A LIFE . . .

LITTLE SAIGON

PARIS BY NIGHT" has produced very professional live shows and 109 DVDs with almost every great Vietnamese singer and composer, for 30 years. They represent the history of Vietnamese music, some of the greatest, most moving in the world. Now they have been driven out, because fans steal the music free on YouTube......QUESTION: If you love a singer, should you steal their creativity, steal their spirit? Even great singers need to eat. They deserve to have their artistry, hard work, and vulnerable passion treated with respect by their fans.....Or else there will be no music, no films, no art. Fans lose, student artists lose, creativity and inspiration is killed, and culture becomes even more diluted, hopeless, meaningless....Nothing good is free in life.

Language isn't important. Listen with your heart to these great Vietnamese singers and composers:

Trinh Cong Son ~ Khanh Ly ~ Le Thu ~ Thai Chau ~ Elvis Phuong ~ Che Linh ~ Thai Thanh ~ Tuan Ngoc ~ Hoang Nam ~ Thanh Lan ~ Ngoc Son ~ Cam Van ~ Giao Linh ~ Jimmy Joseph ~ Dalena ~ Thanh Tuyen ~ Pham Duy ~ Hoang Lam ~ Ky Anh ~ Manh Dinh ~ Bao Yen ~ Tuan Vu ~ Don Ho ~ My Linh ~ Khanh Ha ~ Ngoc Lan ~ The Son ~ Duy Quang ~ Vu Khanh ~ Y Lan ~ Tran Tu Tien ~ and many others

HATE

Why do fundamentalist clerics, extreme conservatives, ultra-nationalists, and the super-rich almost always look so tormented and ugly?

EGO

An experience to learn from....Last night, I was an "expert" in a professional panel, and treated as important. This morning, I was clumsy in beginning dance class, and treated as someone to avoid. The 24-hour highs and lows of my ego are useful....to put me in my place as part of this massive flood of humanity, all desperately trying to survive, not feel invisible, be treated with respect due all human beings, and maybe even get a little love.

HAPPY EASTER Island!

MIRRORS

In our ideal world everyone would be like us, think like us, love us unconditionally, and have the same aesthetic, political, religious, education, and social values.

There would be no human problems, health problems, money problems, family problems, civilization-made problems, or nature-made problems.

CHANGES

Transitions are difficult....

Changes of neighbors, friends, lovers, spouses. Changes in the environment, politics, economy, habits. Flowers die, favorite trees are cut, beautiful buildings crumble, leadership changes, friends and loved ones disappear. Life is constantly changing and challenging us. It can't be stopped.

DELICIOUS!

40 Taiwanese foods I can't live without.....

http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/eat/40-taiwanese-food-296093

My favorites are: 1 - 7 - 14 - 17 - 20 - 21 - 23 - 30.
But I love them all!
And miss them already....

ART & ILLUSTRATIONS

Artists, illustrators, filmmakers, children's book designers, advertisers, and art students: This might be interesting and useful....effective and not effective examples of book covers,
art, and film posters for "Life of Pi".

MIYAZAKI JR.

Scenes from the new gorgeous hand-drawn animated feature film - "From Up on Poppy Hill" [Studio Ghibli] - by Miyazaki Goro (son of legendary Japanese animator, Miyazaki Hayao)....

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/03/10/movies/20130310-POPPY.html

TO OUR GRADUATES

Life, as told by Lee Ang

DESERVED FILM AWARDS

Taiwan gave out awards for best student scripts and films....

Taiwan has some of the most creative filmmakers, who all need much more support from the government, society, and Taiwanese audiences.

CONGRATULATIONS,  MICHAEL WU CHIA-HSU !

http://blog.sina.com.tw/movieseeds/article.php?pbgid=122285&entryid=628764

ENGLISH DOESN'T TRANSLATE WELL

My short Facebook comment ("Fighting songs are better than funeral songs!") in full support of the "Do You Hear the People Sing" terrific anti-nuclear protest and photos (posted by 曾智偉 and many others), upset some readers....I want to explain what I really meant:

I know some / many of my comments in English are often misunderstood, because I use New York-style dark or absurd humor to twist English words, ideas, and meanings. Sometimes readers may even be hurt or angry, when I use tongue-in-cheek (indirect) or ironic humor to be FRIENDLY and caring. I apologize, seriously. I do not know Chinese, and will never know the beautiful, complex subtleties of Chinese enough to use it creatively.....My positive anti-nuclear protest march comment (above) is an example. "Fighting songs" refers to anti-nuclear protests, AND resistance to the impending take-over (economic, cultural, political, military) of democratic Taiwan by dictatorial China....."Funeral songs" refers to the memorial to Chiang Kai-shek, the losing temporary conqueror of Taiwan, where the people are protesting, AND it refers to the fact that if the Taiwan government builds (allows the building of) another nuclear power plant, there will be a tragic "accident" (human failure or corruption) in the future, and many people will die.....I'm very sorry for any misunderstandings!

REMINDERS

W  H  A  T     I     L  E  A  R  N  E  D

                      

I was a teacher for the past 5 months. Sometimes I think I was a great teacher. (Some of my students wrote me emotional letters...after I gave them grades.) Sometimes I think I was a bad teacher, because there was so much I wanted to communicate, but could not. (Laziness? Language and cultural barriers? Just Life?)

Most of all, I was and always will be, a student....Paid more than my students. Treated with more respect than my students. With more life experience, self-confidence, and the "wisdom" of age (maybe), than my students.

What did I learn? (Of course, as soon as I learn something, I forget it and must continuously re-learn it.).....

I learned that everybody's pain feels the same.

MUSIC THAT TOUCHES THE HEART

Not all magnificent music is from America, Taiwan, or the Idol TV shows.... This is one of the songs that move my heart and spirit the most. Written by the master composer NGO THUY MIEN, and sung by the great Viet Nam singer, Tuấn Ngọc. Title: "Rieng Mot Troi" (Private Corner of Heaven)....Please give yourself a gift - experience it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyUJuNek-rc

CHILDREN & THEIR FAVORITE TOYS

Revealing, moving photographs of children around the world, by an Italian artist....

http://www.gabrielegalimberti.com/projects/toys-2/#

FILM DIRECTOR FRED TAN

Personal antagonism by certain key Western Taiwanologist film writers have made Fred Tan Han-chang semi-disappear from film history....It is time for Taiwanese and International cinema lovers to rediscover this unique director, who was as important in the 1980s as Ho Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang Teh-chang.

1st ENGLISH TAIWAN FILM DICTIONARY-ENCYCLOPEDIA

WATERCOLOR

Aaron Gan

LOVE

PRO-LIFE IN THE REAL SENSE

200,000+ peaceful Taiwanese, Hakka, Aborigine, and Han protestors in the Capital city, protesting against the building of yet another nuclear power plant on the pristine Taiwan coast, on a major earthquake fault, subject to tsunamis, yearly typhoons, greed, corruption, shoddy workmanship, and guaranteed human error....near Taipei, the largest city.

Unlike China, no army or police beat them ,or fired tear gas and bullets into the crowd.

Young and old, families, students, farmers, workers, fishermen, artists, sat down in front of the President Building, listening to fiery speeches, passionate songs, pleas from the heart, and terrifying scientific facts.

Controlled Western news media covered the story minimally, with headlines reducing the nearly 1/4-Million protestors to only "Tens of Thousands."

DEAR MARGO ®

Margo Howard is (by far) the best, most psychologically astute, mentally healthy "advice" columnist in the international English media. Her wise advice is not always 100% correct, as she is not a mind-reader or God, but it is as close to constructive and useful reality, (not self-help dogma or nice-sounding politically-correct platitudes), as humanly possible. 

If your newspaper doesn't have it, you can read her column at no charge on the net, from Creators.com [This is not a paid endorsement.]

GARDEN