A karaoke queen comes of age

I’m 30. It’s terrific. Because for the first time in my life, at my karaoke-thon birthday bash, I found I could sing Anita Mui songs with a confidence – a conviction – that wasn’t there before.

She was the wounded older woman of Cantopop, a drama queen to her dying day, with both the deep voice and the depth of emotional expressiveness. She could sound sultry, strong, poignant, proud. She could, in the ebb and flow of voice and emotion, move you to tears. (Like Jacky Cheung: I heard him live at Snow Wolf Lake last year and what he had wasn’t only vocal power but also emotional precision, working his way round even a bad song to your heart.)

She wasn’t like Teresa Teng, who, in spite of the nominal sorrow of her songs about parting lovers and all, didn’t really sound sad. Teresa preferred to wrap her wounds in pretty plasters, so in the studio and on stage, she had maybe two modes: sweet and sweeter. Faye Wong is her heir. They have similar soprano ranges and Faye, in her trip-hop cool-cat way, is as emotionally mute as Teresa.

In my years in karaoke, because I began as a soprano in school, I have tried to ape them and other girl-women. But what I have found is that, actually, I am a better wounded older man (Wu Bai) than whimsical wispy girl (Rainie Yang). And it was nice that night, when I was at last old enough to inhabit an Anita Mui song and mean every word. Almost.

Between a mike and a cake at Party World.

TV | The sense of nonsense

Nothing in the real world makes any sense, sometimes. How can it be that Singapore, with its world-class gahmen, world-class airline, world-class airport, world-class hawkers, world-class housing, world-class et cetera, is the unhappiest Asian country on the Happy Planet Index, behind not only Vietnam and Bhutan but also Malaysia and Palestine? Malaysia and Palestine! How can it be that Taiwan, which isn’t even a real country, is ahead of Singapore? But it is. What it has that Singapore doesn’t is freedom of speech, satire, et cetera, and most priceless of all, 全民亂講之全民大悶鍋 Everybody Speaks Nonsense.

In the reel world of this daily satirical TV show, chat-show guests from “Auntie A-ching, Chen Shui-bian’s housekeeper” to “Kim Jong Il” will come on to mouth off about, say, the birth of the real Mr Chen’s grandchild and what it all means with Chao Chien-ming, the child’s father and Mr Chen’s son-in-law, being indicted for insider trading.


“Mr Kim”: (In Mandorean) I come to your Taiwanyo, and I see people protesting against Chen Shui-bianyo. This is the trouble with democracyo. In our North Koreayo, one of the benefits of being an autocrat is that people are always pleased to see meyo. They are always cheering for meyo.

Then “Jimmy Lai”, the evil paparazzo publisher of Apple, sorry, Mango News, comes on. First he gets his reporters to repeat sex-and-death-sell mantras like, “Naked bodies plus dead bodies!” Then they will go through the news.


Reporter: How do we play the birth of Chen Shui-bian’s third golden grandchild?
“Mr Lai”: (In Mandonese) How do other media play it? They want the child to be called Chao Kai-kuo (Turn Over) or Chao Tzu-hsin (New Leaf)? Why don’t they just call the child Chao Sorry or Chao Apology, yes or no ah? What is the story? The story is, Chao Chien-ming is behind bars and can’t see his wife and newborn. The story is human tragedy mah, yes or no ah?

Then comes the pricelessly, intensely insane call-in segment. Real people phone in with questions for the reel chat-show guests. Some of them seem to think they are talking to the real Auntie A-ching or the real Mr Kim. And the reel Auntie A-ching or the reel Mr Kim will answer so nonsensically, everything starts making sense, sometimes. Only in Taiwan.


Everybody Speaks Nonsense, CTiTV (StarHub 52), Mondays to Fridays, 10pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, 10am.

Sock-cer

It was a sad night for soccer. Not because Italy beat sentimental favourites France to the World Cup but because of how the French – and Zidane – lost. But as the IHT’s Roger Cohen blogs:

Genius has a dark side. How else to reconcile the divine smile on Zinedine Zidane’s face throughout the French victory he orchestrated over Brazil with the man, fist-clenched, possessed, driving his head into Marco Materazzi’s chest in the 110th minute of the World Cup final and so concluding his career in shame?

Life is no fairy tale. Zidane was to lift the trophy and come full circle eight years after the French triumph in Paris, when he scored two goals in the final. That was the script. Instead, Italy won and Zidane came full circle to another moment in the 1998 tournament: the one in which he snapped, stamped on a Saudi Arabian player's chest, and was sent off.

Rage resided in Zidane, somewhere deep in the soul of a humble man who had a gift, who could see what others could not, who caressed the ball and who took games and the people who watched them to unsuspected and lovely places. Rage cannot undo or lessen his gift. We must accept the two together as, in the end, we must accept all the contradictions of life. Only in fairy tales does everything come out right.

Do not belabour this moment of madness. Of course, we want to know what the provocation might have been. Our curiosity demands that we discover what Materazzi may have said to spur such ugliness. But let us respect Zidane’s silence. We know that he is suffering. We may begin to imagine what it was like for him to walk off the field, past the trophy he coveted, head bowed, to a silent pain. He must live with the terrible ambiguity he showed the world in this tournament…

Italy scarcely deserved the victory on the night. It hung on and seized its chance. But over the course of the tournament it had earned the title. Its football was the smoothest and most cohesive, and its defense was made of iron. If you do not see beauty in defence, you cannot understand the essence of the Italian game.

Italians are sentimental about many things. But football to them is more serious than that. They carry the game in their blood as no other nation except Brazil. Four titles now demonstrate that. By comparison, the English and the French are parvenus when it comes to this sport.

Vin 1, Vinho 0

Italy have the best goalkeeper in the world, Buffon. In the World Cup final on Sunday, it will be the Italians against France and Buffon against the bona fide buffoon the French have for a goalie. That’s Barthez, a bald clown who has been struggling with simple saves and all but cost the French the semi-final against Portugal.

“There are goalkeepers who bring out funny little toys and put them in the back of the net as good luck charms. For France’s veterans, Barthez is the funny little good luck charm. Laurent Blanc, the centre half on the run to the final in 1998, used to kiss the top of the goalie’s bald head before every game. It is tough on Gregory Coupet, the best goalkeeper in France last season, who stood in while Barthez served a five-month suspension for spitting at a referee. At 33, Coupet is sitting on the bench watching his last chance of appearing in a World Cup slide away. But Domenech is concerned with the well-being of the team as a whole...it is a one-for-all, all-for one philosophy,” says the IHT’s Peter Berlin.

Because as badly as the vets, like Zidane, like Thuram, like Makelele, want to win, they don’t want to win at any cost. Not without their buffoon, their buddy, their Barthez. My brother calls them cliquey. You can also call them musketeer-y.

Vino 2, Bier 0

Italy is a land of artists, from Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael and da Vinci to Dolce & Gabbana and Prada to Pirlo. Pirlo? Pirlo. The name is Andrea Pirlo and the game is soccer at its most sublime.

With two more minutes of extra time vs Germany, in the 119th minute of the semi-final, with the score still nail-bitingly at 0-0, the ball bounced out from a corner to Pirlo’s boot. In front of him, there was the goal, as well as three Germans. Somehow, they didn’t at all know how, he passed the ball just a bit out of their path.

“How, after almost two hours of football played at a relentless pace, he was able to control the ball, make as if to shoot, then move right and slip a gorgeous little pass through to Grosso, must remain a mystery to lesser mortals,” blogs the IHT’s Roger Cohen.

Pirlo’s pass became the first goal, curled in by Grosso. In the 121st and last minute, another Italian artist, Del Piero, came up with the second goal. The Germans were in tears. All I could do was chant, “Del Piero! Del Piero! Del Piero! Italia! Italia! Italia! Italia!”

I feel for the Germans. They are like us. We are like them. They are kiasu. They are famous for their competence. They have everything down to a science. But art won last night – inspiring Italian art – and it was really something to see.

My friend, M, has a fine theory of taste in football. Beer people go for beer countries like Germany and wine people, for wine countries like Italy, she says. I am, at heart, a wine person. Which may be why, in spite of my sympathy for Germany’s bier, I ended up going for Italy’s vino last night.

Tonight it is Portugal’s volatile vinho vs France’s vintage vin. France and Zidane are so vintage, they can’t keep for four more years. It has to be now or never. It has to be France and Italy in the final. It better be.

Soccer schizo

They don’t call it the World Cup for nothing. Like other World somethings – World Wars One and Two spring to mind – the fun is in being for or against a team. Are you cheering your country or continent on? Are you for the Allied forces of Beautiful Football, like France, or the Axis powers of Boring Football, like Germany? Have you put your heart where your mouth is?

We in Singapore are free from the tyranny of having to cheer our country on – the team never made the finals – so many Singaporeans end up as default England fans. Those who are colonial or sold on the brand of David Beckham, that is. I am pro-Asia. Well, more pro-South Korea than pro-Japan. It is one thing for me to be fond of Japanese films, Japanese food and my Japanese friends and another thing to be a flag-flying fan of the Japan team, somehow. When Australia played Japan, I was for Japan but my boos at Australia were louder than my cheers for Japan, somehow. Maybe I didn’t know how to cheer for an Asian country that might not want to be an Asian country. Or it might have been simpler to support South Korea, because those tigers played harder than Japan.

After the Asians got kicked out, I briefly went Brangelina, rooting for Ghana, the Brazil of Africa, the top dog of the underdogs. But the African Brazil got outplayed by the Brazilian Brazil, who have now been beaten by the most African of the European teams, France.

So it is France vs Portugal and Germany vs Italy in the semi-finals and I am about to go schizo here.

On the one hand, as a Francophile and a Zinedine Zidanephile, I want France to win. On the other hand, I don’t want Portugal to lose badly. The Ah Lian in me loves the Portuguese Ah Beng, Cristiano Ronaldo, the bad boy who wears too much hair mousse and allegedly winked at his bench after he allegedly encouraged the referee to dismiss English striker Wayne Rooney in the quarter-final. I adore bad. On the third hand, I love Italy’s fashion sense and silky footwork. On the fourth hand, I don’t hate Germany. Their goalie had notes on Argentinian penalties in the quarter-final! The kiasu Singaporean student in me gets that.

To be all mugger about it:
France = world-class retirees (Zidane, Lilian Thuram, Claude Makelele)
Portugal = world-class Beng (Ronaldo) + world-class coach (Luiz Felipe Scolari)
Italy = world-class (con) artists
Germany = world-class 11-man machine
How?

Drink drank drunk #2

“How did you quit?”

My friend, who is addicted to the treasure trove of videos on YouTube, puts a question to me, the Mike Ho-YouTube addict apparently on the mend. Actually I am not. I didn’t quit. All I have done is give up one addiction for another, to the World Cup.

Mike, for all his marvellous mischievous qualities, is one boy. The World Cup is many boys – and men – on the pitch whom I watch with the boys in my living room. I am not a natural football fan. Footwear, not footy, is more me. But once in four years, it is just a joy to be drunk on the World Cup with my brothers.

And to be united not only in our love of the beautiful game but also in our dislike of, say, Australia’s Socceroos. They play such a physical ugly game they should have signed up for rugby, really. Mr T, the professional football fan, calls them Planet Of The Apes.

How do we dislike them? Let me count the ways.

Last Monday night, I gave up the press preview of Superman Returns. Because I had to be home for Italy vs Australia, because I wanted to watch them lose. (Don’t ask me which them.)

Minutes after I made up my mind to give up the preview, my brother, Fei, SMSed to remind me: We had to be home for the match, we wanted to watch them lose.

We wanted it so much, we even bet on them. As he put it to me, “We want Italy to win right? We are willing to lose money for them right? It’s investing in Italy right? If they win we will be glad to lose money, if they lose we will be si beh sad but we will win $60 right?”

Right, right, right, right. His plan made perverse sense to me. We bet $10 each on Australia. So Italy won, Australia lost and in China a CCTV commentator went into a crazy pro-Italy anti-Australia rant, “Goooooal! Game over! Italy win! Beat the Australians! They do not fall in front of Hiddink again! Italy the great! Left back the great! Happy birthday to Maldini! Forza Italia! The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer! Hiddink…lost all his courage faced with Italian history and traditions…he finally reaped fruits which he had sown! They should go home!”

He is a man after my own crazy heart. Me, I got a great kick out of losing $10.

Drink drank drunk #1

We are girls who get a bit drunk on Tony Leung Chiu Wai films auteured by Wong Kar Wai, the master of moody cinema; Faye Wong songs authored by Lin Xi, the sad-love-song specialist; movies that match Tony with Faye (Chungking Express, Chinese Odyssey 2002 and 2046); and above all, the retro resplendence of the world of Wong Kar Wai.

So it was that Ms C, Ms H and I, dressed in our retro best, came together to celebrate Tony’s birthday yesterday over dinner at the Wong Kar Wai-esque New Majestic Hotel. To be more drunk, I had champagne. The party truly began before that, however. It was in the air all day at work, as colleagues stopped us to say, “Show me your dress,” or, “So who are you?”

Ms H: I’m Faye from 2046.
Me: I’m Su Lizhen.
Colleague: Ni hao.
Su Lizhen: Ni hao.
Faye: Why did you speak to Su Lizhen only ah?
Colleague: Because Faye seldom says anything mah.

Actually, Su Lizhen is also a woman of few words. Her cheong sam are louder than her. She overdresses for occasions like buying noodles downstairs. What she wants is to feel more alive and I know what that feels like. I’m just not as good as her at getting in and out of a car when wearing a tight cheong sam. But by the end of yesterday, after a couple of almost-injuries to my knees when I went in feet first, I learnt to roll in and out on my rump with relative ease. Notice I didn’t say elegance.


Faye and Su Lizhen.


Mrs Tony and shark fin soup.


A Faye Wong music video moment: How well the dress goes with the wall!


Kiasu mugger method acting: This Su Lizhen has a wuxia book because that Su Lizhen in that movie had a wuxia book, too.


After dinner. My dress tighter.

THE FUNCTIONS OF FICTION | Chapter Six

In the first few frames of Ex-Lover, Akari is a woman who has everything. She has an apartment with a view of Tokyo Tower; she has a jet-setting job with a jeweller that just took her to Paris; best of all, she has the perfect man. He’s tall, dark, handsome, a highflying accountant, he’s perfect down to his Tokyo University degree and to make things even more perfect, he’s in her bed now. In the sweet afterglow of lovemaking, she gets him to try on his new nude tie from Paris. He tries it on. Then he gets up to announce he’s going home. She asks him to stay. He’s out her door. And her night sours.

In the light of day, it is also obvious that she’s terrible at her job. Her heart isn’t in it. She’s 29, marriage is on her mind but she’s also terrible at getting a man to marry her. The perfect man, Hayato, isn’t interested. He says he wants to be with her forever without ever having to marry her. She says she wants what he wants…she’s lying. And the thing is…he’s a bit of an iceberg. Sometimes being beside him is as lonely as being on her own.

So she falls in bed with her ex-boyfriend, Arashi. He was nuts about her seven years ago but she broke up with him for being a ne’er-do-well. Now he’s successful – but married – but still nuts about her. And as she says to the iceberg, she’s better off being with the matrimonially unavailable man than the emotionally unavailable one.

The iceberg was playing it cool all along. But he can’t be cool anymore. Someone has to save her from a life as a mistress. He has to marry her. She says no thanks at first. But he hears her parents aren’t doing well – they haven’t been happy since their small toy shop closed down – and he calls on them to cheer them up. So it is that she comes home to such heart-warming domestic bliss and has second thoughts, “Is this what the lie of marriage is about?”

And you are going, why is she going on and on about this TV show?

Actually I don’t know if this is such a good show. (Er I have a thing about the iceberg i.e. Abe Hiroshi?) But to me it shows the pain-pleasure cycle of some relationships so well: the smallness of the joys snatched, the comforts you cling to, the uncertainties that eat away at you, the untruths and half-truths you feed each other and yourself.

A couple months ago, I was looking for a little misery to mark the first year of the death of a relationship. Ex-Lover was just perfect for my purposes.

THE FUNCTIONS OF FICTION | Chapter Five

When the going gets tough, some Cantonese go, chin sai. (I.e. previous life i.e. what did I do in my previous life?) On the one hand we don’t want to blame others. But on the other hand we don’t want to be too rough on ourselves – our present selves. So we blame our past selves. Really it’s not so much blame as some sort of resignation: The past self ran up a debt that the present self has to pay off lor. (Lor, by the way, is a sound that sums up Ng Man Tat, that walking talking sideshow of comic resignation in a Stephen Chow show. “I’m getting my gun and I’m going to die with you lor,” Ng tells Chow, beta policeman to alpha policeman, in his most memorable line in Fight Back To School.) It does get us going.

But coming to relationships, chin sai starts to sound negative: What did I do to you in my previous life? Do I owe you a debt from my previous life? The lover becomes a creditor, love’s loan shark, Shylock come for a pound of flesh.

So Cao Xueqin is the poet who has taken much of the bitterness out of the equation, if you ask me, by giving an account of what the creditor did. In his Dream Of The Red Chamber (the version I vaguely remember from reading the first few chapters aeons ago), Jia Baoyu is the incarnation of a magic stone and Lin Daiyu, that of a flower. In their previous lives, the stone was rolling along when it ran into the flower which it liked so much, it watered it every day (in my mind’s eye, the stone was rolling here, there and everywhere to gather water for the thirsty flower – I don’t know if I’m remembering or imagining that). So the flower was so thankful, it said it would repay the stone for the water in their next lives. In Daiyu’s tears.

Beautiful story, isn’t it? I feel so. I felt so. How I did drown, in my own way, in the beauty of the story. When I was with Oscar – through the break-ups and the kiss-and-make-ups – I thought there had to be a reason. Why did he come back for more after the nth parting? Why did I go back for more? I thought there had to be a debt. I tried to think of it positively. Sometimes I even scolded myself, “You owe him means you owe him. Run away now and you will still owe him in your next life.”

When the big one came – the 9 Richter break-up of no return – so did a sense of relief: I’m not as deep in debt as I believed.

But the tale of the debt of tears is beautiful. I do want to read the rest of that book.