Instruments: violin, guitar, piano, electroacoustic
music preference: alternative, pop, classical, jazz
-My dad has always been a frenetic classical music lover and he took me to violin lessons when I was 7. I quit at the age of 12 due to enormous pressure I felt from my then teacher, Mr.Lim, who was once a conductor for the HK Philharmonic Orchestra. In F.6 I took guitar lessons (for about 1 1/2 years), but unfortunately, didn't last too long. And then during University I got interested in making electroacoustic music for a while. It was really fun and I proved to myself that I had the creativity and ability to be a composer, even though I wasn't a music major and knew nothing about compositional theories. I also met a lot of really cool, artistic, and talented musicians and filmmakers in those classes. They were my favorite and some of the most fruitful classes I've ever taken. I am again taking piano lessons now. I go to classical and jazz concerts regularly; unfortunately I haven't seen any very good rock concerts for a long time.
-I drew awful a lot. Drawing was the first interest I developed in life. My childhood memories were filled with drawing, drawing, drawing. I mainly drew people, and that is still true for me now. I took drawing lessons from age 16 to 18. During that period, I was trained to make highly refined and sophisticated realistic sketches of the objects I drew (mainly still photography of people), and I became over-obsessed with the smallest details I can perfect. In fact, when I look back now, I consider myself paranoid then. It was not until I took a drawing course during University that totally changed my attitude and shed a new light on the direction I should be going. I still remember my instructor, a cool, big American guy who shaved his head bald, was obsessed with Hello Kitty, listened to lo-fi and other alternative stuff and smoked cigars during lessons. His method and freeness (I've never seen a teacher smoke cigars during lessons) inspired me a lot and pulled me out of my stubborn, perfectionist nature in drawing. My direction since then was to explore some other mediums besides "realistic pencil sketching." But actually, I haven't drawn for a quite a while, it's like there are so many interesting things to do in this world that I had to sacrifice my drawing time. Well, hopefully if I have more time I would be able to do some charcoal, pastel, and oil painting.
-I can't say I'm a film expert since I began to explore films only AFTER I got into this major at UT. I ended up doing critical studies instead of production though, and I'm pretty happy with that. I would consider myself more suitable to write about films than to really go out and shoot films. My biggest interest in film is the artistic considerations. I think I'm more of the artistic type, I tend to go for films that have beautiful scenery, sets, costumes, and those with excellent photography, style, and aesthetic taste. I don't always object to straight forward Hollywood films, sometimes they make a good time-killer on boring weekends. Some films which I'm not particularly fond of are Macho stuff, those without the element of romance or those which don't even have any female characters in them. Also, I dislike cartoons showing animals dressed in human clothings, that's why I'm not a Disney fan. Some of my favorite films these days are Peony Pavilion (遊園驚夢)by Yeung Fan (楊凡) and the Japanese anime classic Project A-Ko (A子計劃). I'm still in search of Project A-Ko's 5 other sequels. If you happen to know where I can find them in Hong Kong, please tell me.
-I always loved to read. There is just no pleasure like snuggling comfortably onto the sofa with a cup of coffee and a City Hunter comic on a lazy, Sunday afternoon. I like to read novels (no cheesy romance/pulp stuff) and Japanese comics. I took English Literature for 7 years in high school and got an A in the HKAL exam. After that, I considered it's time I do something else. And so I turned a totally different direction and took up film as my major in University. I could never have thought that I would end up doing critical studies, which is, in my opinion, closely related to literature. I occasionally write open diaries online, but after a while I got lazy, and preferred to read instead. Right now I'm reading Henry James' "A Portrait of a Lady," though I don't know when I'd be able to finish it.
