It's a Small Blue World

Western Movies in Chinese Theaters

2014-10-04T03:20:00.002-07:00

Westerners going to a Chinese theater movie theater is quite the experience. Chinese theaters often play western movies but they have differences which are a change of movie experience for the westerner going. For example, the movies will have English words but Mandarin subtitles. That is kind of a normal thing as you can probably expect. The main audiences going are Mandarin speaking.

The main point here is that the Chinese Mandarin speaking audience is becoming very large. Movie makers in Hollywood now put in special parts which have to do with visiting China or talking about something that's related to China because the market in China is so huge. For example, in the last in the recent Godzilla movies areas in China which were put in which had nothing to do with the plot of the movie. But they created that part to the draw in people from China.

What is curious is that sometimes there are movies that have western written parts, as was seen in the last movie that I saw, in that particular case there was texting on a cell phone. On the cell phone, of course, they had to communicate quite a bit of information to the viewer via the text on the cell phone. So, instead of having the communication, which was obviously texted, in English, the the movie company put in Mandarin communications instead of the English-speaking. This left the English only person like myself not knowing what was written because there was no English sub-titling. A curious reversal for me.

Sometimes politically sensitive things are left out as well, but if that is the case those movies don't appear in Chinese theaters.

Canton Fair in Guangzhou

2014-10-02T18:31:00.002-07:00

As a teacher in China we are sometimes oblivious to the opportunities that western companies are finding in China. We come as educators and have a directive to teach our pupils the best we can at whatever subject we might deal with.

But, in the city of Guangzhou it is a hard thing to NOT know about the opportunities because this city has been the gateway to China trading for centuries. The trading started long ago with people such as Marco Polo traveling the overland silk road, the Portuguese, and English, and as time went by the French, and Americans, and of course the Russians; China's neighbor to the north.

Modern trading takes a different approach than in the distant past. But, the effect is the same. Manufacture and sell low and take away and sell high.

The middle of October will bring incredible buying opportunities for traders who come to Guangzhou's Canton Fair. The fair is one of the most visited fairs in the world.

Chinahelp72, an American Chinese company located in Guangzhou, is a helping hand to those interested in a straight deal. Because the work of trading revolves around translation between traders they strive to level the field and bring about a fair deal for the buyer.

Their slogan is "honesty is our policy" for good reason. People who are their translators and go-between are given specific instructions to work for the buyer and report back to headquarters for debriefed by their bosses.

Sadly many Chinese sellers at the new Canton Fair have their own translators who are "on their side" and present information which is skewed towards the Chinese side. Chinahelp72 is on the buyer's side and remain that way.

As an American Chinese company they know the ins and outs of this type of work and will take the buyer to a profitable conclusion.

Chinahelp72

Creating Something From Nothing

2014-06-26T20:37:00.003-07:00

When you are a music teacher working in China or other places, such as international schools, you often will find yourself with few, if any, materials to work with. I found this true when I worked on Guam as well.
I would have thought that these schools would accumulate a reasonable sized music library over time, but I was sadly mistaken.
When it came to instrumental arrangements for pop bands I discovered a solution which has served me well for years now.
I create music from "nothing". Actually the truth is that I create written music from which my bands can play from midi files which are in abundance on line. These files are digital representations of mostly famous compositions that have been put up on the web for a number of different reasons.
In the case of pop songs, many have been created for the purpose of a backing track from which people can sing or perform with. Styles are of many types: classical, pop, country, ethnic, religious, almost anything you might want musically.
My process utilizes a computer software called Sibelius, although there are many commercially produced brands available.
I simply download the midi (most often free) and load it into my Sibelius. Immediately the song pops open with all the parts that the midi transcriber had created to duplicate the song as you might hear it on a famous recording.
At this point you must examine the piece as fitting with the instrumentation of your group. Sometimes it might be necessary to re voice parts with the existing instrumentation that you have available. Sometimes you might have to create parts that are not on the recording.

I will give an example below and how it came about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiSpd3JV1q4

The song is called: 海阔天空 by a group called Beyond. It was a famous Cantonese song from many years ago. I asked my students to find a midi of a famous Chinese/Cantonese song that we could perform and they came to me with this one.
I put the midi file into my Sibelius software and it opened with the correct digital information of the main instruments including strings, drums, bass, guitars, pianos and voices. What did the track lack? A Guzheng
which was one of our instruments and also the chords for guitars. I distributed all the other parts and added a track in the key of C because the Guzheng has only do, re, me, sol, la as the notes to play.
I had to write a part which might be played easily using those notes. I took bits of the piano part and other accompaniment and cut and pasted the Guzheng from the other parts.
For the guitar chords I analysed the song's structure and wrote those chords onto the score where they had not been.
The singers learnt their parts via the original recording and presto; we had our song.

Noble Court, A Piece Of Modern China

2014-06-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

Wherever I've lived, I've looked around and seen my neighbors and reflected on who they are and what part of society they are from. I suppose that's the bit of sociologist in me. In my life I've lived in many places and that habit of observance is a part of who I am.
In August of 2012 I moved to Clifford Estates in Panyu a part of greater Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. Clifford Estates is a planned city, of sorts, created by Dr. Clifford L.K. Pang, a billionaire, originally from Hong Kong.

The estates is home to more than 200,000 people living in 35 story high-rise apartments, as well as 3 story townhouses. Within its boundaries are supermarkets, sports facilities, private schools (including an international school) a private police force, and free bus service throughout.
What I want to examine in this blog entry is my own living area: Noble Court. As a teacher we receive free accommodations in a particular high-rise building among five others.
What I see day in and day out is a large percentage of this population who are retired Chinese. But, what is peculiar from a western vantage point is a huge number of babies and young children. The morning light brings these older people to the edge of our large garden pool where tai chi is performed by men and women alike and traditional Chinese music wafts through the air. Always close by are baby carriages or another grandparent holding the baby or young child.
In the evening, the same garden pool area is filled with, primarily, elderly women who dance for hours what looks like Chinese line dancing while the men sit close by often with little ones in tow.
Where do they come from and what is the nature of this enclave of retired Chinese?
The population of China has been moving from rural China to eastern coastal cities at phenomenal rates. It has been estimated that in a span of only 5-10 years 250,000,000 Chinese will have left small interior cities, towns, and farm land to come to the large cities for financial opportunities. This is usually the young adults who, married or not, take jobs and leave their families behind.
Some of the elderly, as in the case of Noble Court residents, sell their homes and move to the cities in support of their sons or daughters careers, where they become the baby sitters and providers of a solid "home" close by their grown child's work place.
As I'd talked about in an earlier blog the one child policy is a factor in this move. This grandchild must be cared for because it will be the support of the elder, eventually. So, love and attention must be showered on the youngest for the strength and growth of the family unit. The father or mother might have an apartment at some distance from the grandparents and grandchild. Their only concern is building a career not to deal with the day to day raising of their child.
As I'd said about Clifford Estates, there is a private bus service which transports most residents to other points within Clifford and to the bus station and the metro station nearby. What I hadn't mentioned is the riders of these buses are opposites: the very old and the very young............and foreigners, such as teachers. These buses are crowded (a friend of mine once called them "sardine buses"....a nice way of saying crowded, very crowded). If you follow general rules of etiquette, you should: 1. offer a seat to the elderly 2. offer a seat to the small child. In Clifford, you stand a lot.

Living In a World Of Smog

2013-10-30T00:59:00.002-07:00

In 2010 I moved to Suzhou, China and immediately was confronted with what must be one of the longest running smog alerts I had ever experiences. I had lived in LA many years in the past and saw the orange sun (so pretty) but never anything to compare with China's air.
A few years later I live in Guangzhou and check my China smog meter every day: (This is the website for air quality in China: compliments of the Chinese government) http://aqicn.org/map/china/ The truth is that I'd rather live oblivious to these conditions, but when you look out the window of your apartment or from work you see a grey haze over everything each day accept perhaps after a good rain.
What is hard to deal with is when smog seeps into your life and affects you in its most insidious way, while you're sleeping. You have no way to control this. Late at night you feel a congestion in your chest and wake to feel your chest being squeezed like a sponge.

Of course there is the fact that a person should receive a reasonable amount of vigorous exercise to stay in tip top shape. But, don't hold your breathe. The weather won't allow it, at least in the way you might expect. So, people try their best to find ways to exercise inside where there might be a certain amount of filtration through air conditioning units. But, some people have given up and "live with it".

Chinese pride is something that I never had thought about when it comes to this pollution. As much as you might hate the pollution, to knock China for its pollution is taken very personally by the Chinese. You are insulting, in a form, the Chinese way of life, for their striving for a better future for their nation. It is part of what makes their nation number two in the world as an economy.

What is true is the fact that car is king in China now and there is no going back, only forward. Car Crazy China Cars will only become more common and fresh air, less and less. That is air in China.

1957

2013-08-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

How does the mind work? What jogs your memory and directs it a certain way?
I live in the Clifford Estates, Panyu, Guangzhou, China and ride the free bus shuttle constantly as a perk to living here. It's free transportation and I benefit from using it.
The other evening I was sitting on the shuttle bus surrounded by the scores of Chinese residents of Clifford with no directed thoughts in my mind. In the front of the bus, just above the front entrance is a digital read-out clock. It reads in military time, with a full 24 hour setting.
As I was sitting there the clock changed from 19:56 to 19:57, which of course means 7:57 PM to western eyes. But to me 19:57 became 1957. That number jumped out at me like God had been talking to me.
I felt like Jim Carrey in the movie "Bruce Almighty" where God talked to his character through the digital road sign.
My mind spun back to my time playing music with The Diamonds. 1957 was the year that "Little Darlin'" was number one in the US, selling 8 million copies. I heard that date every night, or I should say every show that The Diamonds played. It was part of the dialogue on stage.
Little Darlin' by The Diamonds

For the rest of that ride on the bus, even though I was in an atmosphere far removed from American Graffitti I thought about my friends and former bandmates as that bus bumped along. I had worked originally with John Felton, who died in 1982 in a plane crash while we were playing in Nevada. But, that's another story for another day.
The Diamonds

Car Crazy China

2013-08-09T00:45:00.001-07:00

     When I arrived in China in October of 2010 I was whisked from the Shanghai airport to Suzhou in the middle of the night. I couldn't see much other than freeways that kept going and going, much like the US mainland system of highways. But, what were the drivers like? It was dark and few drivers on the road at 1 am in the morning.
     The first experience of something "different" from my past experiences occurred when I road the bus the first day or work. The bus picked up its passengers as any form of conveyance, but then I learned the driver's abilities.
     The bus sped off at a quick rate, even faster than the automobiles around it. As time went by, day by day, I learned the nature of the bus drivers of this route (there were more than one).
     When approaching a red light the bus would reduce its speed but not stop. The cars at the light in front of our bus would need to begin their acceleration process meanwhile our bus sped up and passed the cars from either left or right. What was very disturbing to me was when the bus driver did this maneuver in the left turn lane, bypassing the cars from the left side. I had only seen this type of maneuver in movies. Here was a professional driver (with a busload of workers) overtaking the slower moving autos as a common practice. Whew!I think this guy learned to drive in the air force, perhaps in a dogfight.

     I now live in a secure community in Guangzhou, China. Since my arrival in Suzhou in late 2010 and today a lot has happened in this country. When you go to the shopping centers, take an airplane, or simply turn on the TV you see car commercials. Reading these two articles attached you will see that number have grown from 13 million units to 35 million units in three years! China's Car Units 2010 China's Car Units 2013
     What does this mean? Traffic, and also badly trained drivers who are dying to get out on the road. Cars are now the true form of status symbol. Nothing beats this.
     Back to driving; how do they drive? Badly and more than that, ignoring others, and what we in the west think of as "common sense".
     My living circumstance is to be surrounded by cars within Clifford Estates. Cars are parked everywhere, even where they should not be. Ticketing of wrong doers is beyond the thought of police. There are just too many infractions to deal with. So, they do not ticket anyone. People back out directly into oncoming traffic without a thought. It is expected that these things happen. But, again, don't forget the numbers which are growing exponentially, more than triple the sales of three years ago.
     The future is open to more and more vehicles, more and more exhaust, more and more accidents. China is car crazy!

     When the United States was in its automobile expansion times, in the middle of the 20th century, Detroit was booming and everyone knew every car model and we all waited for the early fall for the new car models to come out.
     That same thing is now true of China. People, who before were ignorant of car makes, are now checking everything out for their car purchase. Cars are truly a status item and having one represents a person's growing affluent. Keeping up with the Jones' is the word of the day, except perhaps it's not Jones, it's Zhang.
     Chinese car craziness is only beginning. The numbers that I mentioned above are only a matter of a small fraction of the 1.3 billion people who live in China. This blog entry will be out of date in the near future.

Chinese Retirement System and the One Child System

2013-07-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

     For people in the United States and many western countries socialized retirement came into being in the 20th century and caused a revolution in the way families dealt with retirement. Traditionally, worldwide, it had been the family's responsibility to take care of the elderly.
     But, for places such as the United States social security came into being in the 20th century, and became a partial support and, in some cases, the only support for the most elderly in the society. Money was taken from all and put into the system with the result of a cushion of cash to rely on when retirement was at hand.
     It was quite surprising to me, when I arrived in China that I found that this "communist" country had no such system in place. Instead, this country of 1.3 billion people still relies upon the children to support them when retirement comes. There is no social security.
   In their system, the normal scenario is for the eldest child to be the primary support of the parents and even grandparents living either in or near the oldest male.

   So, what happens in the new China? The new China includes a new and important wrinkle. We must remember that in the past, families were made up of a reasonable number of sons and daughters who would share in keeping the retired parents and grandparents comfortable. Today China has a policy of one child per family with penalties for people who exceed that one child limit.
China's One Child Policy Scrutinized

So, the result of this system is a reliance upon ONE CHILD to do what had been a shared responsibility by a family of siblings. This has created a stressed out society which is more than normally focused on making more and more money than had been the norm in the past because they are now the sole support for an upside-down pyramid of parents and grandparents above them. In this society parents expect and demand the continuation of the traditional system of the support of the elderly.
There are also other factors which feed into this growing problem such as a major migration of the population from rural areas to the mega-cities. These issues will be talked about in upcoming blog entries.

I welcome comments to this and any blogs. Please join in discussing and feel free to share to other internet outlets.

Up Here With Me

2013-07-24T23:24:00.002-07:00

In 1974-5-6 my family and I were living in Eugene, Oregon. I had just gotten off the road working with my group Johnny Golden and the Family Jewels and I was looking to continue in music but in a creative, current way. Johnny Golden had been a success built on the 50s craze which raged because of the film American Graffiti, and the spin-off TV series, Happy Days. But, any success I might have with that group was a derivative success built on a music, although very fun, was in the past.     So, my friend Jeff Patterson Jeff Patterson's blog and I set about to shape music which we would create from fresh musical experimentation and inspiration coming from more contemporary sources. We met some people and jammed around a bit, but nothing seemed to be working. I was working in Valley River Shopping Center where there was a music store. One of the clerks there, Lee Smith, had a few friends, all ex-navy guys from the aircraft carrier, Enterprise, who were looking to put together an original music group, too.
     So, Jeff and I went to a practice one evening and met Greg Nance and Tom Kinsey and we messed with musical combinations. Lee played hammond organ, Greg-guitar, Tom and Jeff played drums, and I played bass for this configuration.
     I don't know the exact progression, but we jammed a bit then I introduced "Told You Twice" which I had written while I was still in Johnny Golden. The second tune I taught them was this one, "Up Here With Me".

Up Here With Me Video

     How this song came about was through a bit of daydreaming which most people might identify with. For me, I had had a few different out of body experiences when I was teenage and beyond. Especially when I was young I had this phenomenon and it left me with strange feelings. One such time (of which I cannot speak in depth) I had a dream which paralleled a publicly heralded police incident. It was as if I had been there, but I don't believe that I really had been there. This is still an unsolved mystery to me.
     The opening phrase was very real and remains very real to me, "my mind is floating through the window, I'm a million miles from here" was written in the front room of my apartment as I was thinking about places far from there, the Himalayan Mountains, to which I imagined.
     This was truly a song made for a video. The entire song is etherial. If you listen carefully in portions you will hear wind chimes in the mix, an overdub that gives a true haunting feeling.
     Musically speaking, I was going beyond the normal pop song style. Lots of minor mode sorts of things were here. Upon careful examination I have seen in this a familiar musical melody which reoccurs often in my writing many years to come. The jump of a minor seventh happens here as it does in a few later songs.
     But, what really catches my ear now is the final vocal high note. Ending the song songs on a ninth chord with the main voice holding the ninth is not a common occurrence. Actually, that note happened in the studio and was a total surprise even to me. I didn't know it until I did it, which is something that has also followed me in my singing career. Doing the unexpected.

     A little about the video: The song was recorded in Eugene, Oregon at Raspberry Studios. As written above I was the sole writer of music and lyrics. The recording was a group effort by ME which was Jeff Patterson, Greg Nance, Lee Smith, Tom Kinsey, and myself.
     The compilation of photos you see in the video are an interesting photo montage of musical history primarily shared between Jeff and myself. Jeff was always the keeper of the camera and historian.
     The first photo is of the second lineup of ME which included Dave, the bass player, who replaced me on bass and I took over on keyboards and rhythm guitar.
     A bit further along was a photo of Bee Bumble and the Stingers (who after a name change became Johnny Golden and the Family Jewels). From left: Liz, Jeff, Lyle Annis, Don Patterson, and Taco (short for his Japanese name.......we sang "Smoke On The Water" in Japanese)
     A photo further along was in our group's recording studio singing background bits for "Marshall's Madness" another of my tunes that we recorded.
     A photo of guitar teacher: Jack Frances.
     A photo of Jeff and my long time friend and brilliant musician: Steve Elmer aka Mike Stands.
     A photo of The Diamonds performing in Sparks, Nevada for an outdoor gig.
     A photo of The Diamonds while in Malaysia. Kota Kinabalu
     A photo of Juju Lund, a long time friend during a piano lesson.
     A photo of The Diamonds: Steve Elmer, Bob Janssen (only for the publicity photo....ha ha), myself, and Jeff.

For more Dave Janssen music try: "Julia" Julia on Jango Radio

Please forgive me all who I have forgotten your last names. :) I have always been bad with names.

The One Child Classroom

2013-07-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

     I came to teacher in China in the fall of 2010. As a teacher in an international school I had a mix of many children from throughout the world. That is the nature of international schools. There was a mix of ethnic groups quite different from most US classrooms at least where I had done my initial training.
     As is true of all teaching, discovering who the students are and how they behave and interact is a deciding factor in approaches or tactics to dealing with students. Getting to know your pupil is the key to discipline and how to dispense knowledge. What is their prior knowledge? From that point learning occurs.
     Ethnicity was one factor. But, what I hadn't thought about, was the family makeup.
     The group of people, which has the most profound affect upon any person's life, is the family unit. Whether you might be speaking of children playing together, learning in school, funding for college, or whatever steps in life a person might take, the number of siblings, including their order, affects how they act and react to life's circumstances.
     Where am I going with this? China's "One Child Policy"! China's One Child Policy/ Invisible Children

     In 1978 and continuing to present day the Chinese government started a course of population restriction for an understandable reason; over-population. China currently has a population of 1.3 billion people. China's Population counter

     What significance does this have? The vast majority of children in China are only children. This has a profound affect upon all aspects of their lives. Of course, this also has a profound affect upon social life in Chinese life and schools. The result is a classroom full of only children.
     If you have ever thought about an only child the first thing which comes to mind is that all the family's resources are focused on one person. One person! The older generation, which had many siblings prior to the policy, are all devoting their love, affection, and resources into the future of that one individual.
     What affect might that have? The word "spoiled" comes to mind first and foremost, spoiled in many ways. It's an upside-down pyramid of flow into one individual. Father, mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents all watching the every move of this "one child".

Grandfather and grandmother caring for their grandchild

     Back to the classroom. The student enters the class as any child might but with one major difference; where there might have been a helicopter mom or dad before this, there is a whole squadron of helicopter relatives who are hovering over this child's development.
     Let's get away from this for a moment and talk about learning within a family, prior to the classroom. I believe that the first learning that any person gets is within the family unit itself. There are lessons to be learned through the interplay of parents to children and children to children. These sorts of "real life experiences" and interplay are the child's first exposures to the world. Loving, caring, arguments, good and bad, are all a part of a person's growth and how they might deal with issues beyond the borders of the family. Without this early learning in the home, the classroom becomes the real starting point for many of these behaviors to develop.    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/200907/the-adolescent-only-child

     So, when I came across my first full classroom of one child students, which was during this year, I saw students with curious personality traits. Although I am generalizing here for sake of illustration, this is what I saw: students who were mature in many ways beyond their years due to their being around adults for most of the time and cultured due to their parents' input. These were also students who, socially, were very child-like, or late bloomers.

     Other ramifications of the One Child System will be discussed in future blogs as this one quirky edict has made its mark in many, many parts of Chinese society.

Love Of Music in China

2013-07-14T19:34:00.001-07:00

     When you wake up in the morning and you are lucky enough to live in a place where the birds still sing at daybreak you know that God has provided the inspiration of music around us, through his creatures. Sorry to say in many parts of the world that natural music has disappeared. But, man, in his simplest form, a creature of God, expresses himself through song for the sheer love of the sound he can create.
Noble Court, Clifford Estates, Panyu, Guangzhou, China
     I live in Clifford Estates, Panyu district, Guangzhou, China. I look out my window each morning to a green forest on a hill opposite my apartment's 16th floor. In the stillness of the morning from spring to late autumn I am blessed with the natural sounds mentioned above. In my time in Suzhou, China I was blessed with the sound of buses and cars beneath my balcony. But, here? I wake to the sounds of birds, frogs, and on hot days the whirr of cicadas (or their Chinese equivalent.....probably speaking Mandarin).
     This atmosphere is the natural music which I spoke of, which inspires us.
     This morning as I sat on my balcony I heard the distant beauty of a Chinese woman singing. Because of the distance I couldn't make out the words, but the song was classical in nature almost like a Christian hymn of my early days. But, this song was sung solo. No piano, no organ, just the beauty of a mature woman's voice drifting across the air in the same way as the birds were doing. She was lending her voice to the mixture as another ingredient in God's symphony. She wasn't being drowned out by motors, or loud speakers but simply singing for "the love of music".

Darlin', Is That You?

2013-07-11T23:09:00.004-07:00

     So often songs are written which don't really have a true "subject", meaning a specific and exact person or direct purpose from which the song takes inspiration. But, rather the mind gleans bits and pieces of emotions and puts them together in the same way a mosaic takes bits of different pieces and reconstructs them into a full picture. But, the individual parts might not make sense when taken by themselves.
     That is the situation for my song "Darlin', Is That You?"
   My family and I had just moved from our home for the past few years in Eugene, Oregon to the small city of Coos Bay, Oregon. The move was especially difficult for my daughter Jennifer. She had been very attached to her friends and wonderful atmosphere there and now was removed to a place quite different. The town was a depressing place with lots of rain with few if any friends.

The school where Jennifer attended....two doors down from our house

   For me, I found work at Southwest Oregon Community College as accompanist for their choir. Aside from this I thought that I would devote myself to writing more songs and do things which might develop into income (which didn't occur).
   I had left behind my musical friends and especially my good friend, Jeff Patterson, who was also now left without a musical group, both of us formerly of "ME". I believe our intention was to now let our demonstration tapes be submitted to record companies with hopes that the group might reform if and when a producer or A & R director bite for our group's sound.
   I had purchased a piano which I had at my disposal to write on. I put in a certain amount of time each day playing my old tunes along with fiddling with new melodies and lyrics. But, again, I was all alone for the first time with no group to perform with.
With this feeling of distance from what had been a very fruitful musical undertaking I was the one on the edge of civilization. I remember talking about Coos Bay being the end of the earth, or at least the US before the ocean.
I began getting images in my mind of this lonely guy who would mistake a perfect stranger for a lover far away. That is something that I have felt in the past with people of similar body type who "fool you" by looking like the spliting image of a past love.
Musically I wanted to incorporate a bit of a Barry Manalow sound in the downward riffs in the chorus. Strangely I also had a bit of a country riff going in the piano part that was just a natural our growth of the lyrical content. Overall I did envision an orchestra playing in conjunction with backup singers. Close your eyes with my comments in your mind and you will understand.
I especially like the middle eight of this song. I truly enjoy the way it naturally grew out of the rest of the song. Sometimes the middle eight is forever to write. In this case it was easy.

Enjoy "Darlin' Is That You?"

Darlin' Is That You on Amazon.com

I'm Too Shy To Send You My Valentine

2013-07-06T04:53:00.000-07:00

We had just moved to Huntington Beach, California Huntington Beach, California (California Street and I occasionally would ride the bus to my job at South Coast Plaza. The nice thing about riding the bus was that it gave me time to think and even write down ideas which I couldn't when I drove.
I walked to the bus stop one day and found myself inspired, even though it was early fall, with the idea of writing a valentine day song. At that time I was always prepared for lyric writing by carrying a steno notebook, so I started singing this little tune that just kept coming until I had the whole song, verses, chorus, and middle 8. I think I made it through the whole day and then sat down at the piano after work and put chords to it.
This song has a quirky story with it. At the time that we moved to California the TV show The Gong Show was the rage The Gong Show. I was deep into reading about performance rights groups and knew that if a song were performed nationwide it would bring in a considerable amount just for that one performance, let alone reruns.
So, I set about calling around trying to find that show's production company. I found it and sent in a demo which was of my daughter Jennifer singing the song. That would be our gimmick for winning , by the way, she was 2nd grade at the time and cute, cute, cute, especially singing this song.
Sorry to say the show went "out of production" and was not renewed by the networks, so case closed.
There was one continuance to the story however, when we moved from Huntington Beach to Azusa in 1980 we joined a talent competition in the Covina Park and took second place (many thought we should have won) which was a thrill for her especially. She was a real trooper.
I'm Too Shy To Send You My Valentine at Amazon.con
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003C39VO8/ref=dm_dp_trk8?ie=UTF8&qid=1373112378&sr=301-1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003C39VO8/ref=dm_dp_trk8?ie=UTF8&qid=1372734202=8-1

Old Cartoon

2013-06-27T03:20:00.003-07:00

When I was a boy growing up in Portland, Oregon I would sit in front of the TV each Saturday morning and watch the cartoons that would continue till early afternoon. My favorites were Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle and Popeye.

During the early days of Television a large part of the cartoons were those that were taken from movie houses from decades earlier. It was only later when studios started churning out ready-for-TV cartoons. Most of those seen were short pieces which had been shown before major motion pictures. Most, if not all, were in black and white or maybe it seemed like it because my family had a black and white TV.
What I especially liked were all the music numbers which were played as accompaniment to these animations. Lots of shows had classical scores, or quasi-classical scores which was great for learning the classics, in a fun way. Of course we kids didn't know we were learning we just saw Bugs Bunny conducting and some silly orchestra doing silly things while the music played.
The other music that was used quite a bit were old jazz renditions. The animators would do great things to emphasize the sounds being produced. Lots of times the chimney of a building might belch smoke in the tempo of a song, or the same being true of a locomotive chugging up a hill in time to the music. Animals on the side of the railroad might sing like the background singers. These cartoons were filled with sight gags in time to the music.
In 1974 my family moved to Eugene, Oregon and my daughter, Jennifer, spent her years 2 through 5 there. I had loved the Paul McCartney songs like "When I'm Sixty-four" and "Honey Pie" so I found myself messing with the old jazz sounds one evening in the practice rooms of the University of Oregon.
My mind went back to watching Saturday morning TV, with those old cartoons and the words just flowed. "I always wanted to be in an old cartoon, and watch the mice waltz down the street"....etc
The phrase "I'm in love with Betty Boop" was so true. I truly was in love with that early cartoon icon. Even though she had that silly old fashioned hair-do, she had those cute cheeks. Looking at her pictures now I see that she was quite sexy with a beautiful figure, legs,..........wow, quite a knock-out even by today's standards.
When I wrote it I was in a group in Eugene called "ME". We did mostly original music that I had written, but this was a song contribution which was not easily performed for most modern dance settings. Our gigs were restricted to dance band jobs because of the few performance venues available in that university city, Eugene. People did appreciate it, however, as a quirky kind of song, more for listening than for dancing.
Within a few years of living in Eugene I eventually moved to southern California where I wrote another song similar to "Old Cartoon"..............."I'm Too Shy To Send You My Valentine". But, that's another story for another blog.

Old Cartoon on Amazon.com

We're Americans, Too (The Territories Song)

2013-06-16T21:45:00.002-07:00

When I had moved to Guam in 1990 the common question by most of my friends in the US states was, "what is Guam?" Of course they also said, "where is Guam?" I had always prided myself in believing that I was quite good in geography and history, but I was at a loss. I really didn't now myself. I believe the Oregon state curriculum might have studied the US territories in the 4th grade. But, I think it must have been towards the end of the school year and our teacher had missed it. Anyway, I was one of those who didn't know anything about Guam.
When I returned to Guam after a few years spent back in Oregon, my home state, it was my responsibility to take a "history of Guam" class. That class spurred many discussion in that many of the participants were also from the states and were curious about the territory status of the United States. Our instructor, Tony Palomo, a professor from the University of Guam told us all the facts about the territories.
This was very fascinating to me and I felt moved to "publicize" the territories and what seemed to be their hidden status within the US system.
In my mind while writing the music for "We're Americans, Too" I was thinking of "I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy", at least in the general chord structure. I wanted something that said proudly "here we are, the territories" but keeping it positive. So, I used lots of major key chord changes.
When it came time to list the territories of the United States in the lyrics, I wasn't exactly sure what they all were so I called Mr. Palomo once again and explained my reason for checking with him. He was more than happy to inform the listeners of my song the correct territories. Of course after that I had to somehow take that list and make it poetic. That was a bit of a job.
The summer after the release of my album, which included "We're American's, Too" I performed this song in the Ashland, Oregon 4th of July parade while sitting in a beautiful car with the music playing loudly from the speakers.
Years later I also sent 75 cassettes of my album to Guam's US congressman, Underwood, to give to members of congress stressing the song and it's meaning. "Don't forget about Guam and the territories."

We're Americans, Too (The Territories Song)

Dunderbeck

2013-04-19T16:30:00.002-07:00

In the early 60s my family, father, mother, and two brothers were living in Portland, Oregon.
On one occasion that I clearly remember a friend of my mother coming to visit our family. She came from the same small town of Sydney, Montana where my mother had been raised. Her name was Mary McDorney and was an accomplished musician and singer who had a huge collection of what today we might consider "folk music". That musical label is a bit blurry actually because early country music was also from this source.
She brought her banjo to our house which for me was the first time that I'd ever seen such an instrument up close. She sat in our living room and played tunes, which my mother loved especially. My mother and she sat for hours and hours remember old times and showing us boys these songs.
Many years later I had my first job of teaching elementary music in a school in Medford, Oregon and it occurred to me that the kids might enjoy some of these old songs. So, I hunted around and found a version of the song in an old songbook, but it wasn't the one that I'd heard years prior. So, I took the lyrics and combined them with what I recalled from my childhood. My version was a hybrid.
In 1996 I recorded this version in combination with the other selections as a part of my release "Hafa Adai! Fun Songs From Guam And Around The World". Obviously this collection of songs then becomes very eclectic to listeners wherever they might be. But, it is all a part of my personal musical heritage. This song from that early confrontation with my mother's background in Montana.
What might be interesting to many people is that this song has shown a considerable following. I thought it would be a sleeper when I recorded it but instead I believe people have hunted this song down via internet search for the title "Dunderbeck". I hope it is of interest to you too.

Dunderbeck on Amazon.com

Tumon Bay

2013-03-21T20:35:00.002-07:00

In August of 1993 my family moved back to Guam. Actually that is not totally true. My daughter moved simultaneously to a job in Phuket, Thailand while we moved back to Guam after being there a few years prior. The island had developed considerably since being there in 1990-91, our previous time there.
A musical friend of mine, Jeff Patterson, Jeff Patterson profile had also decided to check out life on Guam and landed within a short time after our arriving. He stayed with us in our apartment for a brief time.
Jeff and I hadn't written anything of consequence before this although we had worked together in creative musical groups since our days in high school and college.
We sat down and started to write a melody, a three note bit that felt very soothing. We wrote that on my new guitar which I had purchased use in my music classes at Tamuning Elementary School where I was the elementary music specialist. That three note bit was the center point, but we had no words. Nothing! It was one of those blah-blah-blah songs...... We used the words "light like air" which felt nice.
In my mind I felt we were writing a song on the lines of Air Supply or something. It had that kind of felling to it. We had the whole song written melodically. It was pretty good; even the harmonies were following into place. But, it was still "blah, blah, blah" or "light like air" and that had to go. So, we were driving in the car with Barb and Julian Janssen and Barb said, "how about 'Tu-mon Bay' that works" and it could be a piece for the most important tourist spot on Guam.
Wow! Inspiration! All of a sudden the car was alive with the phrase "Tumon Bay". But, that was just the chorus. What about the verse?
Jeff literally went swimming the next day in Tumon Bay and after sat down and the whole lyric flowed out of him. In this situation the place, Tumon Bay, actually inspired via its natural beauty.

So, it came back to us together to finalize the lyric. We already had ideas of its use. We were going to present the song to the Guam Visitors Bureau for use as a bit for their advertising. We recorded it on a cassette and with lyrics accompanying it I presented it to GVB. They took forever to get back to me and when they did their response was, "it's about Tumon Bay, not Guam" That was true, of course. It zeroed in on one locale and not the entire island. But, we still had a great song.
Jeff left Guam shortly to return to the Pacific Northwest. So, the song sat unused.
For me, 1996 found me recording a children's CD called "Hafa Adai! Fun Songs From Guam And Around The World". I needed some more material and "Tumon Bay" seemed ripe for use. So, I recorded it overdubbing my voice three times for the background harmonies. The harmony that I sang (two part) in the second verse was what Jeff would have sung if he had been available; but he was in the states.
That song got a bit of help from my friend Tom Renfro who was a DJ at the time on Guam's public radio station. It got a good response and I appreciated his help in publicizing it.
I was now working at St. John's School in Guam in 1997. Another school had just recorded an album for Christmas and gained a lot of acclaim for it. The administration and other teachers saw my skills in songwriting and suggested that our school should put out a CD of some sort also. I went back to the studio that had recorded my CD and when they heard that I was representing St. John's School the price went up. The school was seen as wealthy and should be able to put up the money.
No was the answer to that. I came back from the studio with an inflated price and was given a definite NO. So, now what?
My friend Chris Evola, who was a supporter of my work suggested getting a digital recorder and do it ourselves. Of course he was saying "you Dave". I had never recorded anything on my own totally, except demos for sending to publishers. This would be a new undertaking and honestly I was afraid of my own "get it done quickly" style of doing things which left quality somewhere in the backseat.
But, he convinced me and I in turn convinced the school of the low price and what my goal would be, to create a CD for the school.
I thought of Jeff and my song, Tumon Bay, as the piece to work with. So, I created a backing track slower and more sultry than the previous recording. I also created a "waves hitting the shore" sound for an introduction to the song.
I started working with my 4th, 5th, 6th grade choir to sing the harmonies behind what would be the lead singer. The background voices were recorded around one microphone in a classroom. I didn't have enough headsets so some of the children were the primary singers and the rest heard their singing and sang to the timing of their singing. In retrospect I have to say I can't believe we were actually able to come up with anything worthwhile, but it was wonderful.
I had selected Natasha Melwani, who had a very nice smooth melodic voice, as my lead singer. Her mother would drop her off at the school and we would record her part verse by verse. There were many takes and I would have to judge each one on its quality and ask her back a few times. You must remember that the song is 5 minutes long and each verse had to be as perfect as it could be. The work was gruelling for a sixth grader to deal with, but she was a trooper and the final product was wonderful.
Guam is a destination resort to the Asian area. Millions of people, especially from Japan, visit Guam each year. As much as songs about Guam might attract English speaking listeners the truth is that more Asian languaged persons visit Guam, so if a song could be in their own language, that could be a very good thing.
I saw this opportunity and went to work on it. I first presented the lyric to one of the Japanese language teachers at St. John's, Ichie Shepherd, and asked her to translate the song for me. She did that, but the result was not lyrical enough. That can be a problem in dealing with translation of lyrics.
With this new thought, translating to Japanese, I needed a new singer who was fluent in Japanese. There was a new girl to St. John's, Sanae Okada who had just recently moved from Japan to Guam. Her mother, by chance, was quite talented at music and she took it upon herself to make a more poetic Japanese Tumon Bay lyric. What you hear on the recording is a synthesis of Jeff's lyric and Mrs. Okada's poetic work.

The music of the Japanese Tumon Bay was taken by my friend Chris Evola who was a teacher of physics at St. John's School. He worked for a year or longer at creating a music video using images of Tumon Bay and of course the singer, Sanae Okada. In the video are students of St. John's, and curious and I feel innovative use of color, and the natural beauty that is Tumon Bay.

Tumon Bay as performed by Dave Janssen

The Dinosaur Song

2013-03-19T01:27:00.001-07:00

In 1989 I got my first job teaching music. The school was Orchard Hill Elementary School in the Phoenix-Talent School District in southern Oregon.
I had not expected to be teaching music to little children and I found myself grasping for musical material to fulfill the needs of the teachers who sent their children to me.
One class in general was so full of energy and curious 2nd graders. One day their teacher came to me and said that the class was going to be focused on the study of dinosaurs for the next 9 week period. She handed me a paperback book full of simple songs from the series "Wee Sing". Those songs are OK, of course, but nothing that thrilled me.
So, before school one day I sat down and started to mess with parallel 4th riffs and with Queen's "We Will Rock You" in my mind. Before long I had the basic chorus of "Dinosaurs".
The kids arrived and I started the riff on the piano and they loved it. We kept at it and within a few minutes (because of the sound of the slow heavy beat) they started trudging around the music room repeating "Dinosaurs" bent over in imitation of their slow moves. From that moment it was almost a collaborative moment. I started making up lyrics that might rhyme with dinosaur names. By the end of the day, with another class as well, I had the song almost to its completed end.
In 1996, when I was going to record children's songs for my CD, this song returned to me, and I laid it down synthetically with a computer 'band'. The only overdub for the song was a sound effect for the huge bass heavy thud of the dinosaur stomping which was the recording engineer's idea.
After the release of my CD this song has been the one requested the most often by the little ones. The Dinosaur Song.

The Dinosaur Song on Amazon.com

Lost In A Book

2013-03-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

In 1993-4 I was working at Tamuning Elementary School in Guam as the music specialist for grades 2-5. I shared office space with a teacher of advanced learners for the school and she was well connected throughout the school system. She had invited me and my family for dinner one evening and I shared a song that I'd co-written called "Tumon Bay" for the people gathered together. With that as my songwriting calling card she had an idea as to who I was musically.

One day at work she said to me, "one of the schools in northern Guam is looking for a song to promote reading. Do you think you could write a song for their purposes? There isn't any money in it but it would be your song to use as you please."

With that I started jamming on some ideas. For some reason the beginning guitar riff to "Who'll Be The Next In Line" popped into my head. There is absolutely no connection between that and reading, but that's what got me started. In a very short time I had the chorus:

I got lost in a book, I couldn't find my way out

I couldn't leave by the way that I came

I got lost in a book, and the further I went

The words that I read led the way

Oh, lost in a book, oh, lost in a book

You can find yourself in a page

The imagery of someone literally walking into a book and walking (as in walking down a path...."Wizard Of Oz"-style) was in my head. So, with that I had the chorus.

Then, I started thinking of different things to read, which led me through a "list" of reading materials that kids might read.

You should find a story, something you'd like to read

Someone's life, or a poem, or prehistoric beasts

And after reading a while, you'll discover a style

That appeals to what you like

And you'll get lost in a book, oh, lost in a book

Find yourself in a page

The list of the second line is really me, Dave Janssen. I love biographies and always have. Poems? Yes, again, and dinosaurs? Love them. My friend Gary Aronson from Portsmouth School in Portland had dinosaur teeth and bones that he and his dad had found in eastern Oregon and I went to his house after school a few times and saw that collection. That all preceded the "Flinstones".

But, I now needed a second verse. The song was too short as it was. I'm not sure who inspired the next bit, but whole language was the rage at the time and the idea of "creating" and not just reading a book was an outgrowth of that educational concept. So, I thought of "writing a book" as the outcome of reading books and wanting to become a part of the book from the other end......creativity.

The song had been written in 1994, but the recording did not proceed until 1996. I used the song in its original version with me playing guitar for my classes, when it suited the purpose of promoting reading.

I planned to record a children's album in the Spring of 1996. So, I was told to create backing tracks with my keyboard from which we would overdub instruments and eventually the vocals. I laid down the tracks, including "Lost In A Book".

When I recorded the track for this song it was very minimal. My intention was to lay a guitar over the top in the overdubbing stage. But, when the engineer heard the backing techno sound he stopped me and said, "hey, forget the guitar, listen to that all by itself". I was skeptical, but ultimately went along with his thinking and it was great. My first techno sounding song, which the kids loved. Gone was my Kinks inspired riff, but that's the creative process, including the recording stage.

When you record songs, you don't know which song is the one people will use the most. But, with time "Lost In A Book" got the reputation that it deserves.

In 2001 a colleague became president of the International Reading Association of Guam and it was her desire to use the song as the theme song for the entire island's Read-A-Thon for 2001. It did so well that they used it again the following year.

In 2002 I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and the school where I taught heard the song and decided to use it for their focus song for a city-wide competition and again the school took a singing/dance group to the International Reading Association convention in the spring of 2003 where we performed for the delegates.

In 2003 my family moved back to Guam where I reconnected with the IRA of Guam once again. This time it was the desire of the leader to use the song, but this time taking it to the US International Reading Association's convention in Reno, Nevada, where I performed the song once again.

The song is available on Amazon.com, ITunes, Rhapsody, and a number of other music download sites.

Lost In A Book (Amazon.com)

Lost In A Book (youtube.com)

Dave Janssen Songs "Why Do I Write Songs"

2013-03-04T18:49:00.001-08:00

Why do I write songs?
I've been absorbed by songwriting since I was around thirteen years old. When the Beatles hit the stage on the Ed Sullivan show and my older brother told me that their band members wrote their own songs, for some reason, that hit me in a way that I'd never been able to shake.
The idea that someone would take a simple melody and a lyrical thought, a story, an emotion and put it down for all to hear inspired me and stays with me to this day. If people would say, "what did you do?" "Yes, I worked in a library, I worked in a store, I had a booking agency, I was a teacher, but I wrote songs is what I do and will leave behind someday."
I suppose we all want to be immortal in some way. People have children to continue their genetic code into the future. People create huge monuments, buy property,
A song or literary work is like a child, I think. We create that bit of sound and lyric combination and let people hear it for so many reasons. But, it is a piece of us or where we were at that moment in time. Some songs are an amalgamation of many things imaginary and real. Some are straight and to the point, raw. Sadly some songs are just drivel with no purpose. Each song has its own purpose, whether whimsical or serious, perhaps even spiritual.

For a period of time I will be sharing some of my songs on this blog with explanation as to "why" I wrote them. Whether "hits" or "misses" these songs had their beginnings in my mind. Whoever reads my writings might get a better picture of who I am from the body of work that I've created. In some cases, I might devote to the recording of the songs, who played, curious stories of what went on at the time to make the song or the recording. This will be a peeling of the onion to see what is underneath.

Dave Janssen Songs

30 Day Tourist Visa/To Work Visa/ Marooned in Hong Kong!!

2012-05-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things about a big school like Suzhou Singapore International School is that it has a budget for dealing with all aspects of teacher's visa needs. Because I had arrived so late and because the principal rushed me to the school they used the quick route, a tourist visa, to get me into the country. But, what that meant was that I would need to leave after 30 days, leave the country, and then reenter after obtaining a work visa with documentation which I had received through the human resources department of SSIS.

I was actually excited with this prospect because I do love to travel by plane, no matter where the destination might be. For me the destination out was the same for entry, Hong Kong. So, the school had booked a flight and a stay at the same hotel in Hong Kong. Once there I would again go to the Chinese visa building and this time give all the documents needed and within a few days return and have the Z work visa necessary for the rest of the year.

So, I was driven to Shanghai's Pudong Airport by the school's hired chauffeur and got on the flight for Hong Kong leaving a day prior to the end of my tourist visa. I arrived in Hong Kong and again took the train, and then the taxi to the same hotel that I'd used one month earlier. This was like a little vacation for me. I was even getting paid for this trip as well as all the expenses, so why complain?

The next day I went to the Chinese visa bureau and again went through the long line, as I had in October, early in the morning preparing for giving the documents to them and returning the next day to receive my work visa. Everything went well as it had one month before and I returned to my hotel to wait for my visa the following day.

Shenzhen train station

I took the extra time to search out a special purchase for a friend of mine who told me a particular skin cream was much cheaper when purchased in Hong Kong. I was only happy to get this item since I was in the district of Hong Kong where it could be obtained easily. Duty for certain products are very excessive when purchased inside China. Also, that evening I made plans to visit a friend of mine who had just moved to Shenzhen, right over the border from Hong Kong. It was merely a short train trip away.

That next day I went to the bureau and was very happy to pick up my work visa and I was on my way. No one explained anything about the visa to me, but I figured I was secure in using it for visiting my friend that evening, in Shenzhen. I was now the holder of a Chinese Z visa.

That evening I took a train to the border of Hong Kong and China at Shenzhen. At this station were lots of shops and restaurants and my friend and I had made plans to have a little bit to eat and a cup of coffee. At the border all the trains passengers had to go through customs in the normal way you would as if you were entering China for the first time. Of course I had my visa now and I was confident as I passed the guards and officials en route to where my friend had told me to meet him. Actually, it was a little more complicated than that. I had to call him when I arrived and he came to me. We spent an enjoyable couple of hours talking and sharing since we hadn't seen each other since our time on Guam together. Then, as it was getting very late I left and reentered Hong Kong and took the train back, followed by a taxi ride to my hotel.

The next morning I checked out and made my way to the Hong Kong airport once again. This time happy that I now had my work visa and would now spend the next good part of a year without that to worry about anymore. I strode up to the China Airline counter and took out my passport and ticket information. Then came the shock of my life!

The China Eastern airline counter woman said, "I'm sorry sir, but you cannot fly today. You do not have a valid entry visa!" I stood there absolutely stunned. What was she talking about? I had just gotten my work visa yesterday. I remember another man being asked to assist me as I felt like I was going to have a heart attack or something.

What was she talking about? I showed her my visa once again. She said, "you used this 'once only' visa last night at the border going to Shenzhen, sir." OMG. It was a one use only visa and I had used it to see my friend for coffee and small talk. Now what?

The airline assigned a young clerk to me to help get myself organized. I really think that I was about to have a heart attack. First, they said they would honor my ticket for days to come, so that was OK. But, now what? The clerk took me to a travel agent on the floor of the airport beneath the level where we were currently. I went to the desk and they said they could get me a tourist visa into the country within 24 hours. So, I paid the fee and gave them my documents and set out to spend one more night in Hong Kong. This was Thursday and I would return on Friday to this counter, get my visa and get back to Suzhou.

Meanwhile I got back on the train and headed back to the hotel that I'd stayed in. When I arrived I asked for a room only to find that they were full up and now I would need to find another hotel. So, I sat down and thought a while for my next move. The hotel was actually very good at finding me another hotel that would be reasonable for my extra day. I decided on a Ramada Inn and so the hotel doorman flagged down a taxi and I was on my way.

The evening was quite uneventful accept for my contacting the school in Suzhou to tell them of my dilemma. The school's human resources woman changed the flight to the next day for me and I was relieved to think that I would soon be on my way "back home." I did economize on dinner by buying a few inexpensive fruits and Chinese foods (like a bao) which were quite tasty.

I got up early, paid my room fee, and again took my things to the airport via taxi, and train. When I arrived I went directly to the counter where my visa was being processed. The woman who had helped me the day before wouldn't look me in the eye. She looked everywhere but at me and said, "sorry sir, but we cannot get you a visa." I was furious! I had waited 24 hours and given them this job to do and now what? Was I not going to be able to return to China at all? Again my mind returned to the evening with my friend and thought, "was that worth it?" It was still morning at this time, so if I hurried I could make it to the visa bureau before the end of the working day.

I again took the train into Hong Kong and went directly to the visa bureau. I got in line and waited and waited. Time seemed to move very slowly. There was a special line for problems and I met what seemed to be the main visa bureau officer. I pleaded with this man to give me another 30 day tourist visa, after I told him my story about using the one use visa to go to Shenzhen. He laughed at me which did not endear him to me. But, I hid my anger the best I could and waited his next best deal. He told me that he would give me a seven day tourist visa and that was the best he could do. What could I do? I knew that wouldn't do the job, but I had to bet back to Suzhou. I took my chances and said, "yes, give me the seven day visa."

Ramada Inn Hong Kong

This was now the end of the day and I couldn't come back to pick up the visa until Monday morning, so I left once again to return to the same Ramada Inn for the weekend. I felt truly marooned in Hong Kong. I took long walks around the hotel district where the Ramada Inn was located. I got to know that area of Hong Kong quite well. There were lots of shops for all kinds of food, clothes, and Chinese herbal medicines. I liked walking through the side streets and seeing the daily life of these people. From my hotel window I had a great view of the Hong Kong harbor which has constant movement from sampans to large ocean going vessels.

Finally Monday arrived and I made my way once more to the visa bureau to pick up my visa and catch the plane. YES! The seven day visa was ready and again I made my way to the airport by way of taxi and train. I was finally on my way back to Suzhou. I caught the plane and Hong Kong was in the past.

Starting Elementary Orchestra....Late

2012-05-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I had arrived at Suzhou Singapore International School the second week of October. School had been going since the middle of August so all the classes that I had were late to begin.

The school is large enough for there to be two elementary music specialist. The school year started with a traumatic beginning to the music department. Whoever had been hired to be the second music teacher came the first day, walked in the door, and by the end of the first day had decided (for whatever reasons) to turn and walk away once more. This left my musical colleague with double the load. There were nearly 500 students and usually they were divided between the two teachers. She had to have twice normal sized classes until I arrived.

So, when I did arrive she gave a sigh of relief that someone had come to ease the burden. What I hadn't mentioned before was that each of us had a specialization of musical duties for this school. She had the elementary choir and I had the elementary string orchestra.

My experience prior to SSIS was inclusive of many musical duties. I had taught elementary choir, middle school choir, high school choir, middle school pop band, high school pop band, and middle and high school orchestra. So, I knew what was necessary for starting the year with the elementary orchestra, but it was now two months into the school year.

That put a bit of a rush into my procedures. Within a week of arriving I had put a notice out to all who had previously been in orchestra, but I also invited others to audition as well. So, by the third week I was listening to auditions during all my breaks to make up for the fact that it hadn't been done in August.

Students would come in with their instrument and play a short passage as well as a little scale work to hear their facility on their instruments. Those involved ranged from second through the fifth grade. Most were placed in the orchestra, but there were a few who needed some further private lessons to play the musical arrangements which would be our repertoire. One little girl, a Kindergartener, came in after only a few lessons on the piano and wanted to be the orchestra's accompanist. Disappointed perhaps, but realistic, she had to be sent away to return later or even the next school year with more performance experience. Many of these students, with only a short musical career, were actually quite advanced. As can be expected there were more piano players than could be used, but I had a plan for their inclusion.

The music which was in the filling cabinet was a bit advanced for many of the youngest students. That is a problem when it comes to young, young groups. The first job of a good instructor is to see exactly what their group is capable of. So, I set out to do just that. As much as some of these students had auditioned they were young and inexperienced which showed in their playing.

In my work prior to SSIS I had created a considerable number of arrangements using Sibelius music software. For the beginner musician this is a Godsend. If the part given by the instructor is much too difficult it can be rewritten to allow for the student's personal growth. After the student has improved the part can again be rewritten easily to a higher degree of difficulty. This almost amounts to individual instructional materials, but that is a preferred alternative to the traditional way which leaves some musicians "lost".

So, rehearsals began in earnest. Our first performances were going to be during the holiday time. In China it was not a good idea to perform Christian songs, so my repertoire was confined to generic songs like "Jingle Bells" and things like that. I suppose that's normal in American schools, too. I had just come from a Christian school where there were no restrictions in this way. When you think about how late in the school year I began working with the children it's a bit of a miracle to have gotten many pieces learned in time for those performances. But, we did and as that began it was already time to look past January 1st to music for Chinese New Year which was a much bigger holiday than Christmas in China. My work was cut out for me.

Visiting My Chinese Friends' Apartment

2012-05-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

I had stayed in contact with my Chinese friend who had greeted me the first day in Suzhou. That late night mishap was now a standing joke between us. She, her fiancee, and their friends were having fun with this American man who had come to work in Suzhou. People are keen on trying to improve their English skills in China by conversing at casual dinners and such and she and I had met a time or two to have a little dinner and conversation. She and her friends were all recent graduates of the University and were very much interested in what I might teach them by way of our conversations.

One evening she suggested to come to her shared apartment for a meal which her boyfriend would prepare for us all. She explained that he was much more the cook than she was. I immediately accepted the invitation which would be for the following Saturday morning and into the day. She wanted me to experience the whole preparation of the meal; from buying the food, to serving it, and finally a bit of entertainment in the afternoon. So, I was set and ready to go with the directions which she had given me to show to the taxi driver.

Saturday morning arrived and I went down to the boulevard to flag down a taxi. She had given me her cell phone number and helped guide me to the destination through the use of our cell phones. The taxi drove me to the old section of Suzhou to one of the main streets. As I looked around I saw the tower of the university and streets crowed with people, but no friend. I had paid the taxi and now was abandoned on the street waiting for my friends.

Out through a small passageway came she and her boyfriend. We didn't stay there but for a few seconds. She led me, along with her boyfriend across the street into a little alleyway. The alleyway led back between two buildings into yet another alleyway at right angles with the first. Packed into this little space were people selling their goods. These were mostly food stuffs such as eggs, live chickens, baby chicks, live fish, vegetables of every type that I knew, and more that I'd never seen before. There were nuts, fruits, meat that was being cut for customers, etc, etc. This was a virtual underground supermarket at cut rate prices. This was how Chinese in this part of Suzhou shopped.

My friends were very familiar with this people's market and how it worked, but I was new to it and so I followed behind them gawking at all the variety of foods and how they were being sold. I couldn't help but wonder about things like meat and items that spoiled. Would the blood all on the ground and smell forever in that place? This must be free enterprise at its most basic. Does the government regulate this sort of thing. Furthermore, is this common place throughout all of China? For these people, is this their occupation, or is it a part-time thing which they do to raise a little extra money? It was a Saturday, perhaps this is the equivalent of a "Saturday Market" back in the US. So many questions, but who do I ask for the answers?

When they had finished their purchases we walked back out through this maze of people and disorder to the street where I had been dropped off by the taxi. We continued through the little passageway, which also had dealers everywhere selling things. What I notice in this section was that there were book sellers everywhere. We were walking toward the university housing. There was a canal which we crossed via a nice modern bridge, but even on the bridge were book sellers with a variety of books including text books which would be sold to students as they passed. On the banks of this canal were two fishermen, but they had no fishing poles. These two men had birds which they were letting loose in the water. This was Cormorant fishing, using birds to dive into the water to collect the fish and then retrieve the fish from their mouths. I had heard of this from geography books but I'd never witnessed it. What a concept! This was a time tested system, but beyond my American heritage.

As interesting as this was my friends were almost home now and they led to me to a grouping of apartments that were a bit more rustic than I'd seen in Suzhou Industrial Park. These apartments resembled the row houses that I'd seen in travelogues of England. The structures were all concrete and had some construction defects. In fact, I hit my head rather hard on the overhanging door frame which didn't quite meet up to my height. BANG! And it did hurt for a while.

Their apartment was on the third floor. They led me into a rather cool apartment and linoleum floors, rather rough furnishings, and a bedroom for the one couple, and two other bedrooms which were also occupied by two other couples. The entire apartment couldn't have been more than 800 square feet. But, these were recent graduates and they found this to be a fun life style, although crowded.

The boyfriend quickly began preparing the foods that had been purchased. None of these things were what I had ever seen in my lifetime. But, I was going to be a good sport and try all that was put in front of me. Actually the meal was memorable in a positive way. I think they enjoyed watching my face as I tried these dishes. They wanted to see my reactions. I don't really know all that I ate accept for the lotus root. When I first saw the lotus root I asked my friend, "what is that?" Her answer? That is "snake." I became very concerned, as you might understand. She saw my shock and said, "what's wrong?" I repeated what she said, "snake?" (with surprise) She thought for a few moments and said, "Oh, snack! This is a snack." My adrenaline subsided.....and I ate a piece with delight to know that it wasn't really a snake I was eating after all.

After this Saturday lunch the guy especially wanted to do something recreational. So, they invited me to play basketball with them. looked out the window and there no further than a stone's throw was a basketball court for students from the university. We finished with the dishes and set out for the courts. I think they were curious as to my physical abilities with this American sport.

It was the two Chinese men, the two ladies, and myself. At first we played Horse. They didn't know that game so I showed them how to play it. All of us played and it was very enjoyable. Then, one of the two men saw one of their male friends and it was now a two on two men's game. My team won! I seemed to be on fire for some reason. I hadn't played basketball in years, but I'm sure I felt compelled to do my best against these young men. They all gave me high-fives and the game was over.

This was the end of the day for me. I was a bit exhausted, but exhilarated. Again my friend took me to the main street where I'd been left off in the morning and flagged down a taxi for me. This had been a very memorable day.

Going to Church in China

2012-05-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

By the second week in Suzhou I had met a Chinese friend who invited me to go to church at a Christian church. Let me say first of all that I was totally surprised by finding an outgoing Christian who would invite me to church. This was like a hand of God reaching down and saying "I am God, alive and well in this place that you had thought I was not." I jumped at this opportunity. Being raised in a Christian family going to church, or being invited to go to church, had a feeling of belonging that is hard to describe. In my mind being a Christian and sharing with other Christians has a commonality that is truly heartwarming, especially in Communist China. So, I jumped at the chance to go to this service.

I had no idea where this church was located so I followed the directions of my Chinese friend and took the appropriate bus at the correct time and we met up that second Sunday morning. The bus went for quite a long distance eventually coming to a university district with dormitories on each side. We got to a particular intersection and disembarked. At that point we walked for two very long blocks past an indoor sports complex, ending up near a beautiful lake which had a park along its shores.

The church was a huge edifice with a gigantic metal statue of Jesus in the church's courtyard. A part of the church's grounds had Sunday School where the children were while the parents were in church. This church was very new. It was at most five years old and obviously created to satisfy the needs of SIP (Suzhou Industrial Park) and its ex-patriot foreign workers. Peculiar as it might seem this church was paid for and built by the government of China.

The interior of these church was beautiful, although a bit clinical, in some respects. Made of concrete, it was similar to the chancels of cathedrals in Europe with the shape being in the sign of a cross. There was a central area, and to both sides were more pews. There were TV monitors in multiple places within the church so that all who attended could easily see and hear what the pastor or song leaders were saying.. There were two flat screens on each side of the church at intervals, a large monitor in the front on each side. Projected on these screens were lyrics of the songs being sung, the passages from the Bible being read as well as the liturgy which was to be read as the service progressed.

Each Sunday there were two church services. One service was the for foreigners which is what I attended with my friend that first Sunday visit, and also a service for the local Chinese Christians. The service for foreigners was restricted to only those who had a foreign passport. The Chinese were kept out. This gave us the impression that if the service by the westerners contained information opposing the Chinese government, the local Chinese would not be privy to these types of tainted words. This particular Sunday, however, my Chinese friend managed to participate somehow.

I remember when the service was beginning the pastor asked where the visitors were from. There were quite a few people who stood and told their country of origin. I stood up and said, "I'm from the island of Guam" which caused a murmur from the congregation....."where's that?" Actually I don't really know what they murmured, but they did say something to each other when I was announced. I found that to be a bit funny. But, I wasn't surprised in that many people in the world have no idea where Guam is located.

The service was nondenominational and very center field, nothing too fundamentalist, nothing too straight, either. I'm sure that the pastors that had been chosen for this job were selected to please as many parishioners as possible. Again you must remember that this was all provided by the government of China. The congregation was an interesting mixture of peoples; very cosmopolitan.

After the church service my friend and I took a walk along the edge of the lake. Whoever had chosen the spot for the church had chosen well. The edge of the lake was a huge park where many people seemed to gather on the weekend. I was to find that the Chinese really enjoyed parks as places of solitude; places to "get away".

When I returned to work the next day I discovered that my music colleague had missed the service on Sunday but was a regular with the performing group who assisted the pastor for music. She had been in China for seven years and was a part of the life blood of this congregation.

Beyond the church service and the building this experience had proved something to me. The family of the Christian Church (although not spoken of much within or outside of China) was alive and well in this most populous country of the world.

On The Bus

2012-05-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

The phrase "on the bus" means many things to people. For some it might mean buying into a particular program, following while the leader steers you and others toward a destination which he or she feels fit to lead you. I had a leader like that on Guam who felt compelled to drive his bus into a ditch and the wheels kept spinning while the people who were on the bus, out of desperation, got off the bus. Who wouldn't get off the bus in those circumstances?

But, another meaning for "on the bus" is simply the true straight forward meaning. To be "on the bus" was a way of life for those at this new school. It was a meeting place or a beginning of the day. It was a place where people met new friends who might remain the strongest of friends throughout their time together and into the future.

I, for one, have a long history of riding the bus. When I was a child in Portland, Oregon the bus was a form of transportation which some in my family used regularly because we had only one car and further it was cheaper and more convenient when the bus took us to the exact place.

When I reached upper elementary age I took the bus to school across Portland to a private school, Trinity Lutheran School. I got to really like the time on the bus because it gave me time to do homework before I returned home and I'd have the evening free for entertainment. I met some interesting friends on the daily trek across Portland.

But, now in Suzhou riding the bus was a new experience for an American teacher. All teachers and all workers rode the bus to and from the school. It was a benefit of the job to not have to pay for transportation. It was not necessary to have a car in Suzhou. That could have added a whole level of expense that was unnecessary.

As I'd said in a past blog I would need to be at the entrance of my apartment, Chateau Regency, at 7:23 exactly to be picked up by the bus. After a few days I became acquainted with the other SSIS employees who got on at my stop. In my own apartment house building lived a Chinese kindergarten teacher. Her claim to fame from my perspective was her ability to arrive exactly, and I truly mean exactly, at the time of the arrival of the bus. 7:23.....ah, yes, there she was walking not running across the street and never missing the bus once. She'd see husband leave and her daughter to her transportation and there she'd be.

Another person at my stop was one of the IT department Chinese workers. He was a friendly young man who often would arrive walking backwards to the stop. In China people do curious things and walking backward is thought of as a way of focusing the mind; something that is similar to other mind sharpening exercises.

As the school year would progress other short term employees would use this same bus stop. I was literally always the first to the stop, a personality trait to be on time if not ahead of time. I would use the time at the stop to introduce myself and build on my Mandarin skills.

The bus would stop at the prescribed time and the women would be sent up the steps followed by myself and the Chinese IT technician. I would greet the bus driver, after I practiced a few times, with Ni Hao and walk to the middle of the bus. At this stop, which was near the end of the route, there were only about eight employees sitting on the bus before our stop.

Because we all worked at the same destination I eventually learned most everyone's job and where they worked within the SSIS building. There was a Pre-K drama music teacher that I would work with in a very general way. She was more to herself in the lower elementary school by the nature of the young students that she served. Strange as it maybe she reminded me of a student that I'd had many years ago.

There was a woman who worked at the front desk answering the phone and other assorted assignments. Also, there was a quiet woman who was one of the best computer help desk persons that I'd met. One day I happened to sit next to her and she shared her earphones with me. She was listening to some American country pop music at the time and that impressed me. I remember the song, "You Look Beautiful In White" being one of the songs that I had heard that day. I thought to myself, "I come all the way to China to hear an American song which I'd never heard before."

The ride to Suzhou Singapore International School took us by Jinji Lake, down a long boulevard and through a series of other large avenues until we reached the school. The first time I rode this bus it became apparent that the bus driver was not the usual driver that I'd encountered before. The Chinese style of driving was a bit of anything goes. Even though we were on a large tourist styled bus he drove as if he were maneuvering a sports car. I was to learn that this was not unusual at all for drivers in China.

We finally got to the school and all the buses drove up almost simultaneously. We disembarked the buses in single file and entered the foyer of the school. Welcome to SSIS.