Category: Anything and everything

Although the date on the calendar is 11th Feb, being Chinese, the year isn’t over yet. In 4 days, the lunar calendar will mark the end of the year of the Rooster and enter the year of the Dog.

My grandma passed away, she was just a few days away from her 89th birthday. My dad flew home and spent the last few days with his mum. My grandma’s name is Bao Yilan. She has never been to school, raised one daughter and four sons. When I was little, I often spent school holidays at grandma’s home. She is a devoted Hui muslim (Chinese minority). I still recall when I was young and I would wake up in the dark, sensing her doing the morning pray next to me. She taught me the Islam prayer and I can still say it till today (although I am not a Muslim).

In the last few years, I only saw my grandma once or twice a year, each time it was a brief visit. She lost her 3rd son (probably her favourite child) to a car accident 13 years ago. Since that accident, she had experienced bouts of severe depression and rarely left the house. The relationship with grandma is a little bit difficult to describe. There is the strong bond between her and me, but when she was right in front of me, I felt my grandma is somewhere faraway I can’t really connect to. Its like my real grandma, the one who spent quality time with me when I was a little kid is hidden behind years of grief and boredom.

Do I feel guilty for not trying my best to understand my grandma, reach her pain, and try to talk to her more? I think deep down I do have some guilt for not making her life better. The best I can do now is to remember the things she taught me, things like not wasting food, be honest, be kind to those less fortunate, be tidy and eat slowly. These are the things grandma have taught me over and over again when I was little.

I also want to thank her for showing me her commitment to her Islamic faith. We are  living in the world that is divided by religion. I am fortunate to live in a multi-cultured family. I learnt the rituals of Islam not through media and books but by living with my grandma. What does Islam mean to me? It always have some association with water and purity. My grandma would wash herself many times as part of the daily prayer. It was a very soothing and peaceful process. Writing down these words bring me back to that moment, standing next to her hearing the water splashing and dripping in the sink, the fresh scent and also grandma’s white skin and black long hair.

I wish grandma will have a good reunion with grandpa and my uncle. If heaven do exist, I trust it is a place for loved ones to reunite.

Till then

 

Oh I went for a run again today. Its a warm nice evening, saw the ginger cat after my run.

Its very quiet in this neighbourhood in the evenings. Comparing to the days in Beijing feels like I have moved to a different planet.

Magnus and I do miss the summer evenings in Beijing, we would ride on the bike to go through the hustings after having some BBQ skewers for dinner. Those were the carefree days.

Bella cried a lot before going to sleep tonight, me, Magnus and my mum take turns to go into her room try to calm her down. In the end, grandma did the job of getting her to sleep. The magic of grandparents…

It was a wonderful family holiday in Hainan. I have been back to work for a week now.

Right now I am juggling three projects, all happening in the next three months.

Again there is no planning here, have to keep telling myself do not expect too much on process and order. Run with it and try your very best to enjoy it along the way.

It must be why I was so exhausted by the end of last year, how do I put it, it’s like the constant worrying of something go wrong. Your mind is always on the next problem, waiting for someone to give you the next information to keep things going.

What does my work really involve?This is my imaginative way of explaining what I do. There are lots of threads in my hands, I pull them one by one, sometime they get all tangled up , my goal is to trace till the end of the thread. I hope its a smooth run without getting everything tangled up or broken off half way through.

There are quite a few trips coming up in the next month or two. If I dont change the team half way, I will get to visit some places new. I am not sure why I dont look forward to it so much, maybe lack of self confidence on how well I will organise the trip?

Back to the workshop, it was good know the management see the problems that we are all experiencing at work, such as lack of process, unclear role definitions, lack of vision etc. I suppose you can only running wild without a clear path for so long. It will only be fun for a certain size, once the team gets bigger, it gets messier. Although its a creative environment, process and order will help ideas become reality in a more efficient way.

I have been dreaming a lot about my families, there are lots of unsettling feelings inside of me about my families. I am slowly realising the fact that most my family members are getting older. They will need my help more than before. I am no longer that small child who look up to them asking for support , the tables are turning. I am just not sure psychologically I am ready for this change. I have always been quite attached to my families. therefore when they experience some difficulties, it upsets me to realise the limitations of my ability to provide for them.

The new year goal is to become stronger. So I can be reliable to my loved ones. I feel like I am stretching my abilities to grow bigger and taller in the sense of a big tree, so I can provide shades to more people. I wonder what type of tree I would be ? Like the one in Rose Garden in Parnell? That would be nice.

还有一周就是猴年了。 过去的一周心情浮躁的不得了。喜忧参半。 原来的计划是爸爸妈妈， 我，小麦， 表妹， 小姨， 小姨夫和大姨妈在海南一起过年。 周三大姨妈都要去机场了， 舅舅却因为生病住进了医院，大姨妈就不得不取消了行程。 舅舅前段时间因为做完手术，没有按照医生的嘱咐好好休养， 结果得了血栓，情况还挺危险。 本来已经在海南的小姨和小姨夫也返回家乡照顾舅舅。 因为大姨妈的身体也不好。

爸爸经过六天在路上独自开车，从乌市出发前往海南， 终于到达海南。 实在是很了不起。 但也由于他已经开了好久的车， 再让他返回乌市实在是很辛苦。 我们就决定还是在海南过年。但就只有爸爸妈妈我和小麦还有表妹一起过年。表妹还挺难过失望的， 因为原本计划和她父母在海南一起过年， 现在计划也变了。所以说， 计划不如变化快，不要总把所有的事情都以为会按照想象的方向发展。人生不如意十有八九。中国老祖宗的话真是对的不得了。

舅舅在医院由小柳照顾，小柳去年这个时候就照顾我姥姥， 现在又是我舅舅， 真的不知道该怎么感激她。医生真的是一个很伟大的职业，人生里有这样一个好朋友，实在是难得。 我有时候也会回顾自己的职业， 总觉得好像欠缺些什么， 我的技能并不能实实在在的帮助很多人。我的收入也没有好到可以帮助家人。所以有时候还是觉得有些迷失的。

北京城已经渐渐变空了，地铁里很多人带着行李赶回家过年。 我们的航班是大年三十的晚上， 到了就初一了。如果姥姥还在的话我们肯定都会在大年三十前赶回乌市吃年夜饭。家有老，是个宝， 老人是把一家人聚在一起的核心。每逢佳节倍思亲，更思念的是那些离开了我们的亲人吧。

关于工作， 不知道为什么最近疲惫不堪， 也不是很忙， 就是没有积极性， 也没有目标。 不确定是不是应该和谁聊一下。 等过完年，再看看吧。

挺期待在海南过年的。第一个在中国南方度过的新年，不知道会是怎样的， 重要的是有爸爸妈妈和家人就好。 这就是最大的幸福。

So we are almost getting into 2016 and I finally collect all my thoughts to write down how I survived managing 9 events in the first two weeks of December. From 1-5th December we toured with two U.S. bands in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Shanghai and Beijing. From 8 – 12th December, we ran the year end parties in Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing. By the end of it, it was quite an exhausting experience both mentally and physically.

Let me start with the preparation stage – Getting the visa. There are 3 types of visa artists can apply: work/travel/exchange. One band has 5 people on tour and across them they were on three three types of visa. This is mainly due to the performance permit. In China you suppose to apply for permits  for all live performances, but in some smaller cities you can get away not having one. It can be done through an agent. The application require performers passport information, live sets playlist, video footage of performances and also transcripts of the lyrics. During the preparation I translated one band’s latest album and it was quite a creative process. Once the permit is obtained, the artists can apply for work visa as they would be paid on these tours. However, for everyone who work in events would know that things change at the last minute. There are people who can no longer make the trip or additional people add on to the list. The application normally take around 4weeks to process, to change anything on the members list means reapply the permit again. Also if the additional member is a crew member instead of an artist performing on stage, the authority may not even consider the new application. What do you do? You opt to a tourism visa or a culture exchange visa. For tourism visa, just need to provide travel itinerary and accommodation booking. Both of these documents can be made online.  The trick is to keep the destinations as few as possible. For example the individual will visit 5 cities on tour, but when filling in the application just include 2 cities in the itinerary. The more straightforward the itinerary is, the more likely the tourism visa will be approved. Another option is the culture exchange visa, as the tour organiser you need to issue an invitation letter to support the visa application, but need to specifically note the performance is non-commercial and the invitee wont be paid. Although this is not true,  you need to include this information to get the visa. Sometime artists asking what if the visa officer ask the purpose of their trip…or what if the custom officer read about promotion of the band’s tour in China, the thing is unless the tour is very well known, the chance of this happen is very small. Just think about how many people going through Chinese customs each day, once you get a visa, normally you wont be questioned much about the type of visa you are on.

The travel and accommodation arrangement are pretty straight forward, most bookings can be arranged 1 month in advance. For travelling between Shanghai and Beijing, better to choose train over flight. There is the amazing porters service at the train stations to assist the band with their instruments and luggage. If budget allows go for business class , on economy, try to get carriage number 5 , there is enough room in that compartment for excess luggage (it was supposed to be for handicap). Train is always on time and also less security checks at the train stations.

Are you tired of reading this yet? Wait…we have not even get to the event day part. It was great to be on tour to different cities, the experience enabled me to compare the venues and the crowds in these cities. Chengdu is probably the most chilled city on this tour, the crowds are happy and easy going . The most professional venues I have worked with are in Shanghai. From stage equipments to venue staff, Shanghai is definitely the best of all. The most difficult event on this tour was the last one in Beijing. It was a cold and smoggy winter night, doors opened at 10pm and by 1030 the venue already reached its capacity. We had people line up outside for hours waiting to get in. If it was me I would be disappointed after waiting outside in the cold and the pollution for hours long. So when we stopped people to get in the courtyard of the venue, there were lots of complaints. It was chaotic, on top of that there was a drunk guy turned up  at the gate and start swinging a baton at people. Yep, you read it right….why? It turned out he was the property compound’s head of security . It was his night off, but he kept getting calls from his colleagues complaining our event attracted a lot of people and there were too many waiting outside the gate. He got so pissed off so he came to our event directly and ordered the security at the compound to shut the gates to prevent more people coming in. It was kind of a blessing in disguise as we were way over capacity, but the problem was my artists were also waiting to get to the venue at that time . The tension finally eased when the owner of the venue arrived and talked to the crazy guy. By that time I have also topped up the event security team from 8 people to 12 to prevent further chaos.

Now looking back there are three main factors caused the chaos at the Beijing event. 1. Lack of clear communication on our side to the participants . A well planned event should not have too many people turn up at the door (venue capacity 500 VS RSVP 2000 ), when we received overwhelming number of RSVPs to the event we should inform people well in advance that they may not get in due to venue size limits. 2. The venue was hopeless. They were not even equipped with enough barriers or stanchions to keep crowds in line, they kept asking for more money when we requested basic lighting and audio equipment. I personally would not go back there ever again. 3. The lack of communication between the venue and the property management team. If they have talked to each other about the event in advance, there might not be a drunk guy showing up make things a lot messy than it already was. If the police turned up, its not just about shutting down the event immediately, its about for the next year or possible future, no events will be allowed. There is high pressure of doing events in Beijing, no one can afford for things to go wrong. After all you are partying at the foot of the palace, peace and prosperity should be the main theme. Keep it that way.

I was happy to see people line up wanting to get in the events organised by our team. Also seeing when the music starts, people have a great time. Its an escape from the mundane daily life. However, consider the risks and chaos that could happen at the events, I am not 100% sure I am prepared for all that. We were really lucky that things turned out the way they were.Someone might say you can never avoid the risks in life. But I always believe then you should prepare for the worst to cover your ass when the shit hits the fan (excuse my language). And my friend, this preparation is not a one person’s job in China.