Crazy Hair day!

It is the last day before the October break, and as usual this day is called "Crazy Hair day" and this means that everybody here at the college is wearing a kind of crazy hair, or even get it all cut of or shaved. And all for a good cause; a schools to schools project. We collect money and the year 12 students will bring this money and some books to Cambodia in November, and there hand over the books, teach English and help to renovate and refurbish classrooms at a local school.
Bur back to the Crazy Hair:

What a coincident. In fact I didn't think of this before I saw the video, but this is serious crazy hair!

"Those were the days"!

It is nice to have a visitor when it is a good friend you havn't seen for a very long time. So sometimes the hours goes by and the morning arrives before you want to face it.
But what does it matter in the end, and in the future it will be like; "Those were the days"!
Here brought into music and film by one of my favorite bands: "Leningrad Cowboys".

One!

Lately it could seem that I’ve been kind of preoccupied by numbers and visitor’s in my posts. Today’s number is the number of visitor’s we’ve got in our house in Tai Wan village at the moment.
He arrived on Thursday morning, where I picked him up at the airport and installed him in our guestroom.
Muecke is from Dresden and is a very, very good friend and I’m happy that he finally made it here to visit us. If you wonder about this funny name, then I have to tell you that it isn’t his real name, it is a nickname and means “mosquito”. Where, why and when he got this name, I have no idea, but never mind that.
First time I met him must have been 7 or 8 years ago. I was working at the Medienkulturzentrum in Dresden and he came as a participant to one of our courses in film and video making. Since then he has been one of my best mates -even that I’m not living in Dresden anymore- and he has been part of the most of the action in my life during my stay there, both the good and the sad stuff.
Should you have wondered why this blog is called something with “Traktor”, and also may have wondered why I –nearly- always is wearing a top with the funny logo; “Traktor-Trotzdem”, then that has also something to do with him. In 2003 the two of us were the founders of the fantastic Football team called Traktor Trotzdem in Dresden Neustadt.
This team still exists and I bet you have read more about it here, than what I tell you now.
Anyway the top I’m always –or nearly- wearing is the shirt of that team and should you want to learn a lot more –or even join in as a fan- you can read a lot more on the official web site; www.traktor-trotzdem.de.
Anyway back to this one visitor. Muecke finally decided that he had to come to Hong Kong and see how life is going around here, so the next weeks he’ll stay with us in the village, and I’ll try to show him so much as possible in the time he’ll be staying.

8,888!

Another important mark has been reached and jumped, and again there was something magical about it.
Some time ago –I think it was in April- I remember writing about what Leslie called the golden birthday as the time when you get the age of the date of your birth, like for instance become 24 on the 24th, or whatever. But is it indeed then right to call it the golden birthday? I will say no; it can only be kind of a silver birthday, as the golden one must be the optimal and unbeatable one, and can only be reach if you are 12 years or younger, meanwhile the silver is only possible for somebody aged 31 or younger.
So the golden birthday is to become 12 on the 12th of the 12th while the silver one is to become 31 on the 31st.
No this has –or shouldn’t have anything to do with birthdays being either golden or silver, no it should be about numbers being golden or silver. And here we close the circle again as we again can concentrate on the magical mark being reached. In this case it is the number of visitors to this site: Yesterday it reached the wonderful number 8,888.
It was a coincidence that I was logged on at this special time, and I can’t remember to have seen any of the other magical or golden numbers at all, but it hasn’t been as many either, only 7 of this kind of numbers before, and the next magical golden number will come after yet another 1,111 visitors will visit, like this one came after another 1,111 visitors visited the site since the last magical golden number; 7,777.
I’m really sorry I didn’t see or be able to capture this time in history, when this site passed this number, but instead I’ll give you a look at yesterdays golden number, and try to encourage you to keep your eyes open, coz then you might be lucky to see the next one, or to be sure to be the one hitting the number, you just visit the site 1,111 times.

Crossed Fictions#1!

Day & night -summer & winter!

The view is always the same and then again not quite! It is normal that light changes the view, but amazing how the seasons can change it also.
Four views on Central district on Kong Kong Island.

324 d-range?

Sometimes my crappy PCCW cell phone gives a noise on Saturday mornings. A new SMS turns up and by opening it I get this message; 324 d-range!
It doesn’t mean that 324 are deranged, and the first time I received this message I was confused and couldn’t really relate to it. After some speculations I suddenly realized what it all meant. The code always comes from my friend Ralf, a German guy living here not too far away, and always enjoys his beer at our little watering hole; ‘the Dong”.
If you go back in the archive you will find a post called: “A completely new perspective”. This is about my new sport; Golf.
To make the story short, then I got a set of Golf clubs from another friend –Bruce – who moved house and had this set of clubs he never used and didn’t want to bring to his new place, so Ralf was sure that I wanted to take them. I did and so my golfing career could kick of.
Ralf took me to the driving range and taught me the first lesson; keep your left arm straight and focus on the ball, iron no. 7 and bang, the ball went ahead like a starting Boeing 707. Well sometimes it did, but mostly it just took a loop up in the air and landed 5 meters outside the box from where I tried my best to hit it, or it just skimmed the surface and stopped not even 50 meters out. “This wont even bring you onto the green.”
Yesterday I went again for the 3rd time, with Ralf as my coach. He isn’t really my coach, but he is the only one who has the patience to deal with me and my poor efforts, but I guess he enjoy that he can have a beer and sometimes tell me stuff like; “the ball went that way because you lifted your head” or “try from the ground, as you wont always have a tee”.
And then I try to follow his advice, as he is – I guess- a quite decent player, and he takes care of me, while I’m trying.
I started to practice to hit the ball and get it to go far in the direction I wanted. I used iron no 7, and at the end it seemed to go pretty decent, not like the first or second time when it tok some time to make it work. No this time all of my first 6 shots went wide and in the right direction and offcorse this gave me some satisfaction, so I just continued doing that.
“Well now try with this driver.” Ralf handed me a huge club. I put the ball on the tee, leveled the head of the club to the ball, placed my feet parallel, bend my knees and straightened my back and kept my eyes on the ball. Concentration. Breath deeply and look to where I wanted it to go –out there somewhere behind the 250 yard mark, then again eyes on the ball, backswing, keep my left arm straight and bend the wrist at the right moment BUT KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BALL, and swing! With No. 7 I kind of had it, and now I was just waiting for the confirming sound of a perfect hit to fill my ears. But nothing, the ball just rolled of the tee and towards my feet. Ralf lowered his eyes, looked the other way and sat down.
It took my some time to get used to this new club, but it never became the same like no. 7 and I was afraid that I had to go through the same procedure with every of the 10 or so different clubs in my set.
I was about to give it up and return to no. 7 and the satisfaction of balls going wide.
“Now take no. 9 and hit the ball from the ground and make it go to about the 50 yard mark.” Ralf had a new idea. Unwillingly I found the iron and put the ball on the ground.
“Not hard this time, but try to control you swing.”
“Control my swing!” What did he mean by that, how could I do that when I didn’t even know if I could hit it from the ground?
I did my best doing all he’d told me, and; the ball went in a nice high loop in the direction of the mark and landed just behind it.
Must be beginners luck. But I got another ball down and the same procedure; feet parallel, eyes on the ball, bend the knees, straighten the back and swing.
“Pock” again straight direction towards the mark and landed just close in front of it.
Now I was starting to enjoy this and once I even hit the mark, like it was a game of dart and I was aiming for the bull’s eye. A couple of times it went wrong, bur mainly the ball went the direction and distance I wanted.
“Now take no.7, do nearly the same and go for the 100 mark, and don’t hit it much harder.”
Next task from coach Ralf.
But how can it then approach the 100 when I don’t hit it harder then for the 50 mark.
“It is another club and it does something different.”
I did what I was told to, and guess what?
Yes I had a success experience, and I will for sure reply and say yes, when my phone the next time spits out the message; “324 d-range.”

Kaapoum -Bang - Boom!

This is part of the soundtrack from last night over Victoria harbour. The big fireworks for tthe 60tiest anniversary of the PR China.

The noise was ear blasting and sometimes I felt in the middle of a war zone, and that the explosions had come from some of all the military hardware they'd presented at the military parade in Beijing earlier on the day.

We had a good view to this fireworks as we were on a junk in the middle of the harbour, and that was a good idea, so good that we wasn't the only ones having it, and so we were on a junk in the middle of maybe 50 to 60 other junks and whatever boats you can find in Hong Kong, in something what at some stages looked like a floating village.

Nice boat, nice food, good friends and free drinks, what can a mann (and woman) want more, except maybe that a party like this wasn't on a Thursday evening and the next day is a normal working day!

Happy birthday!

Today it is the 60tiest anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China and it is going to be celebrated all over the country. In Beijing with a big parade at Tian'anmens square, and here in Hong Kong with a major mighty fireworks session at Victoria Harbour later tonight.
We are going on a Junk trip on the very same Harbour and will therefor have a splendid view at this major event. For the Chinese this 60tiest is bigger than the 50tiest was, as they work in 12 year cycles, and this is the 5th of these cycles.
So maybe you will be able to enjoy some impressions and eyewitness photos here tomorrow, if I don't drop my camera into the water -touch wood.