Apart from liking IM SREY PEOUV, I also love to hear Youk Tetratha [see photo below]and to watch her !!(She's such a cute little skinny Khmer bundle of energy, happiness and JOY!!!)
I adore the lovely and enchanting Faye Wang (Wang Fei), of course I like Khmer Dollz ("yub mihn--now THAT'S a HIT babe! GOLD! We're talking GOLDEN Khmer Dolls here, bud!!"), And this incredible Nop Bayarith's EXCELLENT vocals and passionate rendition of "Avey Avey Trov Bonchop"---You CAN STILL go hear him at my other site--go visit my page http://www.myspace.com/chenjinxia (WHAT A SONG! WHAT A SINGER! MAN!This guy has got a LOT of STRONG WORDS & VOCALS which just come straight from the GUT--the HEART--Any man "in love" or hurt by a lover can easily understand this wonderful guy's lovely song!!!Where did THEY GET THIS GUY???? Well, Cambodia, of course!!!)Well, I'm no GREAT artist, but I LOVE to sketch, paint and draw pictures--I am ALWAYS DRAWING something or someone--here's my latest sketch of the enchanting 21st Century Apsaras, Ms. Im Srey Peouv of Battambang, Cambodia, currently residing in the METRONATURAL-SEATTLE area--She's the QUEEN of QUEENS on this PAGE.THIS JUST IN: IT'S NOW A NEW DAY AT http://www.myspace.com/albertkimha!!! OH YEAH, BOYS & GIRLS--IM SREY PEOUV is BACK in her proper place on my page's "TOP FRIENDS" thingy--back where she belongs as NUMBER ONE FRIEND!! I am so happy!!! You can now go see my picture(s) of her on my Chinese language blog-site:http://www.96990.com/blog/1/37456.shtmlHer brief absence seemed A LONG TIME--she was compelled to make a "re-do" on her page; I'm just so relieved that she's here again, and even MORE relieved that she returned to me and this page that beautiful, melodic, heart rending slow Rhumba, with the little cha-cha-cha ending, the ballad, "Falling into You"...For those of you who have just tuned-in, it had been gone for just too DAMN LONG, and that's all I gotta say about it!!!
So, as you all, at least by this time , may well know, I am interested in Im Srey Peouv and Khmer Music, Chinese Music, Vietnamese Music and literature from these places--it doesn't stop there. Oh no!!!
I love Asian art and poetry and Literature from China & Vietnam and The First Khmer Novel "Sophat", and so here's my Chinese ink wash painting of my favorite person, Im Srey Peouv, the most talented singer to come out of Asia since the 1960's!
Her sound is so fresh, so tenderly raw and true; it's the vulnerable voice, trembling with emotion and love, listen as she begins her song, from the heavily asperated "khnyom" in C-sharp major, to the slow, plaintive "ai-yai-yai-yai" ending: what you are hearing is the SOUL of a completely uninhibited woman's exposed passion, honest to her very core....The beauty and the wonderment of it all--I mean, there's absolutely nothing "commercial" about the recording. I submit to the gentle reader, that from the time when the Khmer Royal court moved to Udong, and going BACK--WAY BACK IN TIME to A.D. 802, every King and Royale, from Jayavarman II on up, would take one look at this WONDER OF THE MODERN WORLD, take one listen to this song, and proclaim, "O! Kunsrei Khnyom!" (o, My Child!)
This message, this voice is timeless--notice that I put her STANDING on top of the ancient Khmer inscriptions--not that she's somehow "higher" than that, but to remind you, as an "OUTSIDER" looking in, that she's A PART of all that, and that this song is as timeless as paddy in the Kompong. Sky-scrapers everywhere will have decayed and turned to dust, but in the Kompong, they'll still be growing paddy, and SOMEWHERE in the future, there will be a girl singing "Falling into You" just as magically as Im Srey Peouv. But, remember--nobody listens to me, nobody pays any regard to anything I write or say, really--go check-out my blogs(Ha!)--That's evidence enough! Why do you think this page is SOOOOO HUGE??? I have no voice really but for this forum at myspace.com. But if you're still reading, then, poor you, you must not have a real life at all, so, below is the video (really short!) of Khmer New Year 2007 with Im Srey Peouv down in Tacoma way--(Nobody told me! I would've gone! Are you kidding, mahn!?)Somewhere in here you'll see her....I'm like just one more out of 500,000,000 billion other people, HER NUMBER ONE FAN!!! (She's so good so SHE'S GOT SOOOOO MANY!!--even in Vienna [WIEN] Austria [OESTERREICH]--CAN you IMAGINE THAT!!! In the very land where Adolf Hitler, a "big time" HATER, who got his start as an envious, unemployed GUTTERSNIPE ranting psychotically about "Untermenschen" or, so-called "sub-humans", we have finally lived to see the day that Austria again has MUSICIANS, and really wonderful progressive, and "open-to-diversity" high-minded people who HAIL the grown Im Srey Peouv walks upon, just as I do! Even if nobody listens to me, I'm somebody--I was born there, in the "Reich", "I count as someone!" and I never think like THAT! Unimaginable as it MAY indeed seem to many, there are still very many NOBLE AND HONOURABLE European folks everywhere--not all "white people" are racist or just so terribly mean and petty...She's beautiful, as are so many other people all over.....
She's just got fame, and rightly "won", too, but I know of one poor lonely Cambodian woman, who has no fame except as one who is really kind of MEAN, especially so to me for no reason of anything of my doing, BUT who sings very well, EVERY BIT AS PASSIONATE AND DESPARINGLY AS IM SREY PEOUV, why, she's just full of life and passion, yet she anonymously and quietly toils away all through the long Metronatural-Seattle nights like a drudge, singing wonderfully happy and romantic Khmer songs. I didn't do anything to make her hate me--I'VE ACTUALLY TRIED ON MANY OCCASIONS TO GO OUT OF MY WAY TO BE REALLY KIND TO HER--THIS GAL, I CAN'T REACH!!: she seems to hate EVERYONE and her life itself! I really often just feel so sorry and sad for her--I feel so utterly POWERLESS to do anything to help her, in this dangerous "Democracy" as Sekou Sendiata ("longstoryshort" CD Righteous Babe Records Inc.)wrote, with which we are NOW, after 250 years just "STUCK WITH" so as to be able to do ANYTHING to "SET HER FREE"...Whistle-blowers mysteriously "disappear" here, or get SET-UP by da man:"Evrabody knows what be goin down."Writing here about her is the LEAST I can do to help release her from what I see as nothing more than the yoke of slavery!!! She can go on hating me for no reason for as long as the sky is red in Nepal--I don't care about that: she just don't see that I'm really just a white guy who speaks khmer and am ON HER SIDE! This must be a rude awakening for her first years in "Amerika"--land of the FREE, home of OPPORTUNITY, to get stuck as a Donut shop slave-girl, like some misunderstood Edward Scissorhands. Oh yeah, baby, she's misunderstood, too! All the weird guys and panhandlers that come in drunk at 3:30 am want to just hit on her or be rude and say vulgar things, so she's sick of abuse, understandably so! And all this, at the behest of her own family! People have told me--"Don't get involved!" They just don't see it the way I do: That could be my MOM!, or Im Srey Peouv, for all I know--or any of hundreds of thousands of people working like that with no break and no sleep, wearing the same dirty outfit day in and day out, only to leave and drive off to an electronics factory to work EVEN MORE! That's just WRONG! All this, while her "uncle" tools around in a MERCEDES BENZ, doing NO WORK. Looks like exploitation to me. Smells like EXPLOITATION OF A FAMILY MEMBER TO ME! Looks like a lot of paper work for the FLRB, the Department of Justice, not to mention local authorities--Seattle's "finest" go there all the time and haven't YET "caught-on", and if they have, they obviously don't see the obvious that--"Hey, why is this Cambodian girl ALWAYS here, Duh? They don't give a damn--that's their only donut shop open all hours of the night to feed their rolly-polly wide-ass shape they've been nurturing for all the world and this GERMAN GUY to see!(They don't like me EITHER--I'm certain it has something to do with my long hair and black leather motorcycle jacket, and my really good english diction.)
And even if NO ONE takes you seriously or listens to what you say or reads what you write, doesn't mean it's not important, au contraire!!! Americans got their head up their butt!!!(No one reads the Chinese Newspapers --they CAN'T--too under-educated, still saying things like "nook-you-lar" or "Eye-Rack";they see the newspaper stands selling "foreign" newspapers every day in New York, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and they just so haughtily pass every damned day while they walk down the street as if they can punch holes in the concrete sidewalks, because they are just way sooooooo full of "American Pride", eating FREEDOM FRIES and FREEDOM TOAST -- a breakfast for (the) "Champions of the World", oh nooooo, as they saunter off to work. These people didn't read "Mein Kampf" either, or Khieu Samphan's Doctorial Dissertation, so EVERYTHING that happens is addressed "Well, George, shit happens, yuk, yuk, yuk!" However, I still believe and will always believe "Never refuse a chance to be somebody's prince charming or knight in shining armour"--even if in the end, they spit on you!!! You'll at least know you've "done good by someone less fortunate" and that kind of peace is very liberating!)You don't do anything for "merit" or for Jeeezus or for some stupid-ass reward in Buddhist Hell--you just do it because it's the right thing to do, and with love, everyone should be doing the right thing by the very brothers and sisters they are so fortunate to have sitting right next to them on the bus, in the coffee shop..... Long ago I used to think, well, you can't fight other people's "war for liberation". (Now I'm older and know better.) Well, you can--and YOU SHOULD! It's just slow and people are REALLY SLOW, they don't "get it", and they like to "close their eyes and play along", like Miss Natalie Merchant sang once in a song by 10,000 Maniacs...You sure as hell can't fight a war of liberation to help people with bombs and airplanes, like monkey boy thinks--$400 billion down the drain making peaceable people hate Americans more, as if Laos, Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Yugoslavia and China weren't enough! More about this topic as you read more...Let's now take a break!!!Below is a video of a medly of songs done by the late Anita Mui, victim of cancer, and Faye Wang (Wang Fei)! Hope you like! I LOVE Chinese music and Karaoke!
These are Sino-Vietnamese (Han-Viet) for my name
Tran Kim Ha is my Vietnamese name: Chinese Chen Jin-Xia!
This is the Legendary Im Srey Peouv of Battambang Cambodia!
(This is about the eighth time now (30. Dez.-06) that I've been compelled to re-insert the Chinese characters which I incorporated into the myspace text, but it continues to revert back to something that looks like this: ?? ? ???? ??,so, if you see a bunch of questionmarks anywhere in the text, they ORIGINALLY WERE CHINESE CHARACTERS which have degraded by a forum which obviously can't support them for very long, a pity!)
Anything about China( ??????? ) or Viet-Nam ( ?? )! Of these, I am insatiable, and have been since a very small boy. And then, when looking at how during the T'ang Dynasty ?? ,was an organised culture, using utensils(?? , or "chop-sticks")with which to eat (while their contemporaries in Europe now called "Germans"--some kind of Neanderthal[!] used their hands, and from my last observation, still do!) and were composing "poetry" of a high order--they were actually drinking songs; we "lost" the melody: We only know most commonly used was the tune called "pu sa man-- ???--Bodhisatva savages--only the lyrics survived in this rhyme scheme. So, to me, the Chinese, with their language stemming from beyond classical antiquity, back to "prehistory", always struck me as the most advanced, even if Western, "scientific agricultural practices", American "know-how" and "ingenuity" and a whole bunch of other buzz words invariably "proved" otherwise --I MUST here BRIEFLY bring up Mary McCarthy's "Vietnam" (1967) and how she saw with her own eyes "technology" ruining traditional farming practices from an economical and ecological point of view). I was a contrarian, just like them, "unsold" on brainiac's new gimmicks! There had to be an alternative to the "west"--the stinking, stupid, Cro-Magnum, eating-with-his-hands, disgusting "Wild, Wild West". So, I joined "their side"; if Ezra Pound could write the Cantos employing "Chinese" characters, why couldn't I just forget all that, and just be me, BE Chinese? I NEVER WON ANY ACCOLADES BEING "DEUTSCHER"--they would still charge me in the LIDL grocery for a plastic bag! If Gemuetlichkeit IS German for "hospitality", man, they "haben gar KEIN Ahnung!" A most unfriendly folk, them! And Hitler would've left me to die at the front, like so many others, were he still ruining everything. Furthermore, I contend that since there are guys who believe they are REALLY women, and women, with all their attractive "women-stuff", believing themselves really men, and so of them, we now refer to as "transgendered", why can there not be folks who are "trans-continental"?Argentinians, on the whole, are Europeans in almost every aspect, simply displaced by geography. My ex-girlfriend used to ALWAYS bemoan & resent the "German" in me; it was "efficient", "responsible", and a whole laundry-list of other things espoused in the system of western "values" which are TRULY worthless, and not just in Asia. Somehow, I think, Mexicans and Salvadorians get it, too! But, despite all this, my ex-girlfriend--a Taipei-born "buddhist" gal, was really (and this is tricky to say in english, so bear with me here) more NOT things, than some thing--in otherwords, she was more NOT a buddhist, than a buddhist, and Chinese in my life have spoken more NOT about an issue, while ostensibly discussing that issue, than talking about the issue directly. The Vietnamese do this even more. Of recent, I occassionally find myself doing this! (Trying to explain this to my father was futile, and he was very intelligent.) And this characteristic is true to form, if you wiil allow, to Chinese and Vietnamese language and culture. Most Chinese and Vietnamese use language that says more about something through not mentioning it at all. As opposed to "western" preoccupations with "being crystal clear" or saying something not just to meet the criterion of being understood or further, to leave no doubt to the intended hearer or reader of what one's meaning is, but making it impossible to be misunderstood--the Chinese and Vietnamese often employ widely, seemingly "overused" cliches which actually do double-duty and pull a great bulk of the work-load as a shorthand for driving the meaning or "point", albeit implied, not just "home", but in the fastlane down the Autobahn to one's brain. Wang Fei sings songs more NOT about love, than love. This is my portrait of Wang Fei.From a completely non-religious, John-Stuart-Mill-utilitarian aspect,I sometimes think that there REALLY is this "phenomena" ,(in Viet : duyen, and really only--as applied by them--with regards to "love and marriage" but in Chinese ,it is) called "yuan" ?, and in BUDDHISM, it is a statement of causal formula, as opposed to "factor-x"(which is more psychologically generated through will?) which means fate/destiny; sometimes it seems to me that events and things just fall into place at the exact moment and that they were meant to be, that, given something, something else must follow, and that the original "something" was the criteria for that later event to occur... Sekou Sudiata, in "longstoryshort" said about Mandela, that he could "never be late". I don't think anyone can ever be late. We're actually all "on time" even when we are delayed--the delay IS THE REASON. I love mathematical "puzzles",--"God" I think uses mathematics, poetry, dance--anything with a pattern, as Neumann wrote in his definition of Mathematics, and the musical "vibrations" of strings and vocal chords can be an "open channel" used to communicate with man; the "heavenly" meaning comes in the "flow", through the vibrations. So, if you EVEN randomly hit water-glasses lightly with a spoon in a smokey night club, you give God "a voice" for his message(s) to seep through. The song and dance man, the soprana, the guitar man, Bojangles--these are the blessed; messengers of God's meaning. Miss Natalie Merchant sang many a song that seemed to say to me, "This song-bird woman's voice conveys a prophecy." I like looking at bus numbers, ticket numbers, for "secret" meanings--perhaps destiny 101 through numbers--how to anticipate, or "prophesize" events. Well, of course I also like looking at lovely girls such as this one:
--just like poetry, she has a certain pattern, and this one, for example, doesn't vary much at all--we, too, are much more like her than the complicated things we "seem" to be, but that's because of our "ground zero" perspective....we don't see 2 or 3 centuries down the road. We keep pace with next week, last month, the current President. The Chinese conversely, think in terms of a dynasty, and the so-called "Communist" era is actually just a follow-up from the Qing! It's patently obvious that History DOES repeat itself, just like the girl. In 1937, the US was most concerned about the value of silver, and the Chinese currency, the Yuan (which is ,also, ironically enough, the name of another dynasty!), or dollar. (I have always enjoyed looking up and checking currency exchange rates!) Now the U.S.A. is more concerned with the dollar value of the "Yuan" instead of any notion of "yuan"--destiny, and their own. Pepsi Commercials are now what American Executives are focused on--how to get that Chinese market, and using their own Faye Wang, below, to do it.
Here she is playing with a doll-house, jamming the flowers in the light, turning a "modern" i.e. "western" style home upside-down, while wearing a drum-majorette's uniform....
I like to investigate things in the "news" to see if they really are true. If you look, look really hard, you'll find even more meaning. Like the Pepsi commercial, "Ask for more..." People don't look very hard & just take what comes and move on, like kids on a "Europe trip" getting off the train in Heidelberg, then getting back on, so that back in Amerika they can say, "I was in Heidelberg". (Yet they know nothing of the town) I'd like to get to know this person (pictured below) much more than the yearly stream of Amerikaner in Deutschland get to know Germany! Ain't she fantastic!But IM SREY PEOUV is whom I consider the MOST FANTASTIC MUSIC PHENOMENON SINCE KHANH LY BUSTED OUT OF HANOI VIETNAM AND MADE POP CHARTS IN SAIGON BROIL! This IM SREY PEOUV IS HOT! (Here's one of my drawings:
How can I NOT BE INTERESTED? The sound you are listening to is her voice, her passionate vocals--can you NOT get enough of this? She is HOT!!!But, out of my league, man! Actually, I'm really interested in food and eating and I like smoking and relaxing, drinking esch Bier!
I'd like to meet:
Some kind of woman!(Her name is Im Srey Peouv and she's perhaps the greatest living singer there is! She's originially from Cambodia, but left that sad country as a child.) This is the kind of woman I really want to know! Like that's gonna happen! Here's a picture I recently did of my friend, she is Gorgeous SoPhY :Ain't she cute?! But she's already "taken"--seeing some really LUCKY GUY for a year now!But, on a more realistic level, at least one
that doesn't want to kill me or shout at me at 3 am would be really nice, and a tremendous improvement over what I've been seeing "out there"! Age, race, religion are not really important, but it would be nice to like,"find" someone "new", who is not TOO old, TOO tired, TOO sleepy, TOO chubby, TOO religious, TOO sick, or just TOO "medicated", TOO "demented", "violent" or just plain doped-up and high all the time, to have/be any fun...(I am NOT "converting" to some wacked-out religion!--I am NOT a religious person AT ALL!) Who I'd like to meet:
I've had many relationships--most, however don't last more than a year! I'm a mature adult who usually accepts people for who they are today--what I've been continually running into is "a woman" who is looking for a daddy, then scolding me for treating her like a child. Or someone who is on a large quantity of medication, under doctor's supervision, and doesn't listen to me when I tell her she needs to buckle her seat belt, or that she's too groggy to drive and then wants/expects me to drive her home. I don't really "know" what I'm looking for--I KNOW precisely what I don't want... Anything that's come and gone is not what I'm after. A nice woman, who is nice and a woman, someone who likes quiet time, talking, speaks Chinese/Vietnamese is a big plus, likes food, cooking, sampling what I can prepare, watching old movies--someone who is at least marginally responsible and doesn't blame me when she loses her things--someone emotionally and physically mature enough to be in a relationship and not someone who is just playing with my emotions or who likes to argue and shout at me all the time over stupid stuff. Race/"Religion" are not important. I'm a smoker of Menthol Cigarettes, I LOVE CHINESE (not Amerikan!) music--Viet music is also my passion. I love art, have artist's blood. I am not "rich" by Amerikan standards--but in my own mind, I'm the richest man in the world, and the luckiest, too. Would be nice to meet someone real and nice to be with, someone not too old, too chubby, too silly, too grumpy, or dying on me. I've NEVER been in trouble with the law, believe in playing fair, by the rules--I have nothing save utter contempt for drunk drivers and people who have been convicted of such crimes. Illegal usage of drugs and drug abuse are the bane of modern society and I won't tolerate anyone with this kind of baggage: I am not trained in "counseling"--that was not my vocation; people with drug/alcohol problems should seek professional help, not me!
I'd like to stay right here in Seattle, but if you know of a better place, and you want me to hang my hat near by, you just gotta tell me these things! I am licensed to drive, but I don't (any longer) own a car--I ride the bus. I live pretty simply, and if you're a gal looking for a chauffer, remember that not all guys with cars are desireable and some guys without cars are cool, hot & special. (I am 3 out of 3!) I don't want trouble, have never been in trouble, steer clear of the "long arm of the law" as best as possible, do everything I can to keep my nose clean, so if you're maybe a gal who wants me to fight some big neanderthal with cowboy boots, I'm not the one! I'm no "hero" to damsels in distress, unless you need help with Latin homework or want something written really beautiful with pen or brush. I know how to clean an exhaust manifold, but I refuse to do this for "you". I will happily cook delicious food for any woman lovely and kind who is appreciative of having a pretty smart and nice guy close by. That's EXACTLY what I want--all my life I've been kind of hoping that I, too, might find a woman lovely and kind who appreciates me with the finer "things" in life....C'est ma vie tres solitaire dans l'Etats-Unis! Actually, I'm a pretty tolerant person and can even "put up" with a lot of things not mentioned here, and for all the right reasons--I am not "perfect" by any yardstick (Note above: not interested in religion/religious), and I have my own set of moral standards which probably conflict with most folks here fighting a war with Iraqi people who will never love America for any reason... I have encountered numerous Vietnamese, Mexicans, Bulgarians, Russians, Khmers who are "bitter", to say the least, with regards to America, and about why and how it came to pass that they now live here, and under their present conditions. Ain't none of these folks I met eva gonna take a bullet for uncle Sam, no way! And it's unfortunate to see and hear of young men and women returning from carnage missing feet and Uncle Sam's dime, being billed, as the late NBC anchor Peter Jennings reported, in his series, "The Fleecing of America", for meals they consumed while in a German hospital, by the Department of Defense, but that kinda shit happened the last time, too, in Viet-Nam, but, nobody listens to me! Nobody! Uncle Sam, it appears, has, like Al-Qaida, nothing but utter contempt for the "American People", so different, so divided, so overmedicated and overweight, so inert, so miserably and mostly so willfully uninformed."You, prospective beauty somewhere 'out there' will listen to all my ingenious ideas, won't you, darling? Right?""Shei do chr dao wo chang-chang zai xiang Wang Fei!"
Trans.: Everybody knows I'm usually thinking about Wang Fei, a.k.a. "Faye Wang"!!)
What is Apsaras? I know of one: Im Srey Peouv, born in Battambang--this is the exact kind of female so frequently portrayed at every portico, every door jam, every gateway one sees, smiling, dancing, timelessly pure and wonderous!
Fast forward 1100 years, to April 2007--now 32 years after tanks rolled into the Cambodian capital....Still wracked with turmoil under Hun Sen, there is a voice in the wind, in the wires of my head-phones calling me back to those timeless days of yore, where there was peace and artistry and architecture--when the stone temples had pilots and they would take off like a rocket to a land man once knew but knows no more...."Catch me, don't let me drop. Love me, don't ever stop."
This is what I usually look like, on my on agenda....
"Music" someone once wrote "soothes the savage beast."No one ever told me of the wonderful turmoil such a beautiful song and such a beautiful voice as those of IM SREY PEOUV would have on this old cat....Here's Battambang, where IM SREY PEOUV was born....
I painted this murial on the wall of a building in 1997 and now that the building is long since demolished, all I have left is the photograph here, so I thought just to post it on this page for any and all to view and judge as they may....
Thanks for visiting myspace.com/albertkimha
Music:
Presently, I am engrossed in the song you are now listening, entitled "Falling into You" by Seattle's very own, very lovely, most very talented IM SREY PEOUV--She's Khmer from Battambang Cambodia, but grew up in the West, She writes and reads and sings her own native Khmer, and sings in such a way which will make your heart melt, make tears well-up in your eyes--the emotion her music conjures within you tells a story within a story, which is the history of love and Cambodia and war and Angkor and Apsaras and kings, money, power, broken hearts, blind faith and undying loyalty....
Now, on the video-screen below, supplied by the mighty fine folks of youtube.com, I've got Youk Tetratha, some skinny little Khmer gal who is as cute as all "get out of here, mahn!" and she is going to make you wanna wake up in the morning happily singing "Ba bong min chit-smo, bong hai yown mok cha, chin bay dong kom nali trang achiva!" like I do these days!
If this isn't cute and she's not lovely, shoot me!More about Youk Tetratha down the page....but here are my neatly written Khmer lyrics, okay!
(As you can plainly see, I love this song!!!)
and then, here is how I write Khmer when I'm in a hurry--same lyrics so you can sing along, because that video is kind of fuzzy, don't you think, or is it my eye-sight that's going....
You be the JUDGE!But long, long ago,(henjiu,henjiu,henjiu yiqian) before time, in the "before time", I bought a cassette tape of Wan Bik Ha's song "Lam sik dik fong" (Blue wind) and I fell in love with a genre of Hong Kong Pop music which left a strangle-hold on me until most recently.You can find the song (if you want to listen to it!) at this address--just copy and paste:
http://play.real2000.org/playall.asp?id=75064&Real=/mxko
s/4994-90-98/ybo/7zfgwcn750142*rn&wma=/49948480/ybo/qlpa
/7zfgwcn750142*yln
And then I became all very happy with listening to this kid who came out of no where in 1997 with a couple of songs which left me spellbound for about a decade. In the West she is called Faye Wong, but I prefer to refer to her
as Wang Fei. "Wang Fei was born on 8 Aug. 1969 in Beijing. Struggling under the stage name of (Wang Jing Wen) 'Shirley Wong' through the early days of her career in Hong Kong, she finally made her great success in 1992 as Faye Wong with her album "Coming Home" after reverting back to her original given name.'(Chinese characters were here--it turned into ????? goop, so anywhere you see ????, as a reminder, that means I HAD originally written something in Chinese, because English didn't drive my point all the way home in a Mercedes Benz at 390 kph, that's why! that's why any person writes Chinese! (and myspace.com doesn't support Chinese characters--they "evaporate while your wait!"
Such a lovely face--her voice is angelic!
-How could ANYONE not adore her?! Incomprehensible!
I love the expression on her face in this photo. While watching a video, I tried to capture this cynical-like smile on paper, drawing her, often without success. Then one day, I was just sitting with three pens, each a different colour, and some old New York Times sitting on a table in a place which played the world's most awful music!!
Below this, what you will see is a sketch I made of her while just "doodlin'" while seated in THIS VERY SELF-SAME & most odious of all: A Tully's Coffee "establishment", where this giant ogre of a battle-axe works--the facility is in Seattle's Wallingford--I was doodling on the New York Times--"Taking on the World" advertisement--and produced this drawing done with a really crappy set of ball point pens, but there it is, that's My Faye Wong(Wang Fei? ?), Bustin' heads, taking on the World, for goodness sakes! Anyway, I had so wished that Faye Wang or any super hero could have at least taken on the old battle-axe bitch working that day at the Tully's--the hell with "taking on the world!"--take this bitch down! The alternative (IT'S ZERO ALTERNATIVE: Read--"No Alternative) is of course, Starbucks, two doors down, with more moronic, petty, gossipy "partners" --it's a euphemism for employees (or wage/slaves)--just waiting to take a kick at YOUR EGO and "run you down" in front of all the other patrons' faces, the moment you are not around, because they are cowards, and your clothes or your 'wide ass' or your hair or your bald spot is really just fine! The PROBLEM lies within the barista's evil heart, and in the minds of the other associates employed therein. This is the idiocy of American society; "sociologists" and "criminologists" then, "after the fact", like to wring their hands, as noted in "A Clockwork Orange", and ponder why this had to happen, why there are so many shootings--I recall a certain Dr. Chen from Shanghai, a double Ph.D., who worked at University of Washington Medical Center, how University Police (The U of W Campus Security force) followed this Dr. Chen to Bellevue, watched him as he THERE purchased a gun, albeit legally, and in 2000 shot every gossipy, backbiting co-worker who had been scheming to fire him and to thus make him return a failure to Shanghai, thus humiliating People's China's finest medical scholar! But oh no, Dr. Chen said to himself, I conjecture, maybe that's what American's do, but I won't take this lying down. And so after killing 4 top colleagues, he shot himself. This mean spirited Tully's/Starbucks type of chit-chat which involves running down customers, is the very kind of "office politics" which results in school shootings (Columbine, Springfield, et al.) and for postal workers to suddenly "go postal" , with the newspaper article always having some one who knew the shooter saying something to the effect "He was actually a really nice and good guy!" Mel Gibson's character, Porter, in "Payback", a real hard-edged yarn about a man who goes after the two people who stole his $70,000, says "Nice guys always finish last, and that might be good for nice guys, but not me!" And ironically there is music video--JEREMY (Pearl Jam)--which documents this kind of eruption of violence, from which the Faye Wang video, earlier mentioned, depicting that cynical smile in a "take this job and SHOVE IT!" manner.
I also like and admire "Irene", Cantonese:
Wan Bik Ha--in Mandarin, Wen Bi Xia. She sang a bunch of songs on a Hongkong cassette I owned back in '93; one song "Peng-Yo" (in Cantonese) stands out; Here's a photo of her sexy bod!That's more her "thing" I guess--trying to find her music is next to impossible!
Locally, I used to love to listen to this cat C.T. Thompson who played funk and blues just like it was 1972 all over again, but smoother, like 20-year old scotch. I like Sekou Sundiata, Moby, DJ Shadow, but also Elvis Phuong and that amazing Vietnamese songstress, the legendary Khanh Le--one of the most beautiful woman of all time! I LOVE KHANH LY!!!Her's is the true face of Viet-Nam: beautiful, steady, intoxicating and mostly loving and full of love.
Movies:
"Beautiful New World"
Viewer Comments:
A Beautiful New World
All Content Used With Permission.-------------------------------------------------
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---------This film is perhaps the most realistic portrayal of interpersonal relationships as we know them in China today. The dialogue rings true, the acting is superb and poignant; I was shocked at the grace and beauty this film was able to reveal, like the slow peeling of fine layers of onion skin--the depths of the Chinese heart and soul, like the Russian, the Khmer, the American, is permeated with a perfume of profound loves of many different kinds and on so many different levels--like some Shakespearean elf, the musician in the terminal playing his songs reveals a secret about hope to "our Hero" and about waiting--Baogen goes back to his auntie and even though he brings back, later on, this "dog fart friend" who she accused of being a user, Baogen, step by step, wins the love of his lost, fearful auntie--a woman who we all see stripped from her adult veneer--she's just a 4 year old girl; her girlfriend with the driver for a boyfriend, the woman who seeks her advice--SHE'S A WOMAN, able to ride on the back of his bicycle.
I love this film. I found this film to be fine art on the grand scale; it makes the film "Dr. Zhivago" seem silly and immature, despite the Finnish backdrop--with all the grit of modern Shanghai, the poverty, the ostentatious wealth, here, country-bumpkin makes good, he is not a fool, he is wise with his Tao of Lunch boxes, paying off the debts of the woman who lived a life sponging from anyone who'd lend her money, which she would never repay. The film is all about A BEAUTIFUL NEW WORLD which lies within us when the cosmos and the atoms of our passions make those atoms and molecules in others step in harmony with our own....-albert (kim ha)
You can see the full review I wrote for HKflix if you copy/paste and go to this site:www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.742/rtype.5/qx/reviews.htm
Also, I like "The Missing Gun", which makes an excellent "Introduction to Modern Chinese Film" for the uninitiated. Unlike in Seattle and King County, where the local yokals--even the Chief, lose their guns all the time so that some psycho maniac can do whatever, this Chinese Public Security official awakes from the foggy, morning-after "coma" after celebrating all night with "friends", only to discover that his gun is gone. Now he suspects his little boy, his wife--everyone! Find out who did it and watch how he tries to resolve the issue!I loved Mel Gibson's character Porter in the hard-edged, action packed "Payback", an odd yarn about how an unemployed man comes back, without quality healthcare, to find the woman who shot him in the back, get new suits with other people's credit cards, frames cops with "evidence" he plants, so as to kill the "partner" he had, when they stole money from the Chinese mob, and that "partner" sold him out, taking the total $130,000, of which $70,000 is Porter's take. But it's not really his money--this is the Chinese mob's money! He doesn't care, and to the "Organization", his "partner's" club, the $70,000 is insignificant--"Why, my suits are worth more than that!" one thug, played by Lee Marvin, says! I like William Holden in "The World of Suzie Wong", 1960, and of course, "Love is a Many Spendored Thing", 1955, both having a romanticised Hong Kong backdrop, but very fun to watch! My favorite, of course is Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart. I also must include "Cabaret", with Lucious Liza--I still get hot for her watching that "old" movie!--and those War Films, "Tora, Tora, Tora" ; "The Great Escape" with Steve McQueen's motorcycle chase(!), and "The Dirty Dozen". But there really are soooo many films I love, and some really silly "moo-vee's", like T.V. for cows, such as "Back to the Future!" and stuff like that--I will actually stop what I'm doing and sit there in front of the T.V. and watch it again, if it's on! And enjoy it! (Everyone always says there's something "wrong" with me, so THIS MUST BE a part of it!)This story here, in a Faye Wang video from youtube.com, could easily be a very sad and beautiful movie...It's called Chesspiece.
Television:
AZN, of course! SEINFELD, regardless of who says what, and what "outrageous outbursts" people make....I don't care--they're funny on TV reruns! I watch a lot of reruns--have you SEEN TV in the 21st century? It stinks! I watch "X-files" (still). The History Channel, and occasionally SciFi....But then there's this Faye Wang HongKong Pepsi commercial: YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS COMMERCIAL! (It's my favorite--I found it on Youtube, because in the my videos thingy on myspace.com, the thing got stuck in the back page, and I wanted it up here, front and center with a music player which wasn't always broke half the time! Like what good's that, huh?)
Books:
Arthur N. Young: China's Wartime Finance & Inflation 1937-1945
Although this volume came out of Harvard University Press way back in 1965, the insights Young imparts therein have a startling relevancy in this day STILL! It's amazing how a book written long ago can still be viewed as a "message in a bottle" for today!Adam Smith: Paper Money
Enthralling book written under the pseudonym of the famous "founder" of Capitalism, "Smith" takes the reader on a whimsical magic carpet ride through the intigues of Middle Eastern oil sheiks, Venezuelan "cartel" creators, European banks and to the future!
William Manchester: The Arms of Krupp
History of the Krupp name in Essen, Germany, and how that one man founded a dynasty which pioneered the manufacture of steel, laying the legal foundations for a modern corporation's responsibilities to it's workers, then later began making arms for war. A most comprehensive history of modern Germany, German culture tid-bits, and the industrial revolution!
Sterling Seagrave: The Soong Dynasty
Seagrave's father served as a medical officer in Burma and China with General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell. Sterling's account of the "Generalissimo" Cash-my-check (a.k.a. Chiang Kai Shek) and those acquisitive Soong sisters who married into power, and scammed Roosevelt & Truman out of billions, becoming wealthy socialites owning New York prime real estate purchased with money funnelled from everybody here, dead and living!
Vo Phien: Truyen ngan : tap truyen
My favorite Vietnamese author! Such a brilliant collection of writings made over the years ............
Ba Jin:First Love-- Ba Jin at his best--my favorite of his many great works!Story about an (now) old man's reflection upon his time in Paris, while young, living with a landlady who plays "matchmaker", setting the young boy from China up with a nice Parisienne!
Ba Jin: Spring
Maksim Gorki, Autobiography, Childhood and My Universities. I will always love reading these type of Russian stories....Gorki's are the best.The Prison Diary of Ho Chi Minh: Short little book of poems Ho wrote while a prisoner during the Asian Conflict of World War II. Very nice, creative.For everything bad Americans said about this "Communist" and the evil "north Vietnamese" (Nguyen Cao Ky, Khanh Ly, Ba Nhu--all of these "southerners"l were once North Vietnamese!), this little whisp of a man, like so many other great people who were so thin: Jesus, Gandhi, Krsna, and Mother Theresa), and who bravely suffered privation, torture, and understood the importance of mobility, and lived most of his life "doing without" or "doing more with less" while the Franco-American puppet regiem in the south was enjoying a celebration as a lap dog of luxury and became the poster child of ostentatious consumption in a terribly impecunious land, was adamant on one point: if the French, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Americans and others can have corrupt governments run by their own people, the people of Indo-China, or L'Indo-Chine Francaise, who are the Lao, Khmer and Vietnamese, should have home rule, and he even copied the language of the American Declaration of Independence (he came here briefly in 1911) and translated it into Quoc Ngu, the Vietnamese writing system, and incorporated it into the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (Viet-Nam Dan-Chu Cong-Hoa) which, once after "giai phong", that is to say, "liberation" from foreign invaders, it became in 1976 the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. He never lived long enough to see his dream come true; he's villified terribly by the Viet-Kieu, or overseas Vietnamese community living in the USA and elsewhere,(and I'll probably get a lot of shit from some of them for having the AUDACITY to write something good about their mortal enemy) and the American honkey-tonk town of Saigon, once a beautiful citadel along the Song Sai-Gon, the Saigon River, became renamed Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, or the city of Ho Chi Minh, which encompasses actually Saigon and the other "suburbs" of Gia Dinh and the Chinatown Cho-lon, which really just means "big market'. But everyone still calls Saigon, Saigon, and the Vietnamese are slaves to big global corporations in need of cheap labour, as it was under the Diem regiem. But I think this man was amazing,his "dream" was amazing; he verily was the "George Washington" of Vietnam, and he could have easily "settled" for a much quieter and safer life than the one he chose as revolutionary, and as Lyndon Baines Johnson's "whipping boy" once the campaign to bomb the north came underway in "Operation Rolling-Thunder" which to my mind was and still is an as yet unprosecuted War Crime, Vietnam is today a poor( by American standards) yet independent state. Nobody tells or orders Vietnam what to do anymore, and for some, that's worth all the gold and silver and blood of the land. For some, at least. There are among Humans, a type which doesn't mind living on its knees, taking the easy chump-change cheque the government hands out, or just having a parasitic kind of life, smashing their dreams, and "existing yet not contributing" within the halls of Microsoft, Starbucks, Bank of America, et al. hating themselves, hating their job, and hating everyone they encounter, but really enjoy the all you can eat breakfast buffet at JB's big boy; the government allows the individual to tap onto a really big breast and jam it into his/her mouth so as to stop it from whining or crying. (Under the other system, the government sticks a very big breast in your mouth to guaranty you remain quiet and docile). That's why fast food is so cheap in America and Mexico! Go to "Communist China" and that Big Mac will cost you some big pictures of Mao!(Updated:16.I-07)
Heroes:
I love this photo! It's my favorite: Her name is Adrienne and I'm just CRAZY about her butt! She's one of my myspace friends, so I put her here with a Chinese caption which actually says "This beautiful woman's butt makes me horney!" Is that a crime?Wang-Fei is my "hero". Her voice rescued me!Tangut, what you see above, and also referred to as (xi xia wen) is an old form of another brush script-based written language (as opposed to stone inscription writing such as found in Persepolis or at Angkor Wat)which flourished in China's Gansu province until about 1450. I wrote this in 1998, employing the research of great Russian Tangut researchers who wrote exhaustively about the subject, mostly to confound even more for the student than illucidate any of the nuances of the language. There are also some Japanese works which are actually very easy to understand, and what's more, they actually cut a type for the language, and the work is brilliant!Lookin' right back atcha, Ms. Wang!Now, if you listen below to "iamsilly" from youtube.com sing Wang Faye, well, she almost does Wang Faye better than Wang Faye! I LOVE this kid, where ever the hell she came from!Kim-Ha Albert/Okay Boys and Girls--Who wants to have some FUN? Because now it's THAT time--you came all the way down here, and we're all going to sing in CAMBODIAN with the nice gal down below--just click on the arrow, because it's TIME now...to sing along with Youk TetrathaThis song called "Sa-ek jeur heury" If you cannot READ the fuzzy writing on the youtube thingy it's:It's on SSB Volume 5!Here we go! Mokh riep rup tha-khloun oh hai ong vo--------------------------------------------- Som snae own shlai------------------------------------- Prap bong-kong ban Dai!--------- Own put jee-nef t'mien k'mien ku-------- kopf te'mien---- Dai Kheung dai snaf-------------- Dan pleuv doi chi-nay!----------- Chin lan chat-mak ti co con pros--------- Oi on ah-so----- Man de-prov o klan tlae!-------------- Snae , snae-------- Ta-sha ban de-prob-vay-------------- Hai mok ong vo som snaep-on mot yain-gai!----------- Chess a-chee bong hai!------------ Snae snae high!-------- Pros chi lan mak ti co---------- Chessie pro hai no dutcheek mo-chel------------ Chess hee bong hai!--------------------- Sai chi high!----------------- Song bong touv don rut-yun---------------- Highng-gup pro ban----------------- Bong ah-leng kon san-yi-yan-yi-yaaah-PRO CON!!---------------- (Repeat!)I hope this "transliteration" offered here is more useful than the tiny youtube.com screen--it's all fuzzy and kinda misleading, but (ta-da!) Now you know your FIRST catchy Khmer tune!!!Now YOU TOO can be a CAMBODIAN Idol!! (Ain't she just so cute!) Now the dance, is just like, you gotta have the "martial-attitude" as if you're the Proud Invaders in the film "Mars Attacks!" Git down--git down to it!!! 1-2-3 BAM 1-2-3 BAM! EASY!
IM SREY PEOUV, APSARAS ("I made this!")
Here is the jungle not far from Anlong Veng
In 2003, this was my office. What flag, might that be, pray tell, hoovering higher above than anything in my room?
