圣诞节来了

 

我也24岁了

 

觉得自己好老啊，都不希望身边不熟的人知道我的年龄，因为他们通常都会惊讶，让我很难堪。

 

别人这么大都工作了，还有很多人都已经扬名立万了。我却还一事无成

 

只好安慰自己是属于命运多舛大器晚成型的

 

不管怎么说祝自己生日快乐，圣诞快乐，实现自己人生一个个梦想。

 

 

很久以前在Time上看到这篇封面故事，讲周杰伦的。

 

讲他的童年，他出道前和出道后的故事，还有他的 ”屌“。

 

写的很好，读来很爽

 

今天终于又找到了

 

赶紧贴上来

　　

 

 

 

Before the satin bedsheets and Ducati motorcycles, before the screaming groupies fainting at his shows and the teenage girls making pilgrimages to stroke his piano bench, there was this narrow stretch of blond floorboard between the leather sofa and the teal walls of Alfa Music’s studio in a gray, concrete high-rise in eastern Taipei. This was Jay Chou Chieh-lun’s world back then, a crawl space where he would curl up and crash between sessions, where he would dream and then redream his melodies and lyrics, where the songs would come to him as snatches of somnambulant soundtrack, and then he would rouse himself, stumble over to the keyboards and transpose those nocturnal audioscapes onto music sheets and demo tapes. For nearly two years Chou worked as a $600-a-song contract composer and rarely left that seventh-floor soundproof chamber where he cranked out melodies for less-talented, better-looking sing-ers. He would write out the verses, the chorus, scratch the lyrics down on the back of a takeaway menu and then, exhausted by the work, by the unburdening of his musical subconscious, he would go back to sleep among the dust bunnies to conjure up another hit. Subsisting on ramen and fried chicken, he dreamed not of being a pop star but of making music.
　　The Beatles had the Cavern Club, Elvis had Sun Studios, the Sex Pistols had the 100 Club; for Chou, this studio was his musical proving ground, where he tried out his ideas, tested theories of what made a hit, worked out how to structure a song and make it memorable and soulful and where—rare for a budding Mando- or Canto-pop star—he came to understand that it was the music that mattered, more than the looks and the moves and the image. He saw them come and go, pretty boys who could barely carry a tune, divas who had the attitude but not the talent, boy bands whose members were chosen for their dance steps instead of their voice chops. He saw that what made a performer memorable—what could make him, Jay Chou, special—were the songs themselves.
　　And that, in the music biz as it’s practiced from Taipei to Hong Kong to Singapore, was a novel idea. In the cynical, insta-pop industry of prepackaged icons that dominates greater China, it is a wonder that Jay Chou the anti-idol, now 24, exists at all. Male Canto- and Mando-pop stars are supposed to be born with connections, grow up with money and emerge in adolescence as lithe, androgynous pinups, prefabricated and machine-tooled for one-hit wonderdom and, if they’re lucky, lucrative B-movie careers and shampoo commercials. How did a kid with an overbite, aquiline nose and receding chin displace the Nicholases and Andys and Jackys to become Asia’s hottest pop star? The explanation starts somewhere back in that stuffy studio, with the discipline and the songs and the revolutionary idea that the music actually matters. “Even when my female fans approach me, they don’t tell me that I’m handsome,“ Chou explains. “They tell me they like my music. It’s my music that has charmed them.“
　　Since the release of his debut album, Jay, in November 2000—10 brooding, soulful, surprisingly sensual ballads and quiet pop tunes delivered with a poise that would make Craig David stand up and take notice—Jay Chou’s music has ruled, and may be transforming, the Asian pop universe. Although he sings and raps only in Mandarin, Chou’s CDs routinely go double or triple platinum, not only in his native Taiwan but also in mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Recently he was voted Favorite Artist Taiwan at MTV’s Asian Music Awards, adding to a haul of more than 30 entertainment-industry honors he has won in the past two years. The Hong Kong media has anointed him a “small, heavenly King“ (though Chou insists he hates the title). He recently played the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas to an audience of more than 10,000. Major companies have come calling for his endorsement, from Pepsi in China to pccw in Hong Kong. Panasonic has even stamped his profile on one of its cellular phone models—a high compliment in mobile-mad Asia even greater than being known as diminutive celestial royalty.
　　As a boy, Chou was called retarded. Stupid. Yu tsun. Ellen Hsu, his high school English teacher, figured Chou had a learning disability: “He had very few facial expressions; I thought he was dumb.“ The kid couldn’t focus on math, science, didn’t bother with his English homework. But his mother, Yeh Hui-mei, noticed that the quiet, shy boy seemed to practically vibrate when he heard the Western pop music she used to play. “He was sensitive to music before he could walk,“ she recalls. Yeh enrolled him in piano school when he was four. And the kid could play. He practiced like a fiend, focusing on the keys the way other children his age focused on a scoop of ice cream. By the time he was a teen, he had developed a knack for improvisation way beyond his years. “One time he sat down and started playing the Taiwanese national anthem,“ says his high school piano teacher Charles Chen. “It’s usually very solemn but Chou was riffing and turned it into an interesting piece of music, one that sounded like a pop song.“
　　Outside the practice room, Chou was stubbornly average, caught up in the same kung fu movies and video games as the rest of the suburban teens who played baseball around Linkou’s ferroconcrete housing blocks. While other kids were cramming for the joint-college-entrance exam, Chou was skipping school and putting in more time on the ivories. The kid looked like he was going nowhere. Music? If you are middle-class and Taiwanese, math, science, engineering, computer programming—that’s how you make a living. But music? That was for rich kids with famous parents, who grow up with silver chopsticks in their mouths. Not kids from Linkou. Not Chou. He flunked his exam and was about to be disgorged into the real world, a gawky kid stumbling toward a future pumping gas or maybe, if he was lucky, helping you pick out a new Yamaha upright and then sitting down at the bench and completing the sale by playing a few bars for you.
　　But the music, remember, is all that matters in Chou’s life. It saves him. It defines him. It’s his salvation, his luck. It’s the only thing he has. It interceded even when Chou himself had wandered off course, when Chou didn’t yet know the true value of his harmonic birthright. Some girl, a junior—Chou barely knew her—filled out an application for Chao Ji Xin Ren Wang (Super New Talent King), Taiwan’s version of American Idol. The show’s staff got in touch with a surprised Chou and asked if he would perform. No way. Not solo.
　　He ended up playing piano, accompanying an aspiring singer. And they stunk. The show’s host, legendary Taipei funnyman and all-around entertainment impresario Jacky Wu, was always on the prowl for new talent, but he took one look at the nervous kid at the piano and the croaking vocalist and thought, forget it, back to the burbs for this duo. “I really wasn’t impressed,“ says Wu. “The friend’s singing was lousy.“ Then he saw the music. “I took a look at the musical score over the judge’s shoulder and I was amazed. It was complex and very well done.“ After the taping, Wu, who at that time owned Alfa Music, headed backstage to meet Chou, who was wearing a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. “My first impression of Jay was that he was so shy, so quiet,“ Wu recalls. “I thought he was retarded.“
　　But Wu was swayed by the music. He had seen dozens of sneering pretty boys with slicked-back hair who could barely read a high C, and here was this shy, awkward pianist who seemed like he could scrawl a symphony in his sleep. Wu would do more than write him his first checks as a songwriter—he would also inadvertently give the kid a place to crash between hits, would allow this suburbanite to turn an unused space behind a sofa into a miniature pop-music factory as he wrote tunes for late-’90s acts such as PowerStation and Taiwan-ese diva Valen Hsu. “Jacky is like my elder brother,“ says Chou. “He taught me how to be an artist, to be professional and to be dedicated to my career.“ But Chou was doing more than transcribing catchy little ditties at six bills a pop (hit)—he was inadvertently helping to define a sound, an emerging Taiwanese pop presence and style that would, within three years, transform the island into the epicenter of Chinese pop.
　　But the master still doubted his apprentice could be more than a songwriter. “I didn’t think Chou could make it as an entertainer,“ Wu admits, “because he’s not so handsome.“ It wasn’t until Wu handed over the reins of Alfa Music to his friend and fellow singer J.R. Yang nearly a year-and-a-half later that Chou would go from being idol-maker to idol.
　　“I asked him if he’d written anything for himself,“ Yang explains. Chou played him Ke Ai Nu Ren (Lovely Woman), a song he had already recorded on borrowed time—hanging around the studio 24-7 did have its advantages. “After four minutes the song finished, and I asked, ’What are we waiting for?’“ The kid was living in the studio anyway. Recording the first album in three months was practically a vacation.
　　Chou kicks back on that leather sofa today, wearing an off-white wool cap pulled low over his brooding, brown eyes, and a black velour tracksuit. He went from being studio geek to pop star overnight, almost too quickly, and he carries the emotional and psychological vestments of that fame and success uneasily. He’s all straight answers, monosyllabic responses, yes ma’ams and no ma’ams. Grunts. Nods. Evasive eye rolls. Where is the smoldering sexuality and boy-misses-girl pathos, the mannish lad who gives his soul ballads depth and feeling?
　　Then he begins talking about the music, and you remember, yes, the music. Take that away and you’re left with this slab of a boy who looks like he wants to climb back over that sofa and hunker down in his old, creative lair. My music, he explains, my music should be like magic. It should have variety. It should be ephemeral, changing, evolving. He goes off on musical theory and Chopin and how the cello is different from the violin and Chinese five-tone versus Western 12-tone melodies. “It’s my magic,“ he says again, shaking his head, looking at you all earnest and sincere as if he needs you to understand.
　　And then he opens up, revealing his yearning to find a girlfriend, his own shyness that has him growing his hair long over his eyes so he isn’t distracted by his fans’ staring.
　　Finally, he leans in close: “Let me tell you about diao.“
　　Diao is a Taiwanese slang usually translated as “cool“ or “outrageous.“ It literally means “penis.“
　　“It’s my personal philosophy,“ he explains, “but it has nothing to do with religion. It means that whatever you do, you don’t try to follow others. Go your own way, you know?“
　　He sits back, shakes his hair out of his eyes and nods. This is serious. This is deep. This is the metaphysical mechanism that he feels explains his pop stardom, as opposed to his musical talent. “It’s like, the ability to shock. The way I think of shocking people is to do things that people don’t expect in my music, in my performances. Like during my first Taipei show last year, I was performing Long Quan (Dragon Fist) [Chou’s favorite tune from his Eight Dimensions CD] and I took off on a harness and flew out over the audience. That was diao.“
　　Diao is an internal process, a mystical path that makes extreme demands and forces stringent measures. It requires, mysteriously, that Chou forgo wearing underwear, a lifestyle choice that is endlessly vexing to his mother. “He used to wear underwear as a child,“ she sighs. “Maybe it is something he started since working with Jacky Wu.“ Chou himself will not elaborate. The diao that can be spoken of, apparently, is not the eternal diao.
　　The diao, of course, has made him wealthy, a millionaire, but he insists all that is a distraction. His mother manages his huge income. His managers run his business and take care of his lucrative endorsements. Though Alfa Music has given him a tony, Taipei bachelor pad, Chou prefers living at home with mom in his childhood bedroom with its single mattress, gray sheets and royal blue walls. Ignore, for a moment, the complimentary Pepsi fridge with Chou’s likeness molded on the door and the dozens of music trophies and awards, and it’s a typical boy’s room. And his home, despite his parents’ divorce when he was 14, was, he insists, a happy place. But then where, if he had a contented childhood and then a quick apprenticeship as contract songwriter, did the sadness and pathos that could inform a precocious, soulful R. and B. singer come from? How could a happy kid write lyrics about a drunken father who beats his wife and child as he does on Ba Wo Hui Lai Le (Dad, I Have Come Back), a jilted lover on the brink of suicide as on Shi Jie Mo Ri (End of the World)? “I hear stories and I use them,“ he shrugs. “I make them up. I go to see a movie or look at the elements of a music video.“
　　Chou is a sponge when it comes to music, absorbing styles and trends and then seamlessly incorporating them into his Oriental-flavored R. and B. “He mixes Western instruments with Chinese instruments, like the di (Chinese flute) and the three-string sanxian,“ explains Chou’s friend and fellow musician Rex Jan. “He’s also adopted Chinese five-tone melodies as opposed to Western ones.“
　　It’s not as if Chou introduced R. and B. to the region—David Tao and Wang Lee Hom have both been around for a while—but it wasn’t until Chou’s debut that waves of Mando-rappers and crooning R. and B. singers took over MTV Taiwan. “Chou is definitely setting musical trends,“ says Hong Kong-based Ming Pao Weekly music critic Fung Lai-chi.
　　His success as a singer-songwriter has already inspired dozens of imitators eager to achieve a similar mixture of street cred and sales sizzle. “The trend is toward more singer-songwriters,“ says Mark Lankester, managing director of Warner Music Hong Kong. It seems every pretty boy with a guitar is taking up composing; even Canto-pop bad boy Nicholas Tse is now scribbling his own tunes. And then there’s Anson Hu, Hong Kong’s junior soul man who recently won Best New Artist at the Commercial Radio awards ceremony. “He’s copying Jay,“ says Fung. “He’s even being called the new ’Chinese Jay.’“
　　What makes Chou’s music successful, and distinctive from all the boys who would be Jay, is that when he sings that he is hurting or yearning or that he needs you so bad, you believe him. His delivery is Boyz II Men-smooth, and he hits those notes with a conviction born of having proved himself as a songwriter. Remember, he spent nearly two years in that studio watching and hearing what worked and what didn’t, and the results of that dues paying are a confidence and a swagger that comes across on disc. On CDs like Jay, Fantasy Life and Eight Dimensions, you’re listening to a man who believes in the musical choices he is making, who knows he is right. He is not singing what some manager in an office somewhere has told him will be a hit; he is singing his heart out, right now, for you.
　　Chou wants the ball. He’s a hoops fiend, and he swears that the only two places he’s comfortable are in the studio and on the basketball court. He takes a break from the 64-track and heads out to Taipei’s Ta An Park, where he and a few friends have a regular game. It’s concrete-court, no-holds-barred pickup—tall guys banging under the rim, small guys at the top or on the wing. Everyone launching jumpers. The only pass anyone wants to make is the one to inbound the ball. But even here Chou seems different. John Stockton-skinny with mad dribbles, he’s a point guard among other players, who, no matter where they are on the court, seem perpetually out of position. The game, even at this level, flows through him. He hits open threes, makes behind-the-back dribbles to the rack for easy layups. Chou knows exactly what he wants to do with the ball.
　　So there’s this, too. You see it when he plays. He’s a control freak. That’s why he doesn’t like interviews or awards ceremonies, why he’s shy and awkward around his fans, because he doesn’t know how to control those settings. But on the court, in the studio, he’s the show runner.
　　No other ethnic-Chinese idol enjoys the level of artistic and creative control over his or her albums and videos that Chou does. According to those who work with him, Chou knows exactly what he wants when it comes to his sound, and he is relentless about achieving it. In order to write one of his hits, Shuan Ji Gun (Nunchaku), he actually taught himself to use the martial art weapon and then appeared with it in the video. Kuang Sheng, who has directed the majority of Chou’s videos, says he follows the star’s instructions: “Chou has more control than other artists over his own videos. And over time, he is only becoming more controlling.“
　　A month later and Chou is lounging in a swanky Chinese restaurant after his packed-house performance at the MGM Grand. Still wearing his sweaty tank top and carefully scuffed jeans, he seems contemplative, as if he is finally impressed by the enormity of his own achievements. There are a few more worlds for this show-biz Alexander to conquer: TV, movies, going global and hitting the U.S. charts. But Chou seems indifferent to learning English, unconcerned with the producers who beseech him to make a film and, finally, more comfortable and less anxious with the demands of his celebrity. He is growing into the role now, his diao, apparently, has taken him this far and he has learned to trust it. There will be enormous demands placed on this 24-year-old, forces of commerce tugging at him to do this commercial, that magazine shoot, this action picture. Kung fu master or rogue cop? R. and B. or hip-hop? Nike or Adidas?
　　He shakes his head. The first thing he’s going to do is head back to that Taipei studio, to that little nook behind the sofa, where he will lie back, take a nap, and dream up a few more tunes.

今天是我到新加坡四周年。

 

什么庆祝纪念活动都没搞，这一天就这么平静的过去了。刚才还在写FYP interim report，忽然就不想让这一天就这么默默的走完，还是写在自己blog上吧。不用酒，不用聚会，只用自己的感想，纪念一下。

 

这四年，我失去了很多，放弃了很多，当然也得到和学会了很多。

 

最大的感慨就是人生无常，未来是不可预料的。不知道再过四年我会在哪里，做什么。现在根本不敢想。

 

高中的时候一直觉得自己会去一个好大学读电子工程，然后努力去美国。结果第一次高考报的是高分子材料，却没考上。第二次高考考上了，学的却是计算机。然后忽然莫名其妙就被通知去参加新加坡选拔的考试，于是懵懵懂懂在地图上查清了新加坡在那里，然后就莫名其妙地过来了。来了以后，高中生物就不怎么样的我居然稀里糊涂的选了生物工程，后来找工作却找了金融。。。

 

现在回头想想看，如果我第一次高考考上了，我现在估计还在复旦读研，也许出国了。如果我第二次冒险报个清华冷门去了，现在估计已经去了美国，当然读的是冷门。如果当初我在NTU选了EEE或者CE，情况也会不一样，不过我更倾向于相信会比现在还要好一些。如果当初在西交，不选择来新加坡，以我当时的精神状态，也许早早像其他大多数人一样，被从那个本硕连读淘汰掉了。现在也许在深圳或者北京做着IT，收入不差但买房困难，属于撑不坏也饿不死那型的。

 

所以，我还是庆幸自己做了正确的选择的。

 

有句话说，这世界最大的力量，就是选择的力量。我想这句话的意思有巨细两层。巨是说在重要事件的选择上，决定了很多人一辈子的命运。细是说每个人都有选择怎么样过自己生活的自由，面对任何事情，我们都可以作出自己的选择。当你有两个小时的时候，你可以选择是看片儿，还是给mm发短信，还是灌水，还是看书，还是跟兄弟吃饭联络感情。当你的人生态度确定的时候，就可以把它贯彻在每一次选择当中。当你有了自己的原则，你就会开辟自己的道路，用的，就是所谓“选择的力量”。

 

就是这两种选择的力量，决定了一个人最终会去哪里，会做什么，会做的怎么样。

 

我在第一层的选择上，犯了错误，也撞了大运。回首看这些年，一直看回到初中去，感觉自己走的路的大概脉络，就是由两个因素决定的：机遇和选择。鬼使神差的机遇让我保送了宝中，让我来了新加坡，让我进了CS。但是这些机遇也都同时带来的是选择，是我自己选择抓住这些机遇，而不是让它们白白溜走。至于第二层，我做的是让人痛心疾首的差，自制力太弱了，就知道玩，没恒心，喜欢拖拖拉拉，千万次的细碎的错误选择，让我没能做的比今天更好。

 

好在还勉强算年轻，选择的机会还有很多，不管是大的小的。现在只有祈祷，大的选择不要选错，小的选择对得起自己。

 

再次感慨一下，命运真奇妙。

 

 

毕设，说白了就是搞research。

 

research，我最讨厌。

 

可是现在大四过去一半了，毕设的进度八字还没一撇，再不喜欢也得做。昨天跟老板报告进度，她都开始为我着急起来了。我自己也开始怀疑能不能做得完。慌起来了。

 

问题不全在我，机器坏了多半学期，我有啥办法。可是最大的问题是，我到现在还不知道我毕设到底要干啥。

搞得东西太前沿了就这样，一大堆复杂仪器，坏一个就没法弄，而且意想不到的问题一个接一个的来。

 

时间快不够用了。我急啊。

 

不管怎么说，反正大四下学期也没什么要牵挂的了，从现在开始，我要去掉我对research固有的偏见，全身心的忘情的去搞它，甚至试着去热爱它，发现它的美。这也可能是我这辈子最后的做research的机会了。大四毕业，就彻底和工科说再见了。

 

泡lab，读paper，做实验，动脑筋...from today on, i live and breath research.

 

 

12月1号，考试结束了。假期开始了。但是这个名义上的5个星期的假期实际上也只有几天而已。因为毕设还没怎么做，都指望这个假期了。明天就要回IBN去玩我的2-photon lithography 和 hepatocyte了。

于是这几天抓紧玩了玩我更喜欢玩的东西

 

考完当天禽兽过生日大家胡吃海喝了一顿，然后就去了一直想去没时间去的VivoCity。这个号称新加坡最大的购物中心12月1号正式开业，虽然之前已经经营了好一段时间了。过去一看，确实挺大，不过感觉没啥内容，很多店面都是coming soon。看到了我期待已久的GAP, for which i have an emotional attachment.圣诞的时候一定要去买。最傻的就是在body shop买东西，没看价钱就买了一个洗澡的海绵球。我以为也就五块钱左右，结果$17,5，打了折也要$14。打击得抓狂。另外三星体验中心的东西让人觉得钱挣多少都不够啊。。。那个滑盖的mp3挺帅的。以前这些让人惊叹的产品都是sony生产的，现在sony越来越不行了。

 

要赞一下当天的fireworks，比国庆那天的要好看多了。第二天看报说孙燕姿当天也去唱小曲助兴了。可惜没看到。

 

另外，报纸上说12月1号也是以无线网络免费覆盖全岛的wireless@SG的正式启动日。没想到这么快。以后换手机一定要换有wifi的了。可是既有qwerty键盘，又有wifi，又是触摸屏的手机真不好找啊。另外，ikea在centerpoint又开了一家，据说比queenstown那家大多了，有空去看看。

 

昨天早上去orchard晃悠了一阵，晚上还和一大帮人去了传闻中的Ministry of Sound。这是我第一次去clubbing。MOS比我想象的小多了，这个号称“The world’s biggest Ministry of Sound establishment with a 40,000 square foot structure”的night club比我想象的局促多了，被分割成了很多compartment，不过每个compartment的音乐风格都不一样。开始初次去的人还挺矜持，后来大家玩的很开 看到很多穿的很少的MM，还看到很酷很牛逼的DJ。最羡慕这些DJ了。要是我也能当DJ就牛了。(插播口号：手淫健体，意淫强国）

后来人越来越多，挤得都跳不动了。而且大伙一齐抽烟，呛得死去活来的。后来就走了。走之前在MoS门口看到一辆lamborghini。车顶才到我大腿。太帅了。什么时候才能有钱买一辆啊。妈的，等咱有了钱，林宝坚尼买两辆，一辆撞坏另一辆。（插播口号：手淫健体，意淫强国）白天还在orchard见到一辆法拉利。好车看着就是帅啊。

 

虽然挺好玩的但是感觉这种night club不是太适合我，太吵了，而且大家都抽烟。不过也好，让我感觉到了新加坡的另一面。

 

题外话：惊闻vikram收到BP的offer了。。。太牛了。。。这可不是一般的石油公司的工作。据说亚洲只招了五个人,
做commodity trader，工资高得烧都烧不完. 

 

可见，人帅是不需要理由的。

另外，祝贺SHM同学收到Barclays Capital的offer....

 

另外，发几张照片吧

race car taken with phone.