Monday, 27 August 2012

• Taiwanfest 2012 Toronto

  J and I went to Taiwanfest atToronto's Harbourfront over the weekend.  It was hot and sticky weekend.  The breeze coming in from the lake helped a bit.  But I was still sweaty and sticky at the end of the night.  There was food (I gorged on most of it before I even had my camera out).

  I think this was sausage w/ sticky rice.

  

  This was another sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf that has been steamed.  The inside had pork, peanuts, chestnuts and other goodies.

  

  There was stuff for kids to do. 

  

  This toy was not operated by battery.   Ok ok... it's a spin top.  It was trickier than it looks.  While I was watching, there was one middle aged woman who seemed to be very good at it.  A lot of folks weren't able to master it. 

  

  

  Members from the Wild  Harvest Music of Taiwan (aboriginal music)

  

  Tap dancing from Dance Works from Taiwan.  Despite the heat, they were quite energetic. 

  

  I did some digging and found out they do some pretty neat stuff.

  
  Thank goodness we were able to escape the heat by catching a documentary called Baseball Boys.  It's about a boys baseball team from a small school in Taiwan.  The movie does have subtitles although the trailer below doesn't.

  We also saw a couple of musicians on Friday and Saturday night.  I have never heard of any of them before although J knows the Mandopop stuff a lot more than I do.  They had a competent house band performing with them.  I don't understand the language (a few songs were in English) but that didn't really matter.  I had almost forgotten I enjoyed watching live music.  It's been awhile.

  Yen J - interesting jazz pop musician. 

  

  

  

  The next night we saw Victor Wong Pin Kuan.  He is more well known and a bigger draw than Yen J.  His deep and smooth voice charmed everyone.  He also knew how to work the crowd and kept a steady banter all night.  

  

  At one point, he took out his smart phone and filmed the audience.

  

  Some of the band members.

  

  

  

  I learned a few tough lessons on photography.  I was playing around with my aperture setting during the 2nd day and forgot to reset it for concert.  I didn't pay any attention to it until about halfway through the show.  I changed it back to where I wanted.  But sometime during the show, I messed it up again while fumbling around.  I had my flash with me but the pictures that worked best were without the flash.  The lighting for the 2nd show seemed a bit dimmer than the first.  I'm not sure why.  As a result, a lot of pictures of Pin Kuan were blurry. Also at one point during the show, I figured I better get my spare memory card ready in case I need it.  I knew it was securely stored in one of the many pockets in the bag.  I never did find it. 

  Growl... I was a bit red from being angry with myself.

  

   

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