February 28, 2010 by Adam.

Last night we, Woo Ching White Crane (a Kung Fu School/Clinic/Lion Dance Troupe) performed at the Oak Tin Association Banquet (s). Banquets because there were two banquets taking place at the same time, one at China Pearl and one at Empire garden. This family organization represents three last names which are supposed to actually be one family. Due to royal relatives being sent to the south and having to change their names so as to not have a bid for the throne… or something like that. Maybe I’ll write another article which more clearly describes this history.

Anyway, the three names are Chen (and all variations like Chin, Chan) Woo (Wu, Hu, etc.) and Yuan (I don’t actually know anyone by this name I don’t think. There are also the Vietnamese spellings of these names but I’m a bit unclear as to what matches up with what.) Most of the people in the organization are under the Chen category and if the fact that two restaurants are needed to hold the banquets doesn’t seem to show that this organization has some influence in Chinatown, then the fact that Deval Patrick, Thomas Menino, Mike Capuano, and Sonia Chang-Diaz came to the banquet should.

As for our performance,  though it was a bit hectic and we were cut short due to time constraints, we did a good job. More importantly I saw some effort from the kids that I haven’t seen recently. Many of our team is of the Woo, Hu, Wu category (we are Woo Ching White Crane after all.)   And so we were performing for family members as well as dignitaries. One of the kids was sweating buckets and I have never seen him sweat.

Most notable to me was the performance by Kelly Tang, who I think is in fourth or fifth grade. This is the little girl I had recently been unable to get to perform. But last night, her Luk Lik form was so fierce and ferocious that I think I could not have done a better job. And if you think I am biased, I saw Deval Patrick’s eyes light up as he craned his neck to get a  better view, while Sonia Chang-Diaz leaned forward to pay closer attention to this young girl.

I am actually not surprised that she performed better when politicians show up.  This is because to some degree I have thought for a long time that she possessed the tenacity and good features to have a successful career in politics. More importantly, she is more preoccupied with what is morally correct and fair than my other students and so I think she will not only be a successful leader but one that is good to the people. Her upbringing will make her appeal to the underclass, and her refined features and the fact that she will become a woman will mean that she will appeal to upper class women as well. If she continues with Kung Fu, well, upper class males will give her a vote and a campaign contribution for the coolness factor.

So you heard it here first. Kelly Tang for Mayor, Governor, Senator, or President. But right now she just has to study for the MCAS.

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February 24, 2010 by Adam.

The below reports were forwarded to me through e-mail.

Not to be a downer but I guess those of us (myself included) who haven’t been doing the crime watch should drag ourselves back to it. But also, this didn’t happen in Chinatown in the old days and back then there was no “Crime Watch” per se. I don’t think we need to discuss those times too much except to mention that the community was more of a unit back then. Let’s redouble our efforts, this looks like it is only a couple of people causing all this trouble.

Boston Police: A-1 Downtown
Citizen Alert

Chinatown Robbery & Carjacking Advisory
Since 1/17/2010, there have been 3 carjackings and 2 street robberies committed in the Chinatown area.
·        On Sunday, January 17, 2010 @ 10:38 P.M., a 48 year-old Asian female victim reported that while at 25 Beach Street, a black male suspect, 5’10”, opened her car door and snatched her purse. When she resisted the suspect punched her in the face and stole her 2008 Toyota Corolla. The stolen vehicle was recovered the same night in the area of Hayward Place and the Harrison Avenue Extension.

·        On Friday, January 22, 2010 @ 6:45 A.M., an elderly Asian female victim was attacked at 15 Oxford Street by a black male suspect while entering the elevator. The 6’1” black male was wearing a white/tan baseball cap, black puffy jacket, dark pants and black sneakers with white soles and trim grabbed the victim by the neck, pushed her and demanded money. The victim was robbed of $100.00 US currency.

·        On Wednesday, January 27, 2010 @ 5:50 A.M., a 57-year-old Asian male was approached by two males while he was entering his vehicle at 21 Edinboro Street .  The two suspects demanded money from the victim. The suspects were described as (1) black male, dark clothing and dark hat & (2) white male 5’10”, thin, wearing a light brown jacket. The victim was punched in the face, knocked to the ground and was robbed of his wallet, US Currency and his vehicle, which was a 1995 Chevy Lumina van. The van was subsequently recovered 2/2/2010 in the Transportation Building garage by the Massachusetts State Police. The vehicle was towed and processed.

·        On Tuesday, February 16, 2010 @ 2:49 P.M., a 59 year-old Asian female victim stated that while sitting in the passenger’s side of a 2009 Jeep, at Beach Street and Harrison Avenue she was robbed by two black male suspects; possibly a white male. The victim stated that she was pulled from the car and punched in the face. The suspects fled the area in the vehicle with the victim’s purse including credit cards.

·        On Thursday, February 18, 2010 @ 7:20 A.M., a 65 year-old female victim was sitting in a vehicle at a parking lot located at Hudson Street and Tai Tung Street when she was approached by two black males ( one wearing a red jacket and the other wearing a black jacket). The suspects opened the vehicle’s door and demanded her purse. The victim refused and the suspects punched her in the face area several times before grabbing the purse and fleeing the area on foot towards Marginal Road . The suspects did get the victim’s credit cards and money during the robbery.

For more information, contact the District A-1 Detectives at #617-343-4571 and/or the District A-1 Community Service Office at #617-343-4627.

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February 24, 2010 by Chinatown Blogger.

‘Snake’ gets Chinese buzzing in Boston

Posted by James F. Smith February 24, 2010 10:05 AM

The world premiere this week of a new opera, “Madame White Snake,” has generated much excitement in the Chinese community in Greater Boston and beyond — including Boston’s Chinese sister-city, Hangzhou.

A six-member delegation from the Hangzhou municipal government arrived in Boston on Tuesday, in time for a reception by the opera’s supporters at the Four Seasons Hotel. But the main attraction for the visitors is tonight’s benefit gala performance at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. The legend of Madame White Snake, a snake-demon who becomes a woman so she can fall in love with a man, takes place in Hangzhou.

Tonight’s gala is not the official world premiere — that’s Friday night — but the first full performance of the opera provides a chance to celebrate several extraordinary collaborations. In creating the opera, librettist Cerise Lim Jacobs has fostered partnerships between the Boston arts world and the city’s Chinese community, as well as between Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival, in pulling off the first opera commissioned in Boston in decades.

Rehearsing “Madame White Snake.” Soprano Ying Huang works with director Robert Woodruff, and other cast members. Globe staff photo by Yoon S. Byun

I wrote an account in the Sunday Globe about Jacobs, a former corporate lawyer and prosecutor, came up with the idea and then made it happen. My Boston.com colleague Scott LaPierre produced a video about the opera, and a photo gallery of pictures by Globe photographers shows it coming together.

The Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center worked with the “Friends of Madame White Snake” to create classes and seminars — including “Opera 101″ — to teach members about Western and Chinese opera over the past year. More than 1,000 school children took part, many at the Josiah Quincy School in Chinatown.

Jacobs even wrote a youth play based on the legend, entitled “When the White Snake Cries.” Hundreds of young people, many bused from Chinatown, attended the shows at the Art Barn Community Theater in Brookline, said Carmen Chan, director of development for the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, one of the region’s largest social service organizations.

Giles Li, the arts director for the center, says the arts programs have been a useful way for Chinese-Americans who have moved out to the suburbs to stay connected with their community, even if they no longer rely on the neighborhood center for social services.

Selina Chow, the board president of the BCNC who focuses heavily on education programs, connected with Cerise Lim Jacobs and Hsiu-Lan Chang, a Brookline resident who as co-chair of Friends of Madame White Snake has worked non-stop to engage the community and raised funds for the three-performance run. Together they built up the community outreach efforts.

Tonight’s gala was organized by the Friends to raise funds as well as acknowledge all the community involvement. The BCNC received 100 tickets for its members, and the Friends also have donated tickets to other groups including the Perkins School for the Blind and the Massachusetts National Guard.

Carole Charnow, the general director of Opera Boston, said the opera “really has integrated the Chinese experience into the Theater District in a substantial and rich way.”

Elaine Ng, the executive director of the BCNC, said the opera project “is bringing back an element of our history and culture, and making it accessible. This is an opportunity to bring it back for Chinese immigrants, and Americans who don’t have the language. This opens up a whole new audience. It’s a whole different level of cultural exposure.”

The opera also has reawakened the mystery of the Madame White Snake legend, in Cerise Jacobs’ first English-language interpretation. “For me,” said Carmen Chan, “the demons always stood out. Now I see it as more of a love story.”

The Hangzhou delegation includes Xie Chongming, deputy director of the city’s foreign affairs office, and finance officials Zhang Zhen and Lu Bin. Hangzhou is one of  eight official sister cities for Boston. The city, located in Zhejiang Province southwest of Shanghai, is regarded as one of the most scenic and important cultural centers in China.

The opera may be performed at some point in Hangzhou. For now, it is scheduled to open the month-long Beijing Music Festival in October.

Song Tu, the program director for the festival, said by telephone that the Beijing festival’s artistic director, Long Yu, had co-commissioned the work with Opera Boston in part because “he wants Westerners to open their eyes to China, and see how we can connect with the world through the music, through creative, imaginative methods, and not only to represent the more famous traditional repertoire.”

Song Tu is himself a product of the Boston-China connection. He got his master’s in clarinet performance at Boston University in the late 1980s and lived in Boston for almost 10 years. He said he has noticed how James Levine has also widened the repertoire of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in recent years, “and he is open to more cultures and perspectives.”

“Madame White Snake”, Song Tu said, is more than just Chinese culture, but reflects “the world’s culture. It is not not purely Western, and it is not Chinese Peking opera. I’m sure there are a lot of elements in between. And this is the point.”

http://www.boston.com/news/world/worldly_boston/2010/02/snake_gets_chinese_buzzing_in.html

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February 23, 2010 by Adam.

 Sunday the 21st was the big New Year parade in Chinatown. Not a huge turnout in terms of audience but it did feel really low stress compared to past years. It was good to see some old members of the team show up and put in a lot of effort on the head. Police presence was good in that each team had a brightly colored officer that seemed alert, but at the same time there were no squad cars or horses trying to form barricades. In other words, the police seemed like they were part of us rather than an occupying force, which many in Chinatown are still sensitive about.
The audience also seemed more festive and there seemed to be less trouble makers. Last year we had a small run in with a couple teenagers who looked like they were on drugs if they were not selling them. Neither of them were Chinese by the way.  This year I didn’t even see anyone sketchy let alone have to deal with them. In fact a few old students who caught up with us asked if they needed help to hold the audience back and I told them it just to just relax and enjoy themselves. We came close to several teams and even did “wui see”or meeting of the lion heads with a couple too. On such meeting was actually shown in the Metro.

There just was less tension between everyone in general it seemed and I saw one audience member with a baby lion head of their own. I hope to see more of that in the future.

There were also student film crews assigned to each lion team. And the Census even had a station where they put out a chiang and a red envelope for the head. Everything seemed to be in harmony and easy going.

A good start to a new year.

-Adam

 adam.cheung@bostonchinatowngateway.com

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February 16, 2010 by Adam.

Yesterday, after doing  two Lion dance performances at the Museum of Fine Arts, we also performed the opening ceremony for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association’s New Year’s Banquet. I have been doing so many workshops geared toward people of non-Chinese descent that it has been a while since I have done a lion dance in its more natural setting. We did two lion heads and I even got one of my students to do more combos with me where we jump, stack on top of each other  to make the lion appear to suddenly reared up growing inhumanly tall, and then drop down and whirl around like a snake spinning in a curling tornado.

I appreciated the effort but I wished we had been practicing and performing this all along instead of waiting until now. (Although it does mean that today and everyday this week at the MFA we will perform this techniques.)

Maybe it was because I was tired before I even started the dance and so was slightly tranced out, because we were in China Pearl like so many lion dances we have done, maybe it was because as I look back in the head to the drum I saw that my Si Bak had suddenly appeared to play the drum (his Cantonese Music Association is also part of the CCBA so he happened to be there.) But I felt like I felt when I was first starting to do lion dance as a teenager learning about my Chinese Heritage.

The difference was of course was that instead of being unclear as to what to do, I confidently called out to Wingkay Leung (CCBA President) to get the lettuce from the Lion Head, instead of being afraid to communicate what needed to be done. It helped that I knew him from Crime Watch.  I also know Karen be caused she tried to tutor me when I was a very small child. (I was a terrible student.) Of course the Lion Gave her an orange.

And our team got a table which is a rare thing at these events. That’s probably the most fun I had as an adult at a banquet where we weren’t allowed to make a ruckus. It was good to be out of the house. I suppose I have started to think like an old man if I find these banquets to be a fun night out. But getting trashed at a club isn’t really that great when you think about it anyway.

-Adam

adam.cheung@bostonchinatowngateway.com

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