I went to Kinta City last evening to catch the CNY Acrobatic Performance at 8pm even though I thought that it would be the same ol’ performances by the same acrobatic troupe from China. I have watched them a couple of times already but I didn’t have a choice since as far as I know, Ipoh Parade does not have any shows lined up yet until 31st January, 2009.

I went and am glad that I did. Here is a video of a very beautiful Chinese lady contortionist who looks like TVB actress, Gigi Lai (Gem of Life).

Her performance was flawlessly awesome. God only knows how much pain she went through when she was a kid training to be a contortionist. How the heck she does it, only contortionists will know. She looks like she is totally boneless, like a snake.

I know that many of us have watched something similar on TV already, especially on Chinese cultural programmes that are always shown on China’s CCTV on Astro. Still, watching it live is another experience altogether.

The God of Prosperity has arrived!! It sounds nicer in Cantonese, right?

At first, I thought I would not be writing a Chinese New Year post because I have been under the weather for the past couple of days (blame it on the awful weather here in Ipoh) but now my fuzzy head has cleared a little and it doesn’t feel as heavy anymore so here is a customary Chinese New Year post.

Over the weekend since Friday, I have been dropping by to Kinta City in the evenings to shoot some videos. On Friday, 23rd Jan, 2009, there was a double lion dance. I have watched plenty of lion dances already all these years and if you remember, I mentioned that we used to have lion and dragon dances at home on the first day of Chinese New Year as well.

But in the lion dance performance by this martial arts troupe, there was a drunkard lion, which I have never seen before. View my YouTube Channel for the videos.

Then on Saturday, 24th Jan, 2009, there was an acrobatic performance by an acrobatic troupe from China. One of the funniest moments was when one of the male acrobats liken himself to William Tell and asked members of the audience to hold a balloon on the head, with the mouth and even one guy had to hold it between his thighs.

The acrobat would blow a dart from his blowpipe to hit and burst the balloon. In this photo, the acrobat was blindfolded and the boy, who was his helper, rang an ice cream bell in front of the balloon to help the acrobat to focus on his target. Once again, I have these on video, which you have to click over to my YouTube Channel.

There is a performance as well at 8pm at Kinta City centre stage tonight but I have no idea yet what it would be. Stay tuned. And once again, Kung Hei Fatt Choy!!!

Just now, I wanted to go to Kinta City early to catch and video record the 8pm performance by the Tianjin Peng Yang Dance Theatre Troupe of China. Just as I was leaving the house, my aunt came over and delayed me.

So, I decided to leave the Olympus at home because I thought that by the time I reached Kinta City and found a place to park the car, the show would be over. However, when I reached there, they were only starting the third dance. I soon found out that there were only five dances and that means I missed two dances AND A GOOD SPOT!

No way could I find a place on the ground to shot over people’s back and heads so I had to go to the balcony of the first floor and shoot across to the stage. Well, if you have visited Kinta City before then you would be able to imagine the distance. But there was no crowd upstairs so I had plenty of room to manoeuvre.

I actually took more shots with my Nokia E61i but they all turned out totally washed out. I am so ready to dump it into the Kinta River right now!

I don’t regret that I did not bring along the Olympus. After seeing the dances, I know that I would not be able to shoot good photos because of all the movements, like the time I shot the bouncing Doraemon. I need some guidance on the settings to use for taking pictures of moving objects. AUTO just won’t do anymore.

Stage after the performance

And I know better than to shoot videos from across the balcony. I shot two videos of the China Blue Sky Acrobatic show a couple of weeks ago. They looked passable on my computer but after uploading them to YouTube, I don’t know what happened but they looked like they were shot underwater. Bah!