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zwooman
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Name: Emily
Country: United States
State: California
Birthday: 11/3/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: dance... lots of it
singing, guitar, piano
foood!
wushu
yoga and triathlons
reading and movies
enjoying nature
being with family and friends
Occupation: Other
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/30/2003
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| With 81 degrees Farenheit, 51% humidity, and some kind of blue sky visibility, I am vaguely reminded of Berkeley summertime with an L.A. sky. It has been notably beautiful here on Lamma Island in Hong Kong for the past few days. We can definitely feel the temperature and rising. Humidity is always pretty high, although the drop in the past few days has been pretty nice. The "winter" clothes are beginning to collect dust as I'm shaking off my summer shorts.
I know I haven't updated in a while. A lot has been happening here in Hong Kong, to say the least. I've become actively involved in lots of small theater productions, switched jobs, and have made plans for my first trip out of Hong Kong since I got here in September.
When I first came to Hong Kong, I landed a job teaching jazz and ballet to kids in Cantonese from age 2.5 to 14 and had a few adult classes (mostly new mothers who wanted to pick up dance for the first time to get in shape). It was definitely a good experience to have, especially because it forced me to flex and build my Cantonese muscles. I was ready to get out of the place, however, as the directors were a little shady about their business and it was really eating up my time unnecessarily. Since then, I've landed a job as a "voice artiste" for a studio. What does this mean? Mostly, I'm dubbing Japanese animation cartoon series in English. We will do the occasional film, and I get to do some voiceovers for television and radio commercials. For those of you who follow any anime, I've dubbed for "Dr. Blackjack", "Trinity Blood", "Mariasama I and II", "Fate Stay/Night", "Ryukendo" (a live action series, like Power Rangers), "Dear Boys", "Gun Sword X", and the movie "Onimusha". Most of these cartoon series are aired throughout Southeast Asia and Latin America on English channels. My visa lasts until May 2008, so the plan is to stay here until then. For now, the plan is to go to the East Coast somewhere after that.
After performing in "The Vagina Monologues" in February, I got involved with a film noir-based murder mystery dinner theater show called "Murder at the Cafe Noir". It extended through the end of April. It was definitely something for the upper classes of the ex-pat community here in HK, which I think is hilarious because it's bloody dinner theater! Anyway, opportunities have opened up since then. I'm in a show about sex workers in Hong Kong, based loosely on the Suzie Wong story, that is going up next week entitled "The Real Suzie". In June, I will be performing in three shows.
The first is a show for a local at-risk teens charity. It's called "11 Variations of the Failure of Friar John". Really, really funny - written by Yuri Baranovsky, of Marin (YAY Bay Area, what what!). The second is a monologue in a show of five monologues. The piece I am doing is called "The Clap", where I get to play and ugly, chain-smoking, alcoholic 80-something year-old mother of fairies who wants to die. Needless to say, I am on the edge of my seat in anticipation for a first rehearsal for this show. Seriously. It's really exciting not to be cast as sweet or a sex-worker... not that I mind those other roles; this'll just be so fun! The third show is one that I am doing with Sam, which many of you are probably familiar with. We're doing "The Lover" by Harold Pinter. That's going to be pretty fun.
In July, I will be a vocalist and percussionist in a quartet for a Cabaret show. I will probably also be doing a duet performance with the ever-so-talented and ever-so-charming Charles Slender. Yes, ladies and gentlemen and everything in between, Charlie will be coming to Hong Kong at the end of July for his debut performance in Asia! :) ... alongside none other than yours truly.
I was recently in the Sunday magazine of the South China Morning , featured in the 'style profile' section. They interviewed me for a quick, almost bulleted article about my favorite pair of sunglasses or what I'm reading right now or what three things I would bring to a desert island, etc. Pretty ridiculous, very Hong Kong, and also pretty cool to get some publicity here. Opportunities seem to be coming up all the time. I'm really privileged to be in a position where I must choose a thing or two to say "no". Granted, this is a small theater scene and the work being done here is by no means earth-shaking usually, but it's work and it's experience and at least I can recognize that it's typically not the stuff of the West End or Broadway or the Ashland Shakespeare Fest etc etc. I'm really happy to be able to commit time to working on this aspect of my interests while I'm here in HK... and I'm getting paid for almost all of it!
All of these things have kept me very, very busy. When I'm not doing all this, I'm trying to get to a dance class, to the gym, or to go salsa or swing dancing. In the meantime, I still long for California weather and Mexican food. I'm bracing myself for the Hong Kong summer. I will be moving off of Lamma Island to somewhere more convenient in July... not sure where yet.
I will get a brief break, though, when I visit L.A. and Russia in August (a natural, combination, no?). I will be in California August 1st through the 8th, and then I'm off to Russia from the 9th through the 14th! I'm not sure exactly which days will be spent in L.A. and which in Nevada City, but I'll be nearby and I would love to see you if time permits. I'm a new auntie (sort of- second cousin/auntie), so I hope I'll get to see my nephew/second cousin for the first time!
As always, I love to hear from you and miss you all. I hope I get to see you soon. | | |
| Happy Lunar New Year, everybody.
The official eve happened last weekend, as many of you know, but many people still have time off and are partying heartily. This time of year is apparently the biggest travel migration of the year. Tons of people in China, HK, etc. actually have time off from work and head elsewhere. As destinations go, Thailand is huge, U.S. is popular (and Vancouver, Canada), Singapore, Vietnam, etc. There are many I am unaware of, but people get gone somewheres. :)
I didn't go anywhere, but I've enjoyed the time off. I start work again on Monday. Speaking of work, I am in a transition period yet again. I recently auditioned for and was offered a position, pending training, doing voice English acting/dubbing work for a company here in HK. They mostly do work with Japanese animated series, but occassionally have live action film dubbing and other narratives. I will be keeping you informed of which series I will be dubbing as they come up. I will be leaving my current teaching position to begin working for this production company within the next couple of weeks. Visa issues (such a pain in the butt!) may delay things, but hopefully those will be worked out smoothly over the next several weeks. Aside from being really interesting, challenging work, this job puts me back on to regular hours so that I have evenings free to teach private/freelance classes to adults or to take my own classes! Yay! It's still a six days/week gig, but I hope to enjoy it more than my current job.
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES opens tonight. We've been sold out for a couple of weeks now. It's so nice to be able to be a part of this movement. MURDER AT CAFE NOIR opens in a couple of weeks, so I'll be performing through March... and continuing to look for more work! I've been able to keep practicing yoga and salsa dancing here on my own, but I am thinking of taking up martial arts again. My neighbor happens to be a champion fighter so I might head to his gym to learn jujitsu or something. Not sure yet.
For those of you who know Sam, he was accepted into Brown's MFA program for theater. It's HUGE! They're also offering him a scholarship for all three years, which is very exciting. He will be coming back to the States sometime this summer to begin his chapter in Providence, RI.
This new job is likely to keep me here for another year, beginning in either March or April. Things keep changing, so the future is a little unclear. I do know that I will come back to the U.S. and I want to keep doing the things that I love... and that there's much more for me to learn and experience. I'm thinking about grad school and what I want to pursue now and in the near future. Musical theater, dance theater, and thai yoga massage seem to be high on the list at the moment. One thing at a time, though.
It was strange to be so much closer to a general cultural celebration of new year's here in Hong Kong and to be so far away from my family and friends with whom I care to celebrate the new year.
Sun neen fai lok.
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| It's time for the latest and greatest! I hope everyone is having a great holiday season. Here in Hong Kong decorations abound in 14-20 degree Celsius weather, complete with campy versions of Christmas song classics and shopping, shopping, shopping! HK identifies itself through its shopping and food. It's an interesting world city geographically smaller than the SF bay area with the materialism and large shopping mall complexes of Los Angeles and the financial/investment/big business of New York City and a huge population. I must say that the food is pretty good here, especially the Chinese food (of course). It's quite nice to be able to get street food, or at least hole-in-the-wall food, almost anywhere. I do miss California food, though, because of its even larger diversity and authenticity and freshness than food in HK. Anyway, the change in weather is very welcome. The humidity usually ranges between 64-87%, so it feels a little more crisp and cool. Yay!
A man who shared the flight over to HK with me last year shared with me an insight that I'm beginning to understand. He was a White American who had lived in HK for about ten years. He said that the changeover from British rule to Chinese Communist Party wasn't something you'd necessarily notice were you to visit. It's not until you live here that you feel the changes. For example, my kids are forced to learn Mandarin in schools, as the CCP is trying to stomp out Cantonese as a valid, useful language. I mean, sure, Cantonese is harder to learn than Mandarin but it's a beautiful language that doesn't deserve to be wiped out… especially not with the economic strength it has as the primary language spoken here in Hong Kong. I've always thought that one of the beautiful things about China is that is has a uniform written language, but hundreds of spoken dialects.
It looks like more shows outside of my 8hr x 5.5days/week job are on the horizon. I'm going to be part of "The Vagina Monologues" here in February performing the monologue, "Reclaiming Cunt". I'm pretty excited about it. In March, I will be playing "Sheila Wonderly" in the murder mystery dinner show, "Murder at the Café Noir". It's a comedic tribute to film noir of the 1940s. Sheila is the femme fatale character, wee! ...so I get to be a runaway millionaire's daughter turned high-class prostitute who falls for the Private Investigator. Sam is also going to be in the show as a very interesting thief/miscreant of the Café Noir named Cairo. This gig actually pays a little bit and will be performing at various clubs/restaurants between March 6 and March 24. I'm still working on the dance gigs, trying to get some contact information so I can show my face in classes and there's still a chance to teach some adult modern/jazz classes outside of my studio. There is apparently a casting for a fast food (eek!) commercial that I'll be going to on Friday. No harm in showing up, at least.
I spent Christmas with a couple of friends that I've met here through Sam's job at Dramatic English. They're very cool British women. We had a makeshift Christmas morning and went and feasted at the world's largest floating restaurant that included free bubbles (champagne)! I made oatmeal raisin cookies, which is a departure from the pumpkin pies and peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies I've been making while Sam's here. We walked about Central to look at all of the lights and decorations. The next day, Boxing Day, one of the women got a facial while I took a yoga class and we completed the evening with watching, "Happy Feet". It was GREAT! Really, really funny and cute. It's a CG movie about penguins living in Antarctica (I think). Apparently Boxing Day is the day after Christmas and named as such because the rich used to give their boxes from gifts they'd received to the poor. What the poor used these boxes for is even more unclear for me. It was either to give each other presents in nice boxes or for shelter. An interesting day for a holiday, but I don't mind the details – it was another day off!
My family is coming out here for a couple of weeks, and I'm very excited about that. It'll be nice to see my family, at least some of them, over the holidays. Some of my friends from Wushu will be moving down to Hong Kong as well within the next month. I still think of all of you back in the U.S. often and fondly and I look forward to the next time we may see each other again.
Happy 2007!
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| The following are the update emails that I've sent out over the past three months I've been here. I will from now on post at the same time that I send the emails out. One is coming up very soon.
(1)
So I've been in Hong Kong for four weeks now! I've finally gotten my orientation. There are very small but existent pockets of the various kinds of dance and things that I enjoy. There are Argentine tango, salsa nights, the rumblings of a swing club, some musical theater, hip hop and jazz funk classes, jazz music nights/clubs, a hip performance space, African drumming and one dance class, and a couple of modern dance studios.
I just landed a job. I will be a full time teacher, signed with a year contract (Nov '06-Nov '07), at Shelley de Mozz Jazz and Ballet Academie. I will be teaching jazz dance primarily, but there are options for teaching other classes including voice, Chinese dance, modern dance. They're pretty open it seems. I may teach some elementary ballet, but that has yet to be determined. The studio is primarily for young people, but there are a couple of adult classes that I've been told I should be able to teach. Things should get started this week, so I'll know more in the coming weeks.
I'm working on getting a gig teaching modern dance at the other studios. That will take time. More people need to see my face, and that's hard because there aren't a lot of things going on and I need to wait until they happen to get seen. I am connected to that community, however, so things are already in the works.
Other than that, I am working on a vocal jazz duet. I am working with a guy on getting a set together to perform at various clubs here. I may be backing it with piano, but we'll see about that.
I helped choreograph some dance (ballroom) in a commercial that Melanie shot for Regal hotels. That was pretty cool. It connected me to that scene. I have yet to hear of any dance or choreography gigs through these agents, but at least there's a line of communication opened there.
Friday is the mid-Autumn festival, and they have faaaar too many mooncake options here. I have to exercise some serious self-control not to get carried away. I did buy a couple of the golden lotus paste, no-egg mooncakes. National day was just recognized yesterday, so our normally pretty peaceful island was swarming with tourists :) Fun to say that others are the tourists!
My Cantonese has gotten a lot better, so that's pretty exciting, too.
The weather has gotten a lot more beautiful as autumn is coming in. It's usually 25-28 Celsius, rains occassionally, strong winds occassionally, and certainly humid but not as thick as the summer weather (humdity then is in the 90%s). Lamma island is beautiful, known for being a kind of hippie place with lots of foreigners...but not in the gross kind of way. It's more spacious here than on Hong Kong island. I think I've seen one car since I've been here and it was an electricity company car. Walking Melanie's dog, Isis, a lot. She's a handful of a puppy but it's nice to learn how to deal with a puppy and to have some company every now and then.
(2)
Another friendly update from the other side of the world :) So I'm actually getting to teach now at the studio I was hired. I'm teaching ages 3 (YIKES!) through 14, so far. They're still working on my adult class, which I'm VERY excited about. The biggest bonus to working at this studio is not only getting some teaching experience under my belt but being forced to use Chinese. Most of the kids don't understand English, so I have to learn the syllabus and everything in Chinese. It's awesome and difficult :) The syllabus is pretty simple. For ballet, they're using the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus and for jazz it's the Australian Teachers of Dancing syllabus. Whatever happened to the spirit of jazz? Moved over to modern? That's a big discussion I won't get into here.
I've gotten a couple of gigs outside of this teaching, though, and that's exciting. The first is that I have to be a "Roman" dancer at some pretentious dinner party for Regal Hotels. My sister gave my name to the booking lady and I guess they were so desperate that they decided to use me, ha! I mean, who does Roman dancing?! I said that I'd done some European dance before (um, ala master class from Mark Morris dancers and some intro in middle school?...Duncan and Graham can count for some GREEK influence, too, if I'm going this far). Anyway, it's a paid professional performance op, so I didn't say no. There is also a Body Movies thing, which is a site-specific performed improvisation. More my speed. It's also paid, and sounds like fun.
More and more I'm realizing that I really love contemporary/modern dance and that I really want to perform. Teaching is supporting me, but I want to work with modern dancers as a dancer.
Enough about dance! How's Hong Kong? Cooling down. We're finally seeing some temperatures below 20 degrees Celsius sometimes. Boy, do I miss Berkeley...but I don't just mean the weather. In fact, I miss California in general. It's so beautiful and has any kind of food you want (though Hong Kong's food diaspora is not bad... the Chinese food, of course, can't be beat). I miss New York, too. Anyway, I miss the people most of all. I miss my family and I miss my friends - all of you.
I've been here for two months now. Things are really just beginning to get a real rhythm, so we'll see how comfortable I get here. My sister and I are going to have a Thanksgiving thing at our place. They celebrate Halloween here, but not much actual trick-or-treating. It doesn't make much sense logistically, with all of the high rises. They're headed right for Christmas, though. Thanksgiving is left for us Americans to celebrate on our own, as well it should. I would be sad if they started celebrating Thanksgiving here, too. Most foreigners here are from England or Australia. Some from Canada and some from the U.S.
Okay, I've gone on long enough. As I said earlier, I do miss you all. I appreciate hearing from you.
Much love from the South China Sea... and me :)
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| I'm 79.5% FOB. But I live in HK right now, so I think that boosts my score a little.
[x] Do you speak an Asian language?
[x] Have you ever dyed your hair?
[] Do you have long hair?
[x] Are you Asian?
[] Do you watch anime?
total: 3
[x] Parents have a Japanese import car?
[] Is it a racer/ sports car?
[x] Do you take off your shoes when you go into anyones house?
[x] Do you use chopsticks?
[x] Do you wear / own jade jewelry?
total: 4
[x] Do you eat rice everyday?
[] Do you pose with a peace sign when you take pics?
[] Do you drink tea everyday?
[] If you're a guy, did you ever have a bowl cut hair style?
total: 1
[x] Did you ever want a tiger or dragon tattoo?
[x] Do you have any Asian posters in your room?
[x] You are good in math or science.
[x] You are good in school in general
[x] You listen to your parents.
total: 5
[x] You taken/want to take some kind of martial arts.
[x] You watch/watched Kung-Fu movies.
[] You worked/work in a restaurant.
[0.5] You have/had/wanted to have blond hair.... (but I thought about it!)
[] You are totally into your car.
[] If you hate people, you don't show it.
total: 3.5
[x] Spend a lot of time working or on the computer.
[x] Love Asian movies.
[] Have Asian cable.
[x] Listen to J-pop/ HK-pop/ K-pop/ or any other Asian music.
[x] Hang out with Asian people a lot.
total: 4
[x] You speak some Asian language in public so no one would understand what you're talking about
[x] You stereotype yourself just for fun.
[x] You make fun of FOBS.
total: 3
[x] Do you have a Asian name?
[x] Do you love sushi?
[x] Do you know who kobiyashi is?
[x] The most important question... do you/have you ever sang karaoke?
total: 4
Sum it up.
Multiply by 3 to get your total score.
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