First-of-Everything Concert

I've been blessed. 2014 has taken me to some interesting places so far, Germany, Italy, London, Sydney and now Taiwan, but never had I thought I

This was how Taiwanese singer, Wubai started his own concert: "Tonight, is not actually a concert, it's actually just a really huge party! You guys can all do whatever you want to do because we'll also be doing whatever we want to do too. So right now we're going to sing our last song first!"

Wubai is well known in Taiwan for his rock ballads that are performed both in Mandarin and the Taiwanese dialect. Being an avid learner of both the languages myself, I was very happy to have had the chance to work on part of his concert design that I just went to tonight. It was my first concert too!

The night of Wubai vibes started off with a taxi ride to Taipei Arena. Upon hearing my intended destination, the driver asked what gig was on tonight. I told him that it was Wubai's concert and asked him whether he liked Wubai too. He suddenly broke out in a very heavily accented Taiwanese accented Mandarin and exclaimed his fanatics for Wubai. If I had some more extra tickets, I would have loved to give him some! His favourite song is: "愛你一萬年", one of the classics.

But another reason why I'm excited is because I helped to do part of the concert graphics as part of my internship. It was an interesting exercise with considerations of lighting, contrast and visibility involved. My task was to make a set of graphics which would emulate the Taiwanese street scape.  It turns out that our office PA once dated the drummer for quite a few years and so she was a great source of primary research to designing the "essence" of Wubai. After a few iterations, we finally got it right. In making something "abstract", especially an "extract" of it, it definitely helps to first do some study sketches too.

My first ever concert design also happens to be the first ever concert I've attended! And the anticipated audience number is actually ten thousand, not five thousand (Taipei Arena seating capacity: 15,082). At first I felt like puking because I wasn't sure whether my boss was joking when he said that my job would be on the line if anything went wrong (lol, working overseas is not always glamorous but is is definitely ALWAYS CHALLENGING). But towards the end I just had to let it be and enjoy the moment since things seemed to be going alright, also half way through the concert my boss gave me a happy-looking wave from where he was sitting. Now that the concert craziness is over, back to doing more residential and commercial projects on Monday. Dear Concert, thank you for being such an interesting little design tangent!

(International Work Tip: Everything visual you do which requires options, always number it, that way people can just refer to the number. This is because some adjectives are very culture-dependent. E.g. Colours "blue" and "green" sometimes get interchanged with the word "aqua", so by numbering things, we save time by minimising the margin of error.)

The Newspaper Story II

Imagine you are a roll of newspaper, packed snugly amongst your fellow friends inside the postman's duffel bag just after having been churned and rolled around on the press moments earlier along with everyone else. You sit comfortably in the bag, with the occasional bumpety bump of the postman's bike going along the pebbly road. Things are good, you are a bit squashed but so is everyone else, it's okay, everyone is on the same boat. Suddenly, you feel yourself elevated above all your friends, you want to go back where it was all comfortable. But then you feel a jerk and become propelled forward.

Thump. You've land on someone's porch in the most ungraceful style but it's okay, after blinking twice, you are still alive. You watch as the postman rides away, a place you'll never be again. As you think to yourself silently, a dog gives you a slobbery lick and just as he was about to take you inside the house, decides to detour in the last moment and gives you a few shakes as he gallops towards the gate, shaking you and tugging you as he heads towards a park. The dog is excited to have something new to play with and tosses and tumbles you until he sights a bird no far away from you and runs off to chase it, leaving you tattered on the grass.

Ah...still again. You feel slightly battered but most of you is still in tact. You bask in the serenity of the speckled light produced by the tree canopy above you. It's good to feel relaxed finally. Even though you are in a new place and don't know anything else about it, at least it was better than being tugged around on the porch by that crazy dog! You fall asleep amidst the faraway laughter of playing children and the gentle breeze. You fall into a deep sleep so deep in fact that you feel lifted up into the skies, flying high, high up into the sky...CRASH. You wake up with a slight shock and quickly open your eyes. When you open your eyes, you see that parts of you are being disassembled by a small quiet child. She pulls you apart gingerly and then starts to create folds. She is folding paper planes. Then she starts folding other things: cranes, cats, boats and more! Soon, other children come joining in! In a matter of minutes, you have gone from a simple newspaper into an origami wonderland. You have never seen so many people happy, and this makes you happy too.

White

Just then at the local bar (by local I mean it's near where I live, not so much that locals go there), I meet some random people all English Teachers:

Devin: So where in New Zealand are you from?
Me: I'm actually from Brisbane, everyone tonight thinks I'm from New Zealand! I mean, it's close but not that close hahaha.
Devin: Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!
Without even thinking, I say:  No, it's alright, I mean, everyone thinks all white people are the same, you know?

The Newspaper Story

I was talking to a friend last night over Skype and this friend was expressing their concerns about being happy with where they were at in life but feeling overly content. They feel like they need to be going outside of Brisbane, where they've lived all their life and trying something new. My friend feels that at 23 years old, she really needs to get out there and experience the world when she is young. Our conversation lasted for about three hours until we both realised that we really need to sleep; we'd both been working long hours lately.

Some key points of our conversation is that:
1. At work, you are disposable. The business is the boss's baby, he/she will always find a way to keep it going, even if you don't work there. Unless you absolutely love it too, don't think you're special. Really, you're not.
2. Life lesson number 1: NEVER let any man sweet talk you into anything, ever.
3. Organisation vs. Spontaneity: Is organising over-rated? It really depends on how you operate. I used to think that I was an "Organiser", for certain things, yes, for tasks such as learning certain theory or a technical skill/work, being organised helps as it helps give you a holistic structure and network of the task. But fo more creative ventures... I have this notebook (a few actually), where I jot down all my ideas. But there is a danger in that. Since creating and planning is so enjoyable for me, I keep going and the plan gets more elaborate often branching off into other sub-ventures. Every idea I've ever jotted down has never become reality and all the interesting things that I can recall, I've never jotted it down.
4. Catalytic event or action:
A catalyst is something or someone that triggers and enables. Referring to point number 3. At moments when you need to just go ahead and do it but don't know where to start, you just need a catalytic action, and things will follow from there.

There will be pros and cons in life regardless of what we do, so it might as well be for something that we love. I know this post is titled "The Newspaper Story" and I haven't yet mentioned it yet but I must go to work now or I'll be late! So I will do another post when I come home titled "The Newspaper Story II". I promise you it will involve newspapers!

Birthday Time! Animated Immortality

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHAMINDA!
I hope you never grow (too) old. ;) Hope today would be just as awesome as any other day!

Alice: What are your thoughts on immortality?"
Chaminda: "I wouldn't mind it because I don't get tired of living." (Ranasinghe, 2014).

5th June 2014

Sadness Compounding in a Foreign Country

Every time you cry, your tears sinking into the nape of my neck.

Sadness seeping into my skin.

Your grief washes over me.

I try to be strong for you.

I try so but cannot.

I struggle too.

Sadness compounding.

If only I could be more profound.

------

Are taller people more sad? No of course they are not. Yet the scale of their physical body language is larger comparative to your's. Maybe architecture has taught me too much about ambience but I have absorbed the energy. I have no immediate reasons to be sad yet I am feeling very sad. I wonder if I should cry with you too? But then that would make two of us, sadness compounding. I only just met you. I do not yet know all your nuances. Neither do you know all of mine. I am second-guessing whether the way I comfort people is the way your want to be comforted? We both hail from opposite corners of this world meeting by chance in this foreign land. Most of the time, I cannot understand you, now amidst the choking and the sadness, all I understand is that you are sad. I want to help but I'm not sure if I am.

But this roof, this very flat cement roof - on which another household operates above us - binds us together. Our happiness, our sorrows, our failures, our victories, our tears and our laughters. Since our paths have all crossed, I want us all to feel at home away from home. 

Since we have trouble understanding each other, I will let actions speak louder than words.

I will try to be more profound through my actions.

Please don't be sad anymore , I am trying.

Trying...also not to cry.

Trying...to help you.

Trying...to help you see the light too.

Office Worker during the Week, Brickie during the Weekends.

I have now been here for 2 months and a bit. I've mainly just been working at the design practice to be honest. And on the weekends I go to Bihu Park (Wende Station) to help my friend Wang Wen-chih, a bamboo artist who built the amphitheatre entry to Woodford in 2013, I interpreted for him at Woodford. He has a project there at the moment in collaboration with the local university. His crew consisting of people from his brotherhood, childhood friends, randoms who drop by asking for a job and volunteers are amazing. One of them, a master at weaving all sorts of insects, fruits baskets and so on has been doing it since childhood. Name anything and he can pretty much make it.

While Taipei is offering a much more busting and diverse scene to Brisbane, admittedly, I've become quite fatigued lately. Since all I've been doing is work on the weekdays and then do physical labour on the weekends, it's quite a toll haha. I've noticed that I really need to balance my life out a bit more. Even though I treat the bamboo project as a hobby (it's very enjoyable!), it will only go on till mid-June and I will need to find something else to occupy my weekends. I don't mind partying but it's not for me any more. My house mate made the comment recently that I need to "party more". But I think I just need to find other things to do. Partying doesn't really interest me any more. While clubbing in different countries (Singapore, Germany, Australia, etc) all provide very different experiences, I just like LEARNING! So I want to spend my time learning rather than drinking the night away. Of course there are also things to learn at clubs, but I much rather enjoy a good conversation over some tea or being hands on with gardening, cooking or craft.

However while I am happy that my current schedule enables me to develop skills for my architecture career both mentally and physically, I am also interested in developing other [cave people] life skills such as: fishing, hunting, foraging and so on! Which reminds me, I should really think about when I'll use up the 50% Off Voucher to Bushlore this year!

Positive...

Right now I need to surround myself with positive people. Positive people doesn't mean you have to be smiling unconditionally and endlessly happy. By positive, I mean a type of energy that enables people to move, to want to solve problems, to learn, to embrace the challenge regardless of what is thrown at them. Please, stop thinking life is over, it's only the start. Sometimes hearing other people's stories, you realise you have it so much better than them. Please, rise from your grief. I had a challenging day at work today (all facets of technical and HR-related matters) but because I embraced it, I came home happy today. And then, not to say you ruined my evening, but right now I am feeling very flat. Very very flat actually... I feel like I'm inside a gloomy dark pit. And it makes it worse that I now feel like an inconsiderate bitch for wanting to help you but needing to avoid you. How can I help you without exhausting myself? Sorry if I can't help you right now, I barely have to energy to help myself half the times these days. Please...

Dragon Boat Festival

Wow, trust me to completely miss the Dragon Boat Festival. But to make up for it, my house mate and I decided to go on a sporadic cycle, after about 5km, we ended up near Longshan Temple, a shadier part of Taipei compared to the city centre precinct we live in. Finally, I get to see a more authentic (less sterile) Taiwan that I remember from childhood!

(insert photos!)