Jin Chi’s voice was one of my favorites from The Voice of China [1], but as with anyone coming from reality contest shows, her releases had been on the so-so side. This latest song called Hao Hao Guo (好好过, which I’m guessing it’s like saying I’ve Lived Well) gave me a lot of JeA vibes [1]. Those two should collab in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=568NPuupmO8
Jin Chi’s voice, though, it’s a breaking point. I love it.
For some of her last photoshoots, photographer Chen Man (known for some mad photoshop wiz magic) has been toning down her post processing, and this latest issue of Marie Claire China featuring my bias Zhao Wei is proof. I always think Zhao Wei looks super hot, though.
Han Hong brought out the big guns with the most perfect rendition of Heavenly Road (天路) [1] I’ve seen her do. You know she means business when she pulls that song out, so she -of course- was crowned the winner of this season of I Am a Singer. Well, it was about time! LOL
I still wish she and Meav could collaborate in a song together.
Of course I need this in my life~
When I visited China — already nearly a decade ago — I got myself a seal with my name on. It’s made of jade, square, and it’s pretty big, to be honest. I’m also not fond of the font used, so I scanned the print to illustrate it and did a digital seal of my own that I use to sign photographs and whatnot. But ever since, I’ve wanted to get a new proper seal. I’ve only got my grandfather’s old seal.
Though most websites dealing with Japanese seals (hanko) look sketchy, I finally ran into Hankoya.com — I didn’t know they made titanium seals! Woah~ The website is, of course, so chunky and hard to browse if you can’t read Japanese. I doubt they’d do international shipping.
But~ my gosh~~~ they even do silver and gold seals! There’s also wood ones (like maple or sandalwood), but how sketchy is it with ivory and horns? Is it legal to even sell anything remotely done with ivory?
The amber resin and the Satsuma cornus kousa (薩摩本柘) look so good too~
… and, BAM!
You gotta love a contest that focuses on material, composition and production. That’s my main problem with singing contests, there are soooooo many great voices out there, but when albums are released, they turn out to be very boring in production. Sun Yunying’s (苏运莹) voice isn’t even bad at all, she sounds great and unique and she sells Wild Child (野子) so well right from the start.
Oh, Happy Chinese New Year! Let’s start my (supposedly) bad-luck Goat Year with the now-mandatory Letterboxd list of my film collection~
I have a really weird history with films– born in the late 80s, you’d think I would’ve grown watching loads of 90s kids stuff, but I actually grew up with a lot of Silly Symphonies (which were released in the 30s) and loads of Disney 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s stuff, plus a lot of more grown up 80s movies. Poltergeist, The Thing, The Fly and The Stuff were particularly scary stuff (and I’m pretty sure I was scared of yogurt or white stuff at some point).
I don’t ever remember buying any original VHS tape, except for the rare birthday gift of a Disney’s Sing-Along Songs chapter or that X-Men tape I have. My first DVDs buys were Coyote Ugly, She’s All That and Loser — you can’t blame me. I was a 15-year-old girl. The collection grew bigger, and possibly exploded during my years abroad. I’m nearing my 500th movie.
OH, man~ the things one has to do to get Marit Larsen albums. Spark wasn’t that hard, since it somehow made its way to Amazon, but it seemed so unlikely that When the Morning Comes would show up there again, so I went hunting. It was not a fruitful web-hunt with everyone telling me they did not do international shipping.
More power to friends! Way to go, Julz~
Marit’s 4th album has finally joined its siblings. It also means Marit’s the only 2014 album I had actively physically purchased so far, beating my 2013 record when I only got BiBi’s Unlock as a present (more yay friends!). However, I did just recently physically purchased Calle 13’s Multiviral considering it was my album of 2014. I’m surprised myself.
I’m a little sad that most (if not all) my purchases are digital.
Oldie song, but new performance at… what seems, the Bird Nest Stadium in Beijing.
Mayday has just released the Nowhere Concert Movie in four editions: 3D BR + Live in Live Making-Of the concert DVD, Simple BR, Free Region DVD, and the DVD with the Making-Of.
They’ve also re-released their albums in Chinese versions, and I’ve seen (super expensive) Vinyls, as well.
I still can’t believe Asian Blurays are so expensive compared to their US counterparts. Now we all gotta way for Asian movies to be released in America.
Last year, I fell in love with Carrchy’s (卡奇社) music. And honestly, their 2007 album Daylight Allure (日光倾城) is pretty good stuff [Xiami] [YouTube Sample], but they hadn’t been releasing ANYTHING for many MANY years. Last night, they surprised with the release of the single track Clouds (云, Yun), which you can get in Xiami (Sorry, those who Xiami is blocking). I don’t know anywhere else where you might listen to their music [Here’s some Douban demos].
Other than that, happy listening!
Though I haven’t made successful contact with Milk@Coffee on Weibo, they’re still one of my favorite Chinese mainland artists, though I feel like they peaked with Give You a Little Color (给你点儿颜色) in 2010. Last year, they released Shine of Memory (时间的光) [Xiami] and though I picked Young Conviction (信仰年轻) as one of my pick songs of 2014 [1], Occasionally Still Think of You (偶尔还是会想起你) is the song that brought the most feelings ‘coz it made me think of my dad (even though it’s totally a love song).
Milk@Coffee just released a music video for it.
My dad’s bday is this Saturday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U_kK1iamNE
The lyrics go something like this:
Occasionally still think of you
in the middle of the night, when people are quiet.
Maybe I’m still not used to being without you.Occasionally still think of you,
repeating over the familiar scenario-
similarly, I still can hear the sound of your voice.
