OTTERS

Ok, I must confess I am not the one who took the photo and video. It was taken by my colleague yesterday at the garden. A group of  8 otters came visiting on New Year's eve. I do hope it is a good omen.

NOAH

Based loosely on the biblical "Noah's Ark", this movie starred Russell Crowe in the lead role of Noah, Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Anthony Hopkins as Noah's father, Ray Winstone as King Tubal-cain, Emma Watson as Ila and Logan Lerman as Ham. 

Noah's family belonged to a bloodline descended from Adam and Eve, who had 3 sons Cain, Abel and Seth after eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Cain was said to have killed his brother Abel and gave rise to savage and ruthless descendants, who were protected by fallen angels who turned into stone giants known as the Watchers, who continued their rampage to kill anyone and anything who were in their paths. Seth, on the other hand, was the good one who escaped and continued his lineage by living as nomads to protect earth and its inhabitants.

Noah received a message from the Creator through a dream which warned him of an impending great flood that would kill all men and signaled to him to build an ark to save what's left of earth's creatures. With the help of the Creator and the Watchers, Noah painstakingly built the ark but offended the king Tubal-cain, who was Cain's descendant, by refusing to accept him and his people on the ark when they came seeking for refuge. Tubal-cain vowed to seek vengeance on Noah and this very much summed up what the rest of the movie was about.

Noah was portrayed as a staunch believer of the Creator and he was fixated with building the ark and doing what he felt was necessary, including sacrificing the innocent and killing, to carry out the Creator's orders at all costs. But his conviction was tested and he wavered when he was forced to decide whether to take the lives of the newborn twins, from his eldest son Shem and daughter-in-law Ila.

This movie was banned in some countries because of its religious content, which was fictitiously controversial to some religions. I, for one, just enjoyed this movie as what it is - a movie.

Noah, his wife, Ham and Leo

Migration of the snakes to the Ark

Animals migration to the Ark before the pivotal flash floods

Ray Winstone as the evil King Tubal-cain

NEW YEAR'S EVE

The day is coming to an end in a matter of hours and a friend was asking me this afternoon to reflect and recount on 2010 before the year passes. I don't know because I don't normally do that. Maybe what I will do is to list down 11 chinese songs from the 80s and 90s that I missed because I have not heard them for a long while etc. This is going to be a really long post and the songs are not arranged in order of preference though.

1. 明天会更好

The first has to be this very nostalgic song. I am like wow when I heard this song on youtube once again. It is so inspirational and I think it bodes well to greet the upcoming year. I cannot believe the MV was made about 25 years ago. Although the visual quality wasn't good, I am lucky to still be able to find it. This song has to be one of the biggest songs in Taiwan history to amass all the greatest singers from the industry at that time. There were so many familiar faces that I could recognize and most of all have aged very well since. Some have disappeared from the musical scene altogether though.

2. 飛鷹三姝 - 有我有你

Groomed by the legendary 刘文正, these are 2 meaningful songs about friendship were sang by 3 newbies then - 方文琳, 裘海正 and 伊能靜. Now one has retired as a mother, while the other 2 are still in the entertainment industry. Alright, I cheated here by listing 2 separate songs under one entry.

方文琳&伊能靜 - 朋友

3. 張清芳 - 激情過後

This very beautiful song was the main song recorded in the first album of this high-pitched singer who made it very big in the music industry after she stood in to sing the song written by her friend in a song writing competition. Naturally, she gained instant popularity and the song won the top prize. She has since retired from singing and is a happily married lady with children.

4. 夜半歌声插曲 - 一辈子失去了你

From the above movie and sang by the late Leslie Cheung (张国荣), this sensuous rendition was the sidetrack of the chinese movie version of the "Phantom of the Opera". And the talented Leslie has passed on for years now.

5. 千百惠 - 当我想你的时候

Back then, this was a magical duet between the very popular female singer and the composer 史俊鹏.

6. 蔡榮祖 - 久久才見到你的好

I thought he was one of our very own local singers who ventured to Taiwan many years ago to develop his singing career but who since disappeared into the sea of new singers. But apparently, he is actually from China or Taiwan and released his several albums here then. It was said that Taiwan produces at least a new singer every week, so the competition is really very, very fierce even back in those days. I wonder what happened to him and where he is now?

7. 萬芳 - 新不了情

This soft sentimental song was the main song from the movie of the same title starring 刘青云, Carina Lau (刘嘉玲) and the very young 袁咏仪 in her movie debut then.

8. 古皓 - 片体鳞伤

This was a much unknown song from the only album of this newbie singer.

9. 王馨平 - 别问我是谁

The daughter of the famous legendary one-arm swordsman 王羽, she released a few albums but this was her first, if my memory serves me correctly.

10. 康乔 - 对不起全是我错

Actually, I don't know anything about this singer although I still remember this song fondly.

11. 費玉清, 楊慶煌, 鄧妙華, 名洋, 岳雷 - 珍惜來臨的一年(1987版)

I guess I will end this year and this day with this song to welcome the new year.