performance

新春演出 CNY performance 2-2019

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress , ,

Our family band “Tu & Only” (杜ㄧ無二）performed three times this month for various Chinese New Year festivities.  To get a glimpse of my DD’s (12 and 15) current colloquial fluency and accent, at least on a scripted level, you can listen to their introductory remarks at the beginning of the first video.  They do speak Chinese at home with each other about 80% of the time, at least when I am around.  When they say things incorrectly in Chinese or don’t know how to say certain things in Chinese, I do my best to correct them and then ask them to repeat it a few times.  Since I left Taiwan after fifth grade, not infrequently do I have to look up things I don’t know how to express in Chinese as well.  We then learn to say it together.  These are normal part of our lives and the girls don’t get mad at me for doing so.

I learned to play the bass guitar (very badly though) a year ago so that I can play along with the girls.  Then, I got busy at work and haven’t practiced much.   A few months ago, I decided to learn to play the drum (also very badly….) and let DD#2 play some of the bass.  I learn just enough to get by.

We performed four songs at a Chinese New Year celebration in Atlanta this past Sunday.  There was a crowd of probably 250-300 people with standing room only.  Here is their introductory remark and first song, 朋友 (Friends) by 周華健.  (I missed a few notes.  Sigh…..)

 

The next video is DD#2 singing 楊培安‘s 「我相信」 (I Believe).

 

Our third song was better recorded from an evening church performance the day before.  It is 流星, the Chinese version of “Yellow” by Coldplay, one of the theme songs in the movie “Crazy Rich Asian” last summer.

 

The last song is the classic CNY song 恭喜恭喜 by 陳歌辛.  You can listen to their closing remarks at the end of the video.

 

Our band is getting better with each performance over the past year, though we still need to squeeze in vocal lessons in the future.  A major local Chinese school troupe just asked us to collaborate with them in the future!  Not bad for the end of our first year!  Our family band has certainly brought the family even closer and has given us more things to talk about, in Chinese of course!

Happy Chinese New Year!!

華人醫學會年會表演 – 2018

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress ,

We were invited to perform for the first annual conference of Chinese Medical Association of Atlanta （亞特蘭大華人醫學會), which was first established almost thirty years ago with just a few members. The turn out was great for such an organization and there were a number of good educational talks.  The event lasted the whole day, from 12:30-10PM.

After afternoon’s educational talks, family members joined the physicians in a buffet style dinner.  The evening’s performances started after dinner and there were about 8 performances.

For us, only DD#1 “Charlotte”, almost 15, and I performed this time, as I haven’t had more time to work with DD#2 on her song with my new work schedule.  As I started learning bass guitar only a few months ago, I have had more time to work on it since our Chinese New Year’s performance.  For her first song, Charlotte performed 周華健‘s “朋友“ again, as this is a different crowd.  This time, I have learned enough to play the bass accompaniment for her.  Then, she played Ben E King’s “Stand By Me”.  It is such a simple but beautiful song and the bass accompaniment is pretty cool to play.  Our performance was a hit and we got so many compliments for it.

As before, Charlotte is the only heritage child (well, teen now, besides DD#2) who really spoke and/or sing anything in Chinese.  We typically get such good feed backs from the audiences afterward.  I think seeing her hard earned Chinese proficiency put into such good use again and again this past year reinforces Charlotte’s willingness to continue learning the language and truly accept it as part of her heritage.  Chinese is now part of her skill sets that she can use to socialize, perform and entertain, and reach out to the local Chinese community for volunteering and service opportunities.