Zen 你是谁？谁是你？你到底是谁？

WY and I went on Saturday to this 华艺 concert (title was A Touch of Zen 禅学不二) at the Esplanade Theatre. We had to rush like crazy because we had taken too long to get ourselves ready - primarily because I had taken too long a nap that afternoon, and we had underestimated the time we would need for our "simple" dinner of 鱼生 and coconut juice.

(Incidentally, it was quite amazing that we would actually get the cost of the 鱼生 to increase by about 10 times its original price when we added a can of Calmex abalone to it - talk about 增值百倍!!)

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the leg space in the Estplanade Theatre was rather generous. The air was a little stiffly, though (maybe because we had literally raced across the underpass and then the basement carpark and up 2 escalators and then 1 flight of stairs down before reaching the door, only to run up another flight of carpeted stairs and down a gradual slope and then finally inching our way to our right-in-the-middle seats E16 and E17). Fortunately, we didn't miss the opening, which was so exciting!!

The storyline of the show was, like Zen, simple and minimal. There was this Ao family who was running away from militiamen. The father of the baby called AoXiang was killed (quite soon - so he didn't have to run much). The mother ran on and on (at least 10 rounds? from the front to backstage then to front again) with the militiamen hot on their heels (all those chasing were so exciting and well choreographed that it was really easy to feel for the desperate mother). When she finally gave up because she knew she was not likely to escape, she left her baby at the door of a temple.

The baby AoXiang grew up to become a fine young man but he always felt troubled because he didn't know who his parents were. To cut a long story short, AoXiang's Zen Master sent him away for training. AoXiang tried to search for his mother in the prison but got into a battle with the militiamen instead. From that point onwards, there was so much action (militiamen vs AoXiang vs the monks) it was really quite impossible to breathe evenly throughout the scene.

As expected, AoXiang finally mastered his gongfu well enough to defeat the captain of the militiamen. But his Zen Master insisted that AoXiang had "lost" to himself and to hatred although he may have won the gongfu battle. It was only later that AoXiang became enlightened and realised the true meaning of victory.

The show was a successful blend of martial arts display, drama and heart-pounding drum-music. Chinese drums and gongs of varying sizes were used and the stage set was close to perfect. Really a very good and thrilling experience. 真的是值回票价!!

When the curtains fell, the applause was thunderous! It was so moving to see how the audience appreciated the great performance. :)

WY and I stayed on for the half-hour dialogue with the Director and production crew chiefs. I think WY didn't quite understand most parts of the dialogue but I found all the "background information" so exciting and quite enriching.

After it all ended, we dropped by the River Hong Bao on the opposite side of the Esplanade Drive. WY had a stick of "painted" candy (the artist "drew" an ox using malt syrup) which cost $2. I bought a CNY decoration at $25.

Apart from these, there was not much to look at, maybe because it was already quite late, both the time and the date (14th day of CNY). The crowd was minimal too, mainly mainland Chinese tourists, I think. R and WF picked us up at VCH to go home.

We were all so exhausted. R, WY and WF fell asleep in no time. And myself? I went to bed while my hair was still wet - I actually dozed off drying it.....