Taipei Philharmonic Chorus/ Leo Club of Ipoh Unity/ My genes

A few weeks ago, I went for a charity performance by the Taipei Philharmonic Chorus. I wouldn't know what to expect of it when I got the ticket because I've never been to a professional chorus performance before. The closest thing I've ever experienced were amatuer attempts by secondary schoolgirls during my Leo Club days.

Superb performance

The 40-voice choir was selected from a 140-voice chorus to tour and perform selected musical works. In Malaysia, they performed in 3 states, first in Penang on the 24th, then in Ipoh on the 26th and finally in KL on the 27th. It was like nothing I have ever seen (or more acurately, heard) before.

The theme of the chorus was Image Taiwan. We were treated to tunes that describes the area and culture of Taiwan, including Taiwan and Mongolian folksongs, Chinese choral works and aboriginal tunes. When they came out from backstage at the beginning of the show, two particular members of the choir stood out in terms of appearance, one of them is a tall, blonde, unmistakebly caucasian lady and the other one, we found out is a Filipino man. The blonde lady (Perlette Jyehae Matthews) turns out to be half-American, half-Taiwanese. That very well proves that music really do has no racial/religious/geographic boundaries.

It was a spectacular performance. Especially when they performed some familiar tunes like 'The Tuberrose' (Yie Lai Xiang) and 'An Unforgettable Affair'(Bu Liao Ching).

I was expecting a typical Ipoh crowd where they do commentaries or chit chat about their neighbours dog giving birth and so on. Suprisingly, the crowd was very well behaved that evening.

I was one of the very few 'not so old' in the crowd. I was sitting beside 2 young rascals who kept making a lot of noise throughout the show. At the end of the show, I slapped them both and kicked them so hard in the backside they flew straight home.

The performance was also a fundraising event for the Agape Home for childrens. I had a chance to talk to Pastor Lim (who manages the orphanage) on a recent visit (organised by the Leo Club of Ipoh Unity) to celebrate the mooncake festival with the childrens and was really impressed with the energy and passion of this 49 year old man, on and off the football field.

At Agape Home. The 'smart' camera lady did not use the flash. Duh! 8pm at night le. Luckily can still see me because my yellow color shirt is just so 'tak chut'.



Football match with the boys. I did not join them. I'm too old for this, you 'hau sang chai' go play.

One of his philosophy in life is to challenge the norm of modern society, get out of the programme, live life according to your own rules, don't just go with the flow. Live your own life instead of living the expectations of your parents, friends, teachers, company managers...etc.

This is so true. There are too many temptations in the world waiting to suck you into 'the matrix' (if you're not in it already), where you live by rules and limitations preprogrammed into the system. Where sooner or later you become a drone in this immence factory producing more drones as you multiply yourself by producing offsprings. These offsprings of yours will carry on your 'legacy' in their genes, and programming through education and constant feeding of unqualified opinions and guidelines on how to live life. This whole process is known as 'Parenting'.

Don't get me wrong. I intend to pass on my genes and produces my own offsprings. Lots and lots of them, and when I have enough, I'll go a step further and produce more, and more, and then more........infinity(if possible). Yea, what can I say, I'm a high achiever. I believe I have good genes and should utilize it(by passing it on) for the betterment of mankind.

Ok. This post is way too unstructured. I'm rambling about too many unrelated things at one go. I better make some kind of conclusion to round up what I'm trying to say so that there'll be a clear take home message to make it worth your time reading. So here it is:

I have good genes. Wanna mate?