When it rains…..

…….It pours.

The thing about rain in England is that its just a constant rain but never a full deluge or snowing. I guess the weather is kind of parrallel of my life at the moment: Lots of headaches and change but nothing particular hard or difficult and I am sure it will all be resolved in meantime.

I guess biggest thing happened on the weekend is my good London friend Kate is leaving on Tuesday, we all went out for a curry and drink to say goodbye. Compare with all the happenings of the hostel days 2 years ago it was a relatively low key event. Just a few friends catching up and remember the 3 years that Kate and Allan spent in London, I was feeling like a drag for the night: I am not a big party person and I can’t drink for the whole night because of my stomach upset. Still – the curry at Brick Lane was good and this is the second time we been to the resturant. I think I will come back again next time! Their claim to fame was that Prince Charles visited the place back in the 70s and got a photo of him shaking who I presume to be the owner’s hand. I am not sure if everyone in the photo still have any connection to the resturant.

Me and Alan have a bit of a beef during the night. Alan can get quite moody when he got drunk and do things that hes not 100% intended. I didn’t really help the situation by egging Alan on. I guess I am trying to proof a point and hopefully he will remember it afterwards. Alan and Kate are both leaving London for Melbourne and I hope Alan especially can look after himself when he goes there. London is a ”safe” city compare with Sydney or Melbourne, back home in Australia city are alot smaller and different elements of society have more contacts with each other compare with London and its very easy to run into trouble just by ”looking” or “talking” to others in a wrong way. I just hope that Alan can calm down a little bit and look after himself. I know when I am always very careful with myself when my families can’t really effectively look after me when anything happens.

Still: know Kate and Alan for over 2 years now. They are key part of my social circle here in London and it will be tough not seeing them around for 2010. I cried when I said goodbye to Kate at the bus stop. I wished we can have a bigger farewell rather than a teary goodbye at a bus stop in East London – but I believe I will see her again someday in the future. Yeah I am sure someday I will visit Melbourne………

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On Sunday night me and my housemate have an early Christmas dinner for the house and it was great! Steve and Shelley did most of the cooking while Alicia did a very yummy desert. I didn’t do any of the cooking so just ended up doing the washing up. We never cooked as a house before and it really does feel like a family with everyone helping out, cooking, chating and cleaning up.  

The people are great and I would love to live with them for quite a while, but the house was a bit of a dump, in no particular order:

* Water pressure of the shower is bad because the pipes are old and its unlikely Landlord will replace them;
* Lights in staircase wasn’t working. I fitted new bulbs in and they works, however the switch is dead and they dun switch off;
* The heating in the small room I am in cannot be turn down because the switches on the raidator is broken. It gets really toasty;
* The entrance to the kitchen leaks after heavy rain;
* Kitchen windows been broken for 2 months and it still not fix;
* There are no hot water on taps. They go hot for like 20 seconds and than cold again:
* The landlord is not in the country. I deal with his handy man and hes really slow on fixing these things;
* I paid too much for my old room. No one really wanted to take it off me.

So with the lease up for renewal at start of Feb. I am tempted to just pack it in and find a new place to live round next year. Its a shame cause I really like my flatmates and I don’t think they intended to move from such a comvienent location.

Well better get some sleep: I am doing the gong show tomorrow night at the Comedy Stores. yikes!

 

Heres to another winter

Home at the moment sick from heartburn/indegstion. You guys might think I chuck a “sickie” but if I have I would be outdoors rather than stuck indoors in front of my laptop and TV. Doctor asked me how old I am and don’t I get heartburns: I think I have to admit that middle age is finally creeping in, hope I won’t peep my pants anytime soon!

Been looking for a new flatmates for my old room. A few weeks ago a girl moved into my flat and stay in the smaller room for a day and than moved out. The problem was the central heating radiatior was low pressure and ended up making alot of gurgling noise. The central heating is now pumped up and the radiator seens to be ok. Although every now and than it does make a loud “tonk” noise. I believe from my research it might be a case of “Water Hammer“. Not 100% sure if the Landlord can fixed it but I am preparing a pair of earplugs just in case.

Met Kate and Alan and Tarkan and Eva for a sunday lunch. It was good to see those guys again! Unfortunately Kate only have a week in London before heading back, Alan will be staying on till just before Christmas and head to Australia. Its sad to see friends leaving London and going back home, but than this is a journey to us traveller: once it ends it either we all return home and start a brand new adventure in other things. Such is part of growing up and being alive.

Next year will be the most uncertain year for me in that I am not sure what am I looking forward to: 2007 is about moving to London, 2008 is about living a life of independence, 2009 is about me doing the stuff that I always wanted to do and prove I got what it takes. What does 2010 hold? This is unlike the past 3 years where I really didn’t have an explicit aim of what I am really after.

Got a few more weeks to ponder. In the meantime my priority is to recover from this damn bloated stomach and trying to find a new flatmate for the house!

 

Takeout comedy – where the “East” meets “West”

Been Really Busy at the moment – one of the cheaper room just came up for rent so now I am looking for people to replace me in my own room, my flatmate gone through seeing around 20+ people before one of them say yes so lets hope I will find someone quickly. I am preparing for the room to be vacant for at least 1 – 2 months.

Anyway last week I left Sydney and stop over in Hong Kong for 5 days. The Takeout comedy club runs it weekly Open-mic on a Tuesday night. It’s the only Open mic comedy club as far as I know so if you wanted a gig than Tuesday is the day you needed to be there.

My problem is I landed in Hong Kong airport at 6:00p.m., the Open Mic starts at 8:00 p.m. so I literally race off from the airport direct to the venue itself. That is the life of a comedian: if there is somewhere with spots available than you have to do what you can to get on.

My uncle gave me a lift from the train station to Central/Soho in Hong Kong. Soho in Hong Kong is a maze of narrow one-way roads winding up along the size of the hill that I found myself walking on foot trying to find the club. It wasn’t that hard to find as it turns out.

The club is in an old Basement shop re-fit as dedicated comedy room with a well- lit stage and a decent PA. There were around 10 acts on the night most of them are either locals raised or overseas expats. The audiences are mostly made up of acts not on for the night or friends of acts who are on the bill for the night. It’s a very friendly and supportive room.

In terms of Open mic the Hong Kong scene is similar to ones you find in a largish country town in England: It only got one comedy club, there are a few comedians of various skills and abilities. The only difference is this is a small “global” village where the audience/acts are from all parts of the world. The acts hang around for drinks afterwards thanks mainly to the highly efficient MTR system (the train carriages are one and a half the size of you average Tube!) which can get most people home relative quickly.

I went back to Takeout Comedy on Friday night to catch the People’s Liberation Impro group doing their monthly Impro night. They were ace consider how small the Hong Kong comedy circuit. Love to stay for the normal stand-up comedy night on Saturday but family is a lot more important than stand-up comedy.

Overall I enjoyed my experience at playing at the Takeout Comedy and would recommend everyone to drop into their open mic night. Thanks must goto Jamil for building up Takeout Comedy for the last 2 years and supporting the local circuit while bringing international acts in. It is unfortunate that locals are not really into stand-up comedy and other forms of live performance in general. I guess the other point is stand-up since to be a western orientated entertainment. With the modernising of  China and with the young being better educated and more liberal hopefully in 10 years time we will start seeing regular Chinese speaking comedian and maybe, just maybe a professional Chinese speaking stand-up comedy circuit.

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Hong Kong didn’t change that much: since I have to fly back and fore from Sydney to London Hong Kong is my designated stop over point. Than again I am never really a “tourist” and never have problems navigating around the city. Whats different is you can see how the boom of internet affected Hong Kong as a shopping heaven: Most well known brands of clothes/electronics/gadgets available in Hong Kong also available worldwide selling for roughly the same price. The only real saving that you get is VAT/GST since Hong Kong have no sales tax. In these day and age people can import anything from one country to another country so easily (Even second hand grey import cars from Japan) its hard to have items that sells only in one country but not the other. 

However this doesn’t mean Hong Kong is no longer a shopping heaven. Maybe to the Westerners they can buy over ebay for mobile phones from HK, now Hong Kong main targets are tourist from mainland china. Despite the old stigmas of how backward China was, (Yes even I play on this in my standup routine, but you are laughing out of your own ignorance) there is a steady rise of a Chinese middle class who behave very similar to Western middle class – They are well educated, have dispoable income and have the same capitalistic attributes like ordinary middle class. It is the rise of this middle class along with the massive stimulalus package China running to prop up its economy. Will the China’s middle class save the world economy? Probably not since theres still a massive gap between what an average Chinese earn and what an average earn.

So with the rise of China, what will become of Hong Kong? In the short term Hong Kong property are “inflated” by Chinese investment (Similar to Sydney) and running the of risk showing a disconnection between average income vs house price as a multiple of average income. There might be a big “readjustment” sometime in the future but like all ”readjustments” its not the will it happen but its the when it happens that matters, and even the Sage of Omaha can’t predict when the Credit Crunch will happen.

So will Hong Kong be relevant in the long run? With the rise of Shang Hai surely theres no point doing business in HK? Well its a tough one but IMHO I see China will be able to support 2-3 major world class city quite easily! Just like USA has New York/Los Angeles/Chicago and England with London and (*cough*) Manchester. Each city will take on a slight distinct bend – Hong Kong is a distinct “East meets West” setup for years and this status will take generation to ursup. Maybe I should have Hong Kong in my picture in terms of my life’s long term plan. (Hopefully one day it will have a fully fledge standup comedy scene in Chinese and also English! )

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 On a more profound personal note this trip really put my life back into perspective. Visiting Grandma’s grave;meeting my uncles, aunties, cousins and their kids. Watching the generation before you grow old and the generation after you growing up really put your mortality back into perspective. I haven’t been a kid for yonks but meeting the extended family this time really ram home the message.

 Its always good to see family, its a tough pill to swallow that you are no longer a kid. We must always acknowledge reality but than again we should always try to have fun in life!! I refuse to become an old man inside even if I am 75!

Fun in the Sun

Its been a good weekend of sunshine, coffee and catching up with friends.

Caught up with TC for a bit of mountain biking around Manly Dam before he head off to his honeymoon. The old gal (my Giant Reign Mountain bike) held up well. Sure we spent over 20 man hours bleeding those hydraulic brakes and the brake pads replaced but everything else still works great. I have to say I will be selling the bike next time I come back. Manly Dam changed as well with most of the downhill sections now graded so they can get the fire truck through. I think I will really rock Manly Dam next time I comeback because it will progressively get “nerf” as time goes.

Good to see Marky and Brettpei again. The days where we trained together in Budo is now long passed but we still kept in touch with each other via email. It was fun carving pumpkins and hitting pinachette for Halloween. I have never done either of that before. Mark also has a young son of 5 months and is now settling into the routine of a new dad. We are all too “old” to have wild party night but it sure is good to see he had a chance to have catchup drinks with mate.

What visit of Australia will be completed without at least time spent on (or close to) a beach? Sunday was the annual “Sculpture By The Sea” exhibit. Every year the Bondi to Clovelly walk will be converted to a large outdoor “Tate Modern” with sculptures by sculptors from all over the world. I have to say I am no big fan of art or sculptures but it was a really cool concept to combine sunshine, beaches/sea and sculpture.

Stereo Sonic is what he meant. Whats the chance for a sky writing business in London?

The walk between Clovelly and Bondi was pack with people. It was a Idyllic sunny spring day and Sydney and get to spend some good times with friends I haven’t seen from yonks. The best sculpture I like was the flag that was setup overlooking Bondi beach. I dunno how long it took the sculptors to create some of these exhibits and how did they envision the final sculpture and how it combined with the landscape itself.

Yes! I was there at Bondi Beach

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What had changed since last time I was here? Nothing change drastically but everything changes ever subtly as time passed: From friends getting marry, new born kids, people getting new cars, price of things are more expensive than last time I was here, (Starting to be on par with London on something) parents getting older and so is my brother.  Sydney is getting more expensive and buying a house is becoming a pipe dream.

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 What I did notice is there a significant increase in Asian immigrants in Sydney (Especially Epping/Eastwood area) than 2 years ago. I used to be very against concentrate migration into one area producing a middle class racial ghetto. After living in London for the past 2 years my attitude has became mellow: Whether you are Asians, African-Caribbean or British/Australians it is in human nature to gravitate towards people with things in common such as race and language. Poms/Ozzies/Kiwis/Safas to have a similar culture making their integrations more straight forward than other races. One would even argue that these colonies are just “derivatives” of the original colonial master, (the Poms) hence cannot be count as a different culture. (Unlike Chinese/Koreans/Japanese for example)

 My point is this: I used to have a belief that once you migrate to another country you should “assimilate” with the locals. What I did wrong was attempting to discard my original cultures and roots in embracing that of the new country.  Now I learned that there is nothing “wrong” with being born in one culture and adopting another during your life. Most people on this planet never migrate to another country so will never understand what it takes to settle down in a foreign land. Most native population only sees the ills of other countries and ignore the benefits of culture diversity. It is a dangerous hyperbole claiming that Importing people from different cultures with conflicting view will cause culture clashes like the ones we seen in other parts of the world.

If I can go back to my teens and start over I would have done things differently but this will also made me a slightly different person with a different outlook on life. I guess growing up is like walking a complex network of roads: there are many to choose from but as long as you keep moving “forward” you are doing well. I was ignorant of the reality that I am a Chinese person living in Australia with two very distinctive cultures, my children will have a much easier time growing up as they won’t have to deal with dilemmas that I was faced with.

 

Old Habits Die Hard!

When you work full time, you only get around 2-4 weeks of annual leave. Irony is we ended up stressing ourselves try to make the most into the few weeks we going away and totally forgot holiday is meant to be a period of rest and relaxation.

Last few days in Sydney I just taking it quite easy: catching up with various friends, going to some of my favour places in Sydney remember how things used to be and not a rush in the world to do anything. Classic mode when it comes to a quiet holiday

UNLESS…….you are an open mic comedian! Than its your swore duty to get on wherever someone is offering you 5 min spot. It is an occupation disease!  A month ago I booked 4 gigs for the week I am in Sydney with the intention of checking out the local scene.

On Tuesday, Laugh Garage in Sydney CBD runs an open mic night. Laugh Garage is an established comedy club in Sydney with a dedicated club similar to The Stand at Edinburgh. It started like Comedy Store in London as a Pro comedy night in pubs and only recently moved to a purpose built venue. The night usually consisted of 8 open mic standup and a MC, but tonite was different with an American comedian named Rick Shapiro also on the bill trying some new material.

Trudi from the comedy course in London also turned up to watch and end up doing a 5 min slot as well because someone dropped out.   It was a good gig with around an audience of 7 and around 6 comics and MC.  My 5 min went well:  this is the first time I done my 5 min at home and I am amaze how portable my material was in different country.  Trudi did really well having essentially told that shes going on and given 40 min to ready some of her material. After the first gig it appears that our time on the London circus served us really well.  It is a shame that this is my only gig at the Laugh Garage, I will have to score more stage time before I can play with more accomplished comedians.

On Wednesday I scored a gig at The Roxbury Hotel at Glebe. This is part of the “Quest for The Best” preliminary final open mic competition. The room was filled with around 130 punters with 90% here to support their friends on the bill – the chance of winning the comp is nil. With that in mind I just focused on having a good gig. This gig is the highlight of my Sydney tour.

The room is a split level room (only realised it when I stood on the chair at 2:30 mark) and I got thrown by a heckle from someone upstairs (3:30 mark) and got myself confuse. Problem with split levels is that a heckle from upstairs is not well heard by people on the lower level. In a five min set its not usually worthwhile to address a heckler unless they were persistent. Still – the crowd gave me the biggest laugh of my set when I fluffed up my lines. Can’t get a more supportive audience than that!

This is also the first gig where I performed my set at home in front of my friends, some of them are from my high school days and I have seen them for more than 2 years! Its great to see them again and even greater for them to come out to support me!

Thursday gig was a “variety night” on a stage next to a uni bar. To put it kindly the gig was absolutely RUBBISH!!! I don’t usually slag gigs but this one was badly organised in a shitty venue. The stage is next to the student bar with a bunch of drunken students, they all decided to yell “jukebox” at the jukebox for some reason. There is no separate room for comedy and random drunken students interrupt by giving drunken rants to each other. Most of the acts left the venue as soon as they were on to head across town to catch the “best” open mic gig in the circuit. My friend Zed came along with his flatmates and friends to support me and I have to apologise to them for coming to such a shamble.  One valuable lesson for all is that even free comedy night are not “free”, the time invested by acts and audience involved should be enough to warrant the promoters to put in a bit more thought and effort into their nights.

Friday at Comedy Court at Star Bar: This is my last gig in Sydney and like all my friends show up to this gig! The room is really nice – it was a old small theatre inside Star Bar which used to be the old Planet Hollywood restaurant, a 50 seat room with proper sound and lighting! There were like 19 audience and only 6 of them are genuine punters! I brought like 11 audience to a new act competition, Oops!

It was a 8-10 slot and I ended up doing around 11 minutes. For some reason I was a bit nervous because I am essentially performing to my friends which make the whole gig a bit weird. I seen a few gigs where the audience are mainly friends with one of the acts and it makes the gig less of a “gig” but more like some sort of secret society meetings where jokes are only understood by the privileged few. The other problem is I usually run a 7-8 min set and hardly play a half slot (10 min set) I have to take the “covers” off some of the older gags to get to the 10 min marks.

My friends are great audience members. Donte who runs the night is a good compere and made my friends laugh and kept the night running smoothly. The other acts (Ray, Joey and Joseph) are all competent as new-ish acts and all my friends found them funny. I did ok since the gig is filled mostly by my friends so it was a pretty safe room to play to. Couple of my friends pointed out afterwards that I needed to work on my delivery and the squat toilet “conversation” gone for a sentence too long.  Good to get feedbacks and I agreed with them there are room for improvement. It always good to know you have to do better , it keeps you going for your comedy.

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So what is my assessment of the Sydney scene? Well its no match to New York, London and even Melbourne for sure. There are a few nice room on the circuit but IMHO the audience bases is too small to support a stand-up scene. There are more rooms popping up over the last few years but surely if a city like Melbourne can support a fully fledge comedy scene than the biggest Australian city must be able to do the same! Unfortunately this is not true as the few Sydney based comedy club are struggling with the Sydney Comedy Store (No relation to the UK one) currently run by its second owners.

Its a bit sad that a city of 3 millions can’t support a scene. I do not think this is a fault of the promoters or the acts but more a reflection of the population of Sydney itself. The denizens of Sydney are not very cultured compare with our cousins down south and won’t actively seek out arts related activity like theatre or music. (unless its a festival where the big acts are on.) The laws regulating pubs & bars also play a factor: To put on a live performance the venue must have a live performance license in New South Wales, its free for pubs to put in poker machines. Why would any publicans paid money to put on a how which might or might not lift their drink sales when you can just use that performance base to put in extra poker machines. With a city booming due to effects of increase of Asian immigrants, there is more money in gambling than there is in standup comedy.