河國榮, An Aussie in Hong Kong

Our new friends from 北川中學 were here for a week. They left this morning. I printed special oversize name cards for them last night, and while doing so, realised that my domain names would not be memorable for our 普通话 friends on the other side of the border, so I registered another domain ;-)

My site is now accessible at all of the following domains: www.gregory.hk, www.hokwokwing.hk, www.heguorong.hk, www.河國榮.hk and www.河国荣.hk.

My email addresses all come to me so you can choose whichever is easier for you to remember: me@gregory.hk, me@hokwokwing.hk and wo@heguorong.hk.

還有啦。今年內，我的網站將有更多中文內容，包括翻譯的和原創的文章。

Take care all. I'll write more later.

Back in 2007, I was helping a friend with their computer in their home, which I had done on multiple occasions in return for their friendship and the occasional bowl of noodles. They trusted me and I valued that trust, so much so that I made an effort to not see anything on the computer that was private including messages, photos and passwords.

At the time while testing their printer, I came across a great sporting photo of their spouse. We have a semi-professional printer at home and I thought I'd surprise them by adjusting and printing the photo, so I emailed the photo to myself and deleted the email from the computer to keep it a surprise. Unfortunately, the photo completely slipped my mind and I never got around to printing it out for them.

Today, almost 18 months later having had practically no contact with this friend, I learn that they've been upset with me since that day on the computer. They had heard the 'whoosh' sound of the email going out and questioned me about it immediately. Apparently, I balked for 2 minutes before telling them about the photo and that made them suspect that I had stolen it from the computer ('stolen' would be technically true although in my mind, I was 'borrowing' the photo, to be deleted once it had been printed). When they couldn't find the email, it only confirmed their suspicions. That I never got around to actually printing the photo, well…

On occasion, good intentions can have disastrous consequences. My friend and their spouse believe I stole the photo for personal use, no longer trust me, and are no longer my friends. Ouch! My apologies have been heard but not believed.

Trust is a delicate thing. It takes a long time to build but can be lost in the blink of an eye, or in this case the time it takes to email a photo.

I'm off today to earthquake-stricken 四川北川 for five days. I've been invited as a guest photographer to accompany a charity group which is raising funds to support the children there. Eleven people in all will be going including a professional photographer, a video crew and other charitable folks. I'll let you know about the trip after my return.

Then on Saturday, one of our kids Beethoven is scheduled to go under the knife with a serious spinal operation. Three of his discs are extending into his spinal canal pressing on the nerves within, one disc taking up as high as 90% of the spinal canal. He still have several years of life left, and he's a great dog so ignoring the problem or putting him down was not an option. It'll be a very nervous Saturday for both my wife and myself as we wait for the results.

Take care all. See you next week.

I was watching a television program and they mentioned micro-expressions. Since watching that program, I've come to realise that micro-expressions could very well be one of the significant distinguishing qualities of a great actor, especially a screen actor where everything is up close and personal. Micro-expressions are extremely small expressions, perhaps lasting one fifth of a second or even less. Consciously, we don't notice them. Unconsciously, we do and we're very much affected by them.

After nine months of research, selection, editing and education in Final Cut, my first showreel is finally ready. I hope you enjoy it.

Note. It's entirely in Cantonese except for two scenes in English, and one scene in Mandarin.

My Showreel

Last week, RTHK 2 broadcast a multi-part (Cantonese) interview in the 「細味歷練」 segment of their morning program 「晨光第一線」.

The original recording was around 40 minutes long. Alyson 侯嘉明 did an excellent job of editing and splicing to produce the five segments.

Here it is for those of you who missed it.

晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月05日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月06日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月07日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月08日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月09日

I have slowed down somewhat for various reasons, but I'm still progressing with the five languages I set out to learn in August last year. It's not easy. My brain does tire but that's to be expected when you're trying to absorb alien pronunciations, grammar and words. There are differences in difficulty between the languages.

Hebrew has a lot of 'sh' sounds, but the grammar is very similar to English so that makes it a little easier to learn.

Japanese is going ok because I studied it for a few months many many years ago here in Hong Kong. Much of that study still exists in my brain somewhere and that makes learning Japanese now easier.

I have quite a collection of LDs; over 600 of them. I'm considering letting them go although I'll keep them if I can think of a way to get my friend's 35kg professional LD player from Sydney to Hong Kong.

Does anyone know of a place that buys and sells LDs?