Madrid, this one looks like the kind of hotels you will find in Miami Beach and caters more to the 'hip' crowd, people like Paris Hilton or Britney Spear. Not necessary a good sell for me somehow



The room itself is in the open Studio style where the bedroom, bathroom and a mini office (desk) all combined together into one single unit.



Facing the bed is a full window view of the beach and the indispensable flat screen TV.





But the thing I appreciate the most is the IPod adapter that allows you to recharge your IPod as well as plug it to the stereo in the room so that I can sleep to the music I want



My plan for the night was to have dinner in one of the local restaurants that provide the celebrated Flamenco Show. However, I was delayed due to a 'bathroom malfunction'. The draining system obviously was not working when I tried to freshen up in the shower. All the yuppie design of the room has come to haunt you since the water actually leaked to the living room as well





It took a good half hour before the maintenance guy arrived. He was friendly and helpful but by the time I managed to get to the restaurant dinner was already over and the show was only five minutes away from starting. So the only thing I have was a drink. The restaurant has a dining section and separate stage room for the show. The stage room is cozier than I expected but the atmosphere was intimate. I was seated close enough to tape the first ensemble number.


It seems a full figure is a prerequisite for (female) Flamenco dancers. Women right activists could consider popularizing the art of Flamenco to counter eating disorder and unhealthy weight loss.

Flamenco is generally considered to be a style unique to Spanish culture. The show I watched comprised of five dancers, three guitarists and three singers. Not being able to speak Spanish I of course had no idea what the singers were singing about but I got the feeling that all the singing are ad-lib. In fact it felt more like conversing (between the singers themselves and between the singers and the dancers). The dancers are typical Latino spitfire passionate and the singers often seemed to echo the emotion of the dancers. Here is the a solo section of one of the dancers who appears to be an Asian, probably Filipino. Spain has a sizable Filipino population for historical reason



More so than the hip, Flamenco is a strenuous exercise to your feet. Here is a perfect example


I wonder if all Flamenco dancers are Footsie enthusiasts

The show lasted slightly less than an hour. Upon returning to the hotel I discovered, half expectedly, that they had switched my room due to the drainage issue. The new room is just right across the hall of the old one but that also means I got a different (less desirable?) beach view



My hotel is actually a good twenty minutes walk to the closest metro station, Barceloneta. However with the temperature in the upper teen degree (Celsius) even in the evening and the breeze from the sea, it was a very pleasant twenty minutes and no compliant from me.

Fain in Spain, Stay Mainly In... Madrid

The objective was to escape from the New England winter, Barcelona was chosen for its mild weather. Better still is that November is considered slow season in Spain so there is some bargain to hunt. While in Spain there is no reason NOT to visit the capital city. Besides what better excuse to take European train again, a favorite of mine since you don't get to travel on train in America very often, than a continental commute. However, if you are going to both cities it is always better to fly to Madrid than to Barcelona because the round-trip train fare between Madrid and Barcelona will be the same regardless which way you go but you will have to pay more to fly from Boston to Barcelona than Madrid

Instead of going East directly, my flight actually had to stop at Philadelphia before crossing the Atlantic Ocean



The luggage claim at Madrid Barajas airport for flight from Philadelphia. Notice how the two "Ph"s of Philadelphia are spelled in Spanish

Like most European cities and Hong Kong, the public transportation system in Madrid is much more reliable and accessible than its counterpart in U.S. It only takes about 40 minute’s metro (subway) ride from AeorPuerto station at the Airport to my hotel



Notice that unlike London or Hong Kong, the doors of the subway trains in Spain (and Paris too) don’t open automatically. Rather each door has an individual button that you need to push before the door will open. That is something I often forget and almost miss my stops.

The closest Metro station to my hotel is Banco De España (Bank of Spain) and you can guess that it is right in the middle of their financial center.



The neighborhood of the hotel is currently under construction so it was a bit chaotic. Inside the hotel room it is nicely furnished but there is really not much of a view to boast



On paper I was staying in Madrid for two days, in truth it was four half days combined together. If you take away the time to commute to and from the aiport, the hotel check-in, the actual visiting time is pitiful. After settling and taking a shower in the hotel, my first stop is El Palacio Real de Madrid









El Palacio Real de Madrid is the official residence of the King of Spain but that remains official only because the King and Queen actually stay in a more modest estate, El Palacio de la Zarzuela. Today the palace is mainly open to tourists if it isn't reserved for State ceremony, which is not necessary announced ahead of time. So you will need to try your luck if you plan to visit there. My luck had been good and bad. Good is that it was open to visitors; Bad is that upon arrival I found out I could've got in for free with my Portuguese passport had I come one day earlier for the Palace is free admission for any EU passport holders every Wednesday!

According to Wikipedia El Palacio Real de Madrid is the biggest palace in Europe but personally I found it dwarfed by Château de Versailles in France, probably because the palace is only partially open to public. Unlike Château de Versailles, the internal of El Palacio Real de Madrid (and most tourist attractions in Spain) does not allow being photographed, except Plaza de Armas







It was in Plaza de Armas that I bumped into three Hong Kong guys who are currently working as an intern in Ireland. They found me look familiar and so struck a conversation with me:



We even swapped email addresses but sadly I have left it in my hotel when I left for Boston. 八神 if you happen to read this please drop me a message.

The only other place I visited in Madrid is El Museo Nacional del Prado, one of the three major museums in Madrid.



Due to my sense of orientation, or the lack of it, a ten minutes walk from my hotel had wasted me almost forty minutes in order to locate the museum, if only I started in the right direction. It will be way too overwhelming to visit all the exhibits in El Museo Nacional del Prado but fortunately the museum provides visitor a quick guide to their masterpiece collection in their floor plan:



El Museo Nacional del Prado is famous for its Goya and Velázquez collection.



None more famous than Las Meninas by Velázquez but unfortunately no photograph allowed so a picture snatched from the net is all I can do



After a swift two hours browse of El Museo Nacional del Prado I quickly left for Atocha station to catch my train to Barcelona





There are two railway train stations in Madrid, Atocha and Seville. The latter is supposedly more breathtaking and worthy to visit but I will have to save it for next time. It took about two hours and forty five minute to reach Barcelona. The land between Madrid and Barcelona is not particularly scenic but movie is available. Below you can see "Ice Age: The Meltdown" was being showed during my ride

Fain In Spain, Stay Mainly In...Canon PowerShot G11

The trip to Spain is an impromptu decision, partly personal and partly pragmatic – need to exhaust the vacation time cumulated before it expires at the end of the year, and the relatively mild climate of Madrid and Barcelona seem to be a good getaway from the New England winter.

I’ve specifically upgraded my digital camera for this trip. Correctly speaking, I was advised by a friend who is a connoisseur in photography to try out Canon PowerShot G10 almost a year ago after I complained about my camera didn't handle night photography too well. As the ever careful consumer it took me a year and a trip to make up my mind but by then Canon has already released the next model of Powershot, the G11. After considering the pro and con between the two I decide to go with the better night shooting enhancement of G11 over the extra mega pixel of G10.


The front of the camera


The back of the camera

One neat thing about G11, at least to me it is neat, is the tilt/swivel LCD monitor. By tilting/swiveling the monitor it allows you to take shots that are hard to frame with the fixed LCD panel provided by the G10 model. The down side of it is the size of the panel has to be reduced to 2.8 inches diagonal from 3.0 inches of G10


The LCD monitor in the back can be flipped open to 180 degree


And it can be rotate about 90 degree downward and 180 degree upward

After you flip open the LCD Monitor to 180 degree, turn it upward 180 degree and then close it, you have the whole monitor in the back just like most standard digital cameras.


This design provides you a large preview during filming but also the protection of a hidden LCD moniter while the camera is not in use.

When I was reading some online reviews of the camera during shopping, many of them have stated that G11 doesn't allow zooming during video recording. That of course is a turn-off but I decide to go ahead due to the reputed improvement in night shooting. Then to my surprise, G11 actually does allow zooming in video recording:

Above is a clip I tape in the backyard of my house

G11 provides three different modes of video recording. In additions to standard mode, there is Colour Swap mode which will swap one colour of your choice to another. It is this non-standard recording mode that doesn't allow you to zoom but for a trickery like this I doubt it matters.


Here I swapped the color light grey to red in my backyard. The effect is only passable but you got the idea.

G11 also provides a Colour Accent mode which allows you to keep one single selected colour and turn the rest to just black and white.


Here I accented the pastel yellow of my backyard

All these colour enhancement would probably work better on a static photograph than the dynamic video clip. OK enough of the gadget, next will be the actual trip. Stay tuned.

電影回顧: 萬聖節首選《倩女幽魂》

A landmark in Hong Kong movies that spawned two sequels, an animated movie, TV series and countless imitations, “A Chinese Ghost Story” 《倩女幽魂》 combines traditional supernatural folklore, fantastic wiring, aesthetic cinematography, elaborate sets (by Hong Kong standard) and breath-taking stunt work to showcase the strengths of Hong Kong film industry. Furthermore, with a universal story devoid of historical background and minimized cultural reference, it is also one of the most accessible Hong Kong movies to the western audience (I always think with each distinctively costumed character and spooky setting it will be a great addition to any Halloween party). It might even appeal to the hip-hop demographic when the Taoist priest 燕赤霞 belted out a rap-like rendition during a drunken rampant. In fact, chances are many western connoisseurs will confess that “A Chinese Ghost Story” was the movie that initiated them into the Hong Kong movies



James Wong's rap-like rendition of 《道》 had attracted fans as far away as Argentina

However, many of the English synopsises for “A Chinese Ghost Story” I came across has Ning Tsai-shun/Ling Choi-sun 寧采臣 as a tax collector while in truth he is a debt collector. This to me is a small but significant difference because by being a tax collector, it would mean he will be working for the court which would give him a certain privileged position in the society while a major plot device of the movie is the fact that Ning Tsai-shun is a person of no importance

“A Chinese Ghost Story” opens with Ning Tsai-shun on the road to collect money. Quickly we see this is no easy feat because the road was ambushed by bandits. However, the fortune of the bandits took a wrong turn as they picked the swordsman 夏侯 to rob and got slaughtered instead. Later we found that the swordsman’s luck is no better as he bumped into the tantalizing ghost Nieh Hsiao-tsing/Nip Siu-sin 聶小倩 and met his own demise. However, the ghost in turn was controlled by the thousand-year old tree demon 姥姥 and forced to seduce traveling men.



As the alluring ghost Nieh Hsiao-tsing/Nip Siu-sin 聶小倩 Joey Wang 王祖賢 had her best moments on films. A former member of Taiwanese national basketball team, 《倩女幽魂》 accentuated her best feature, her long legs, in various scenes

What “A Chinese Ghost Story” presented us is a dog-eat-dog world that is in a state of constant chaos and lawlessness, where each in power (mortal or undead) is vying for the control over all those who are powerless. It is a world run rampant with monsters, ghosts, beasts (Ning Tsai-shun was first haunted by the wolves in the wood) and, above all, human: The well-to-do Nieh Hsiao-tsing fall into the hand of the tree demon only after her and her father were framed and persecuted by corrupted officials (Nieh Hsiao-tsing told Ning Tsai-shun that sometimes humans are even more frightening than ghosts).



The victim-preying Nieh Hsiao-tsing was a victim herself

A previously honest court marshal himself, 燕赤霞 had grown weary of the sleazy mortal world that he chose to lead a hermit-like life and keep the undead as company (the Taoist priest from the original Shaw Brothers version 《倩女幽魂》, “The Enchanting Shadow”, was much less cynical).



The mysterious, menacing Taoist priest 燕赤霞 was revealed to be a cynical former court marshal

In a world like this it is unlikely for someone with such meager means like Ning Tsai-shun to come out of it unscathed. But unlike the Taoist priest, our hero did NOT back away from life. Instead he took on a job that he was well aware of the peril involved without any bitterness (He told the inn-keeper how his predecessor was killed on his way return as-a-matter-of-factly) because he understood while fate could be ever unpredictable and ugly, one’s fortune is ultimately up to one’s own hand. It might seem pathetic for the hero of an action movie to implore for help when Ning Tsai-shun asked the Taoist priest to escort him to return Nieh Hsiao-tsing‘s ash back to her hometown. However, what I found interesting is the pleading occurred when it did.



When Ning Tsai-shun discovered Nieh Hsiao-tsing was actually a ghost, he was told to flee the haunted temple right away. However, at that point he didn’t entreat for the Taoist priest’s escort even though the way was full of danger. It was only after he promised Nieh Hsiao-tsing’s reincarnations that he begged for help because on his own he wouldn’t complain any misfortune befall on him. He would just take that as part of one’s fate, part of life itself. Ning Tsai-shun might be bubbling, he might be anti-hero but he is no coward. When you consider the last thing he said to Nieh Hsiao-tsing is to be a “good human”, that is surprisingly life-affirmative for a horror movie.



The screenplay of “A Chinese Ghost Story” was written by Yuen Kai Chi (阮繼志) when he was only twenty-six. It won him a Best Adapted Screenplay at the Golden Horse Film Festival. (Ironically the screenplay was the only major category the movie failed to nab a nomination in the local Hong Kong Film Award. Could it be too galling for the Award committee to take the screenplay of a supposedly action-oriented movie seriously?). Life after “A Chinese Ghost Story” has not been all smooth-sailing though. In 1989 he was involved in a serious car accident that left him partially handicapped. However, this had not deterred his zeal for life. It was during his recuperating from the accident that he got acquainted with his current wife, who was the nurse in the hospital at the time. Today he continues to write screenplay and teach script writing classes in local universities. In 2005 he received the “Top Ten Regeneration Warriors” award... Coming from someone who wrote the screenplay for “A Chinese Ghost Story” somehow I am just not surprised.

無常

對已經多年沒有執筆書寫的中文, 寫這一篇時心裡實在猶豫了很久。再加上從來也沒有學會中文輸入法的我, 就更是一大挑戰。為了對故人的尊重, 我但願自己能堅持到底, 能在Donald化煙前完成我對他的悼念, 個人方面亦希望能藉此平靜多夜來不安的思緒。

如果記憶沒錯的話, 到訪Donald的網誌始於他一篇向當時剛過世的Robert Altman致敬的文章。那時我剛轉到目前的工作, 新的崗位佔去了我絕大部份的時間, 看網誌彷彿就成為我唯一的娛樂。剛開始看Donald的電影網誌時只覺過於重一大堆錦上添花的獎項, 及口味對我來說是大路了一點。然而口味是否認同並不重要, 重要是對電影熱誠的認同, 這是每一個自認電影癡的人必須的首要條件。這一方面Donald是不容置疑的

為了電影Donald可以每星期都往電影院一躺

為了喜歡的電影Donald可以多次重看也樂此不疲

為了更能溶入喜歡的電影Donald可以決心學習西班牙語

他對電影的熱情相信所有看過他網誌的人都能感染到的。但更令我感動的是Donald樂於分亨的性格, 不論是生活的一點一滴他都毫不吝嗇, 看到各方網友在知道他離世後的留言, 不就證明這是Donald處世成功之道? 這亦是一向內向, 被動的我應該學習的。08年初回港前鼓起最大勇氣接觸Donald, 當時答應一星期後再電話聯絡見面, 但當電話沒法接上時潛伏於腦海的遲疑又不禁作崇, 最後還是錯過了這次機會, 沒想到我亦錯過了這唯一的機會…

有人說互聯網只是一個虛疑的世界, 但當惡耗傳來的時候我多麼渴望這只是個虛疑的訊息。如今仍不禁每天到訪習以為常的網誌, 但見到唯一更新的只會是最後上載日期的倒數, 彷彿在告訴我走了的人只會越走越遠。 我從來對宗教沒有太大的深思, 亦沒有想過人死後會否去到另一個世界。但若我們有緣碰上的話, 這次我一定不會遲疑, 上前跟你打過招呼。

時光倒流二十年

Winter 1988

Camp 歌女皇 (80年代10大西歌投票之回響)

Until she hit it big with the theme song of 《上海灘》, the Canton pop career of Francis Yip (葉麗儀) was practically non-existent. However, once she made that breakthrough, with the exception of a few duets with Johnny Yip (葉振棠), she spent the rest of her career building up a repertoire of high camp that was as bloody and epic as 《上海灘》 the TV series itself. Dashing out overblown lyrics with much admired aplomb, Francis sings through the corniness and tackiness with a straight face. Regardless whether she is a real pro or just simply has no sense of humour, you can always count on her to give a performance that could make any drag queen proud.

Granted I haven’t quite grasped the definition of 西歌, but given the sheer outrageousness in Francis’ anthology it won’t convince me that you can’t find one single spawn somewhere in her compilation that should make the list of net friend Chi’s 80年代10大西歌投票. Well to correct this gross oversight, let’s pay our tribute to Francis’ monumental contribution to Hong Kong camp culture:

1. 女中豪傑

What appeared to be an undistinguished TV theme song was elevated to camp status, all thanks to a single line of lyrics: 俏嬌娃一呼千里響. 《女中豪傑》 was the theme song for 《雙葉蝴蝶》, a gender reversed follow up to capitalize the popularity of the TV detective series 《C.I.D.》. The aforementioned line obviously was inspired by the US program 《神探俏嬌娃》 (Charlies’ Angels). Instead of Sabrina Duncan, Jill Munroe and Kelly Garrett, 《雙葉蝴蝶》 gave us 黃淑儀, 楊盼盼 and a very mannish 葉德嫻, at least the director didn’t have the 俏嬌娃 jiggle their breasts to us.

2. 紅顏

There is only one thing you need to know about 《紅顏》: 無力挽　無力再挽. Let’s just say 一切盡在不言中

3. 紙醉金迷

What a grave injustice! Deanie Yip covered Grace Chang’s (葛蘭) 《我要你的愛》, 《我要》 finished No.8 in 80年代10大西歌投票結果. Francis Yip covered the equally flamboyant 《說不出的快活》 from the same singer, 《紙醉金迷》 didn’t even get mentioned. All I can say is 此葉不同彼葉

4. 女黑俠木蘭花

Poor 趙雅芝, not only did the TV series made her character look like a bimbo next to 高翔 (in the book, 木蘭花 is way smarter), they also made her wear that hideous outfit (in skirt!!) even the 夜行衣 of 雪妮 fifteen years before for the same role looked cooler.



If there was any consolation, at least 趙雅芝 landed herself a husband from the series. Too bad Francis never filmed a MV for this camp classic with delicious lyrics (木蘭花 美麗豪放) only she can deliver, one could only guess what impact the image of Francis in that outfit and pointy eye mask could have brought, completed with some high karate kicks no less.

5. 巾幗英雄

Following 《女中豪傑》 and 《女黑俠木蘭花》, the Amazon Heroine theme continued with 巾幗英雄, once again it was a theme song from TV series (《十三妹》) and once again it had 楊盼盼. Had Lisa Wang somehow turned down playing 穆桂英, I know for sure it would be Francis who belted out 英姿煥煥煥煥煥…發… On the other hand, 《巾幗英雄》 failed to live up to its predecessor, either because the formula had far too many outings, or it was just a tough act to follow. Seriously, how can anyone top 《女黑俠木蘭花》?

6. 大豪客



Adapting “Hey Big Spender” from fellow belter Peggy Lee, 《大豪客》 has long been considered a Hall of Famer in Hong Kong commercial history. Technically it was never released as an album cut but thanks to YouTube, the image of Francis sashaying down the stairs will forever live on. Unfortunately the version with 曹查理 dressing up like some kind of head honcho (a sight never fails to delight camp audience) is nowhere to be found.