It is Taiwan, not Tailand

Have you ever been to Taiwan? Have you ever heard this country before? If your answer is yes, then can you say the exact location of this country? You may need to check the world map to discover the certain location of this island. Or, let me ask another further question if you don’t get me wrong, would you please tell me honestly, did you know that Taiwan is an island? Did you know it?

Do you know the native language of Taiwan? What do people speak in this island? If I say Chinese, what would be your reaction? What would you say? Go along with you, or you ve got to be kidding me?  

If you ask those questions to yourself, you will almost understand how well you know Taiwan!.

Honestly, Western people don’t know Taiwan so well, sometimes they even could confuse Taiwan with Tailand, at least that is situation in Turkey.

I think the reason of this situation is the long distance between territories. Taiwan is a small Island when we compare with the western countries and if the economic power of Taiwan was not exist, less people would be familiar with the name of this island. In the world, Taiwan is known as the tiger of Asia because of its economy. Gross National Wellfare is so high in Taiwan and people live pretty well on the island which is one of the safest countries in the world.

Taiwanese are so honest, especially when they do business. Customer satisfaction is more important than earning money for them. Today, I went to buy shoelace and after looking half an hour for to find a place to buy, ultimately a shop caught my eyes and entered to ask if she sell shoelace. She showed me some products but they were suitable for sneakers, not suit for leather shoes. I told the owner that I want to buy but she said it would be better if I don’t buy it, coz it is not the type I asked. She told me that she could sell the shoelace to me but the matter here is not earning money, it is getting the suitable product you want. I said I want to buy it coz of her honesty and I bought of course.

In Taiwan, the most important and common mean of transportation is scooter. It is estimated that the number of scooters on Island is more than the total population. If you write Taiwan and google it, what you see would be a lot pictures of 101 building and pictures of Taiwanese on scooters. Scooters in traffic cause traffic jam many times. Driving is not so enjoyable in Taiwan because of those motorcycles. And most of foreigners prefer to ride bikes instead of scooters. 

Daan Park Outdoor Amphitheater-a concert in a forest

Last evening, I received a call from a close friend to be informed for an outstanding concert in Daan Park which is located on a huge area in midst of the city and very near to the place I live. I just got off the work when he called me and was very exhausted at that time. I didnt want to walk even one step but that was a great opportunity to listen a gorgeous concert after a long time. So I accepted his kindly invitation and set off immediately to arrive Daan Park Outdoor Amphitheater on time. I didnt want to miss the concert.

I could guess that the concert would be great because I ve been in the same place for another jazz concert last year. The thing you could see there was a peaceful, romantic and friendly enviroment from start to finish of the concert.

Taiwan is one of the most peaceful and secure country in the World and people are so friendly, educated and elite. Taipei city government always includes many cultural and musical activities for its citizens and there is a speacial symphony orchestra belong to Taipei City and they mostly play for the city dwellers. I cant follow their programs most of time but it is nice to have time to be with them when i get an opportunity.

I jumped on my scooter and arrived to the concert place. Concert has just started and you could see the great interest from the sea of faces. I found a place behind the crowd and started to watch and listen performers.

When you overlook to the stage, you could see the conductor of the Taipei Symphony Orchestra standing before the other performers and a foreigner musician from İtalia whose nationality has been announced later on.

During the concert, I couldnt sit in a certain place and enjoying music. It is more enjoyable for me to shoot videos and take photos on the one hand while enjoying concert at the other hand.

I found the stand where the flyer of the concert distributed and the ticket of another concert was being sold. I took a flyer and checked the name of the performers. The trumpeter was Andrea Giuffredi, and the name of Conductor of the TSO was Chih-Chin Yang. Andrea was not able to speak English apart from some basic words like ‘you dont understand, right?’ and so on!.. J and Mr. Yang didnt speak at all!.. The talker was their music, not themselves.

I am going to show you some videos and photos which I took during the concert. I can hear that you say If only I could be there and do not miss this fascinating musical.

Do you know what was another great part of that night? I didnt spend anything, not even a cent. It was totally free to the all citizens and dwellers of the city, without noticing their identity and nationality.

I love Taiwan and Taiwanese. I love to be here live with Taiwanese.

Classical Gas

I thought this was a song belongs to Mark Knopfler. Because there is a video on Youtube shows this piece of music as if it a song of Knopfler and i saw this song thanks to that video for the first time. I have always been listening this classical gas from this video without knowing even its name. But I have wondered its name from the beginning. When i was doing a little research about the name of the song, i figure out that the song belongs to Mason Williams as oppossed to Mark Knopfler. And I have learned the name of this amazing song: Classical Gas. 

I took a glance at the official website of Mason Williams as well and I saw that classical gas is the masterpiece of Williams and he has been known with this song. When he composed it, we were not even born. Thanks God we are listening now. On his website, it has been made a mention of Classical Gas as below and i think it deserves all of compliments and reputation;

It is a guitar piece like no other, 

an anthem for an era, the most influential, most played, most loved instrumental hit of all time. Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Classical Gas with legendary guitarist, Mason Williams!

Let you know a great voice: Victor Deme

What a great song and what an amazing voice!..

Victor Deme is a west African singer from Burkina. It is very difficult get some knowledge about him on the net. It seems that he is world-widely famous but it was like a Chinese torture to make a research about his life and music career on the net!..It was really made me surprise to not find his biography even in English. As i saw on the net, he has given concert even in South Korea! I dont know why but there are very few information about him. It has been given some info about him on wikipedia but it is in French and I couldn't get even a word. What i have done is using google to translate into English and trying to figure out something about him.

what i have understand about his life is that he was an amateur musician but a professional tailor. Tailoring is his family's occupation which has been passing from generation to generation and he learned to sew from his father. Let alone being world-wide, he's probably never thought to be a famous musician even in his country: Burkina Faso.

Here, i would like to add something that the meaning of Burkina Faso is 'the people who love their land'. But I can sense a bit from his voice that Victor Deme does not only love his country Burkina but also he loves all the continent of Africa and his voice cries for all Africa. You can sense it when you hear his voice at the first time.

The aim of this post is making people aware of that talent, especially about the music he is performing. Victor has got his fabulous music talent from his mother. I don't know anything about his mother but as she made Victor love music, she should be a good musician or might love music much more than anything.

Victor's talent has been discovered by a French journalist and a local hip-pop promoter as i learned. (He sings in French by the way.) He is at his age of almost 50 but he still doesn't abstain from pursuing his music career. He's recently been in the United States as for his first time in order to have his second record.

I want to add some video clips to share with the reader of this seldom updated blog. :)

In this video, you can see the good performance of Victor Deme and you can feel the melodies from Africa, even though you may be not able to understand of the language.

Lastly, I can't help to say some further things about that damn popular culture which let many useless people to be famous but keep such great talents in the background.

Deme has been known by many people on globe today but he is not a puppet of popular culture, instead, he is a real musician whose value should be known! Yes, he definitely should be treasured! Ok, I am leaving you with this unique voice.

You know what, as if the guitar cries in his hands and he wipes out its tears using his wizard fingers. I love the way he plays, I love the way he sings and I love the way he acts.

I wish Deme great success and encourage you all to know and listen his masterpieces. He deserve more fans, at least for the sake of Africa.

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The legend of 1900

I was in Hong Kong two days ago and there was nothing to do when i had to waiting for getting my visa till 4 on Tuesday in the afternoon. I did not have much time to visit some places like the Big Buddha and Ocean Park, so i just got around the city and mingled with the crowd. Only activity for me in HK was taking pictures and eat lunch and dinner alone in Turkish and Pakistani restaurants. Being alone during a trip is really awful and boring. You trying to enjoy but you could not do. Ah, i wish i went to HK with a friend and made some craziness while getting around the city. I actually like to travel alone but sometimes it may be so meaningless. dunno but i don't think i am willing to travel alone for later. I went to 'avenue of stars', got on the ferry, visit some well-known passages and shopping streets, watched the light performance across the river walked aimles on the streets.

In this post, i dont want to narrate my trip impressions. Instead, I want to speak of a great movie which i have seen when i was alone during the long nights of HK. I decided watch a movie before sleeping and my choice was 'the legend of 1900' which i had seen it accidently on the page of my friend's blog. The legend of 1900, it was really a fairly well movie that full of surprises. It is a first English language movie from an Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore and it has been starring by Tim Roth.

The movie starts with a deal between Max and a shopkeeper who is a music instruments seller.. Max is a musician in need and the only valuable thing he possess is an old trumpet and he has to pawn it to the shopkeeper.

It should be not so easy to leave from the thing you love most. For a musician, the most beloved belonging is his/her instrument. It is the most difficult thing for Max to pawn his trumpet and leave from it but there was nothing to do but selling it! Before pawning the trumpet, he asks to make a last playing and he plays a speacial piece which the shopkeeper has heard it before from a broken record. When Max starts to play, shopkeeper recognizes the song and ask how it is known by him as well. Max starts to tell the story of 1900 who is the owner of the piece.

Attention please! Contains plenty of spoiler! J

Kidding! Of course, i wont write a lot of spoiler here coz i recommend you all to watch the movie and see what will happen to 1900. Only the thing i want to say is that life of 1900 has passed in a ship from birth to death.

When Max tell the story of 1900 which you are gonna watch soon, i hope, the shopkeeper purchease his trumpet and give it back to him and say: ‘A good story's worth more than an old trumpet. ’

And Max takes back his trumpet and walks out into the rain while you cant help to burst into tears!