Finally, a formal announcement of it here. After months of preparation and production, the play I’ve written is going onstage in less than two weeks. Let’s do this.

The Foundling (棄兒)

February 12 – 14, 2009 at the Fringe Theatre, Central, Hong Kong

Press Release

Japanese actress and student of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City, Haruka Ashida, is directing and starring in The Foundling this month in Hong Kong, in collaboration with Hofan Chau, the founder of Burnt Mango Theatre Productions. The play is an original script written by Crystal Koo, a recipient of the 2007 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature for her short story “Benito Salazar’s Last Creation.” The Foundling is a story about a feral child named Wendy and her assimilation into a Hong Kong family, as delivered through the eyes of their domestic helper, Maricel.

Abandoned by her parents and raised by dogs, fourteen-year-old Wendy has been adopted into her uncle’s family. Her canine upbringing makes it difficult for anyone to truly accept her, but it is her inability to comprehend human language which gains their trust. Slowly Wendy uncovers a different kind of abandonment in her new home, a place of secret frustrations, until an event makes her presence in the family become more crucial than ever.

Information

Performed in English.

Venue: Fringe Theatre, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong

Date and Time: 12th – 14th February, 8pm. 14 February, 3pm.

Ticket Price:  $ 180 / $ 150 (Fringe member) / $ 120 (concessionary)

Tickets are now available for HK Ticketing’s box offices located at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Fringe Club, AsiaWorld-Expo and The Academy’s Landmark Heritage Campus -Bethanie, as well as Tom Lee Music Stores.

Ticket Purchase Hotline: 31 288 288

Internet Booking: The Foundling – HK Ticketing

More information: Burnt Mango Theatre Productions

Cast and Crew

Director : Haruka Ashida
Original Script: Crystal Koo

Actors:
Haruka Ashida as Wendy, the Foundling
Hofan Chau as Maricel, the maid
Joshua Wolper as Frank Ho, the father
Amy Tam as Gladys Ho, the mother
Andrew Huang as Alex Ho, the son

Music Direction: Wong Hin-yan
Voice Direction: Walter Leung
Movement : Hofan Chau
Lighting Design: PC Sei
Stage Manager: Olive Pang

Stage Pictures

Rehearsal Pictures

Full cast run-through 3

Full cast run-through 2

Full cast run-through 1

Photo Shoot 2

Photo Shoot 1

Work in Progress 2

Work in Progress 1

I’m spending my Saturday afternoon marking term essays, augh. Anyway, I took a 15-minute break and decided to read a copy of last week’s HK Magazine that I picked up from LKF when I was there with Joy.

Generally I’m content with what HK Magazine has to offer. To start with, it’s free, and it’s got opinions, classifieds, places to go, concerts to watch, reviews, and news articles of the local scene with an expat approach to it (I don’t mind the expat approach. I’ve got enough of the local from my job anyway.)

But what eventually turns me off about it (and gets me posting here) is the overall snarky tone throughout the magazine. In fact, the shorter the article the snarkier, and that’s largely what HK Mag is made of, anyway: bits. (Welcome to the skimming world of the Internet generation.) I don’t mind snarky; I love snarky in a place say like ONTD!, which makes for great stress relief in marking hell. But given the content of a site like ONTD!, it has readers that’s mostly located in university students and the early twenties, which makes the snarkiness very appropriate, if not expected. On the other hand, you can tell from the price ranges in its ads that the HK Mag readers are expats who are supposed to be loaded, i.e. earning big bucks, i.e. canNOT be just yuppies starting out. I.e. The older Lan Kwai Fong crowd. The tweeny snarkiness just seems really uncalled for in that context, and it gets especially distracting when the article is talking about the HK government’s policies in crisis management.

(And don’t get me started about Muse Magazine either. But to be fair, I’ll say this much: at least they’re trying. Perhaps too hard.)

Or maybe I just shouldn’t expect so much from HK Mag. It’s largely made up of reviews of things to watch and places to go and flavor-of-the-week tidbits about the goings-on in HK anyway. And all the ads make it free, let’s not forget that – the biggest disclaimer one can make in a hyper-capitalist society like HK. I suppose a yuppie fogey like me can just be told off to read the South China Morning Post or something. Can’t believe I actually read The Standard and/or the SCMP every single day last year; I’m really falling behind current events right now.

I’m also falling behind my marking right now.

SHELVES! After a year of searching, I finally found plastic shelves for my books! And they’re stackable too. Found them at the PriceRite in Whampoa when Joy and I were waiting around for a meeting with Haruka; I bought three racks. Am very pleased.

TWITTER. See RSS feed in the sidebar. I’ve succumbed to the prospect of posting little, self-centered updates about what I’m doing at that moment.

Joy left for Taiwan this morning. It’s been a very fun, hectic 5 days. ^_^  Thursday, I brought her for dinner in Langham Place in Mongkok. Friday, I went to work and she went to Mongkok to do some shopping and we met up in the evening for dinner at the Pink Salmon in Jordan. I took her to Temple Street afterwards and we rounded up the night with drinks at a bar in Lan Kwai Fong. Saturday, I brought her around downtown Central then to Repulse Bay and Stanley Market, dinner at Singaporean Restaurant in Ashley Road at TST. Sunday, we went to church and we had lunch with Nell at the usual dimsum place down Nathan Road, then I brought her to Kowloon Walled City Park. We had dinner at a streetside stall in Kowloon City before going to Whampoa to meet with Haruka. Monday, I went to work, she went to Mongkok again XD, and we met with Ron and Yvonne for dinner at Times Square.  Tuesday, I was predictably working again and Joy spent a lazy day in my flat. When I came back that evening, she had cooked dinner, and we spent the rest of the night karaoke-ing with YouTube and watching Wall-E on her laptop while I finished off a small tub of Dreyer’s ice cream that had half-melted in my fridge (Joy had half of it).

A Highlight: Joy and I wanted a picture of us in the Walled City Park and I asked a teenager if he could take the picture. A kind of terror spread through his face and he mumbled “I don’t know” in Cantonese…then he picked up his bag and dashed off! Practically ran away from us. I turned around to Joy with a look of complete befuddlement on my face and she had already doubled up with laughter. I explained to her that he was waiting for his girlfriend and didn’t want to be caught with me and my striking good looks, obviously. XDD

It was very pleasant to come back home to someone after a long day at work. ^_^

Joy alert.

Joy got here two days ago, and promptly got on the wrong train.

Joy’s halter-top was commented upon by the owner of a bar in Lan Kwai Fong, of all places. For a moment, I thought he wanted to ask how old she was. (His comment: Aren’t you cold?)

Joy discovered that she is in fact an old granny as she is dreadfully lacking in stamina.

More details to follow.

Look at the moon. If you see Venus and Jupiter next to it, then we’re looking at the same one.

I’ve been seeing them for the past few days whenever I walk home. November’s been busiest at work. Hellmonth. But it’ll be all downhill from here; a few weeks only and then finally some relief.

I redrafted The Foundling again. And I don’t mean just moving paragraphs around and cutting and adding material; I mean straight rewrite. A blank sheet and typing “Scene 1″ all over again. I finished it last night, and it’s bigger and better, and I think a performance would actually go over an hour.  We figured that the only way out of our doubts about the script was to look at it fresh again. And I’m glad we did. Now it’s more complex and layered with a very firm arc, and the characters have become so real to me that I never hit a wall during the rewrite, which was miraculous. Haruka and I had gone over every character’s motivation and psychology over and over again during dinner meetings that the rewrite felt like I was recording a story someone had already told me many times.  Another week for casting, then some time for preliminary method exercises, then script rehearsals, and before you know it, showtime. 

So, the people coming over for visits! Wooooot! Joy is crashing at my place, and so is Jane (yaaaay! The Southeast Asian Takeover Part Deux!) Karen and Steph are hotelling in TST, la familia is hotelling in Causeway Bay, and Chichi is always very happy staying at her own place in posh Mid-levels.

Dec. 4- Joy

Dec. 20 – Karen and Steph

Dec. 24 – La familia

Dec. 28 – Chichi

Jan. 30 – Jane

Joy, being unfazed by the fact that I’ll be working when she’s here, will be taken by the hand around HK during the weekend, after which I’ll be letting go and she’ll be free to get lost by herself and hopefully will find her way back to my flat every evening so we can have dinner out because there is no way on earth I will let her taste my cooking, full stop.

Steph needs to buy pants before she comes here if she doesn’t want to freeze to death. How is it possible at this day and age that she owns only one pair and the rest are all skirts?? Explain to me that, Karen.

I got an email with a list of Bob Ong quotes (Bob Ong’s an anonymous and very famous Filipino writer…and no one has ever seen him) from Joanna, who could have used it very much two years ago. XD I’ve translated it for the others’ benefit. I love the last one best.

1. “Kung hindi mo mahal ang isang tao, wag ka nang magpakita ng motibo para mahalin ka nya..”

If you don’t love someone, don’t give him/her a reason to love you.

2. “Huwag mong bitawan ang bagay na hindi mo kayang makitang hawak ng iba.”

Don’t let go of something you won’t be able to stand seeing in someone else’s hands.

3. “Huwag mong hawakan kung alam mong bibitawan mo lang.”

Don’t hold it if you know you’re just going to drop it.

4. “Huwag na huwag ka hahawak kapag alam mong may hawak ka na.”

Never ever hold it if you know you’re already holding something else.

5. “Parang elevator lang yan eh, bakit mo pagsisiksikan ung sarili mo kung walang pwesto para sayo. Eh meron naman hagdan, ayaw mo lang pansinin.”

It’s just like an elevator; why would you crowd in if there’s no place for you? There are stairs anyway; you just don’t want to notice them.

6. “Kung maghihintay ka nang lalandi sayo, walang mangyayari sa buhay mo.. Dapat lumandi ka din.”

If you’re just going to wait for someone to flirt with you, your life will go nowhere…you should go flirt yourself.  (Flirting is the closest English term I can get to malandi, and it’s still not adequate XD)

7. “Pag may mahal ka at ayaw sayo, hayaan mo. Malay mo sa mga susunod na araw ayaw mo na din sa kanya, naunahan ka lang.”

If you love someone who doesn’t love you back, just let it go. Who knows, maybe one day you won’t love him/her too;s/he just beat you to it.

8. “Hiwalayan na kung di ka na masaya. Walang gamot sa tanga kundi pagkukusa.”

Break it off if you’re not happy. The only cure for stupidity is initiative.

9. “Pag hindi ka mahal ng mahal mo wag ka magreklamo. Kasi may mga tao rin na di mo mahal pero mahal ka.. Kaya quits lang.”

If s/he doesn’t love you, don’t complain. There may be someone out there whom you don’t love but loves you too…so just call it even.

10. “Kung dalawa ang mahal mo, piliin mo yung pangalawa. Kasi hindi ka naman magmamahal ng iba kung mahal mo talaga yung una.”

If you find yourself loving two people, pick the second one. Because you won’t love anyone else if you really love the first.

11. “Hindi porke’t madalas mong ka-chat, kausap sa telepono, kasama sa mga lakad o ka-text ng wantusawa eh may gusto sayo at magkakatuluyan kayo. Meron lang talagang mga taong sadyang friendly, sweet, flirt, malandi, pa-fall o paasa.”

Just because you two frequently chat, talk on the phone, walk together, or text each other till eternity doesn’t mean s/he loves you and you’ll end up together. There really are people who are deliberately friendly, sweet, flirtatious, easy, or just hopeful.

12. “Huwag magmadali sa babae o lalaki. Tatlo, lima, sampung taon, mag-iiba ang pamantayan mo at maiisip mong hindi pala tamang pumili ng kapareha dahil lang maganda o nakakalibog ito. Totong mas mahalaga ang kalooban ng tao higit sa anuman. Sa paglipas ng panahon, maging ang mga crush ng bayan nagmumukha ding pandesal, maniwala ka.”

Don’t rush when it comes to women or men. Three, five, ten years from now, your standards will change and you’ll realize it’s not right to pick someone just because s/he’s beautiful or hot. It’s true that personality is more valuable than anything else. When the time comes that the national heartthrob has the face of a bread roll, believe it.

13. “Minsan kahit ikaw ang nakaschedule, kailangan mo pa rin maghintay, kasi hindi ikaw ang priority.”

Sometimes even if you have a booking, you’ll still need to wait, because you’re not top priority.

14. “Mahirap pumapel sa buhay ng tao. Lalo na kung hindi ikaw yung bida sa script na pinili nya.”

It’s hard to figure into someone’s life. Especially if you’re not the protagonist in the script that s/he has chosen. (This one’s really lost in translation. The Tagalog root word for “to figure” is the same as “paper.”)

15. “Alam mo ba kung gaano kalayo ang pagitan ng dalawang tao pag nagtalikuran na sila? Kailangan mong libutin ang buong mundo para lang makaharap ulit ang taong tinalikuran mo.”

Do you know the distance between two people who have turned their backs from one another? You’ll need to circle the whole world just to face the person whom you had turned your back from.

16. “Mas mabuting mabigo sa paggawa ng isang bagay kesa magtagumpay sa paggawa ng wala”

It’s better to be defeated at doing something rather than to be victorious over doing nothing.

17. “Hindi lahat ng kaya mong intindihin ay katotohan, at hindi lahat ng hindi mo kayang intindihin ay kasinungalingan”

Not everything you understand is truth, and not everything you don’t understand is a lie.

18. “Kung nagmahal ka ng taong di dapat at nasaktan ka, wag mong sisihin ang puso mo. Tumitibok lng yan para mag-supply ng dugo sa katawan mo. Ngayon, kung magaling ka sa anatomy at ang sisisihin mo naman ay ang hypothalamus mo na kumokontrol ng emotions mo, mali ka pa rin! Bakit? Utang na loob! Wag mong isisi sa body organs mo ang mga sama ng loob mo sa buhay! Tandaan mo: magiging masaya ka lang kung matututo kang tanggapin na hindi ang puso, utak, atay o bituka mo ang may kasalanan sa lahat ng nangyari sayo, kundi IKAW mismo!”

If you had loved someone whom you shouldn’t have and you were hurt, don’t blame your heart. It beats only to supply blood to your body. Now if you’re good at anatomy and you blame your hypothalamus, which controls your emotions, you’re still wrong! Why? Have a sense of gratitude! Don’t blame your body organs for your misgivings about life! You’ll be happy only when you learn to accept that it’s not your heart, your brain, your liver or your intestines that’s at fault for everything that has happened in your life; it’s you.

19. “Pakawalan mo yung mga bagay na nakakasakit sa iyo kahit na pinasasaya ka nito. Wag mong hintayin ang araw na sakit na lang ang nararamdaman mo at iniwan ka na ng kasiyahan mo.”

Let go of that thing that hurts you even if it gives you happiness. Don’t wait for the day when all you feel is the pain and your happiness has left you.

20. “Gamitin ang puso para alagaan ang mga taong malalapit sa iyo. Gamitin ang utak para alagaan ang sarili mo.”

Use your heart to take care of the people close to you. Use your brain to take care of yourself.

21. “Ang pag-ibig parang imburnal…nakakata kot mahulog…at kapag nahulog ka, it’s either by accident or talagang tanga ka..”

Love is like a ditch…it’s frightening to fall into it…and if you do, it’s either by accident or by sheer stupidity.

HAVES

I bought a ticket to Xuefei Yang’s recital on the 14th of December in the Hong Kong City Hall Theatre. Am looking forward to some impeccable classical guitar playing. I started liking her when I heard her and Kenneth Kwan’s arrangement of Freddie Aguilar’s Anak in her first album.

Also have a ticket to the Vesturport production of Kafka’s Metamorphosis next February. The price isn’t too bad; the cheapest is $120, worth a pretty good meal in Central. It puts you on the very back row, but hey. (I actually don’t know what kind of seat I have. A friend booked it for us and I was told only later, and I have a feeling he probably bought a slightly expensive one.)

HAVE-NOTS-BUT-WANTS

The HK Arts Festival is happening on February and March next year and the Programme is out. I want to go to Lisa Ono’s debut in HK on March 4 in the Cultural Centre but advanced booking tickets are sold out, arrrghh! Have to wait for Dec. 6 for counter bookings, and goodness knows how many of the cheaper tickets will be left. T_T The cheapest ones are $150 and they put you in the choir stalls, urk. The next one is $250, the one I want (barely within budget), but there’s a huge possibility they might be sold out as well. Please please please leave one for me. I want some bossa nova to end my Wednesday.

Wanna watch John McLaughlin and Chick Corea perform with their Five Peace Band too on Feb. 10, but all the tickets that are within possible budget are sold out for advanced bookings, so I’ll have to wait for Dec. 6 again for that one. Same problem as with Lisa Ono, only worse; the cheapest is $200 and that puts you in the stalls again. Grrr. The next is $300 (massively out of budget) and I don’t know if I’m willing to shell out that much to watch the gods of jazz guitar play in person. I’m a bigger fan of Al di Meola (if he came here, I’d just go, period.) But I still wanna watch them. Argh. Don’t know. So expensive. 

(If Al di Meola, Paco de Lucia, and John McLaughlin ever played in trio again, you’ll need to call the Marines to hold me off. I cannot help it that I wasn’t born yet when they first had a concert together, and that I was only 11 when they last did an album together.)

And Peter Halls’ revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is coming to town as well, Feb. 5 to 8. The cheapest is $200 as well and it puts you on the very back row of the Lyric Theatre. Grrrggg. 

I think the only way I can do something about these is to vow not to visit a bookstore (second-hand or not) until March.

From Karen’s:

1. Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
2. Turn to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Paul Auster’s Oracle Night on my bed side table.

On the night before their wedding, however, Flagg has another one of his spells, during which he is visited by the knowledge that Bettina will betray him before the year is out.

What were the chances that I’d get something so banal from Paul Auster??

A poem I like for its simplicity. I first ran into it last year when I was still teaching high school. 
 

A Companionship – James Berry

I saw we moved together.
Often we were a bike, ridden
on two flat tyres.

Often we were a pair of fuses
well lit, hissing
but failing to feed the explosion.

Often we were stags
full of shots
bellowing to each other.

Often we were twin fields of words
like fallen apples
unharvested.

Often we were handshakes
that shook
damaged heads.

Often we were hidden stars
that never appeared
though sometimes nearly.

So I was looking at Peter Suart’s Tik and Tok blog ( I bought his comic The Black and Book of Falling before) and found a list of Storm Questions, which I’m assuming would be asked when there’s a storm and the lights are out and someone brings the candles and the chips in. I am bone tired from work and my thoughts are swimming before me. Best time to answer these questions.

1. Have you ever been awake at dawn?

YES. Some of those times were deliberate, the others were VERY MUCH NOT. Rather unfortunate.

2. Would you be different if you’d been given a different name?

Definitely. I wouldn’t be so multi-faceted. Or so facetious, maybe.

3. If a nut falls to the ground in the middle of a dark wood when no one is there, does it make a sound?

“If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman there to hear it, is he still wrong?” XD

4. What is the meaning of a flower?

“You open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens.” Thank you, e.e. cummings.

5. Why do people like the sea so much?

Because it shows them that they are not trapped and that they can always set sail.

6. Have you been taught how to sew?

Yes. Not very successfully, I might add. But I passed that Home Ec subject anyway. Barely, I would imagine.

7. Is the sound that the wind makes in the trees a kind of talking?

Only if you’re high.

8. What sort of bird can fly in the air, walk on land and swim underwater?

A really versatile one.

9. What does the smell of cinnamon do to you?

Makes me hungry. Which is not very hard to do.

10. What happens at the bottom of the sea?

All our dreams come true.

11. What sort of treasure could you fit into a very small box?

A memory.

12. For whom does the bell toll?

Ernest Hemingway. 

13. Why is gold valuable?

To cap teeth.

14. Do you like storms?

Yes. They turn the world black and white. A refreshing change from all the grey areas.

15. How many seconds of music can you hold in your head at one time?

Enough of them before my mind wanders.