Sunday, September 28, 2008

Coming up 1st October program

As per earlier posts in this blog, Allan Smales was in Hong Kong recently, having only returned to Melbourne again three weeks ago.

This weeks program presents the second, of the two interviews that he recorded while he was in Hong kong. Christopher is a Hong Kong-born musician and lyricist, whose band, Tai Chi, had a number of Canto-pop hits in Hong Kong during the 1980's. Christopher talks about the much simpler (and poorer...) Hong Kong of his childhood memories, and his involvement in the Hong Kong music scene of the 1980's where he was a composer and lyricist for the then popular band, Tai Chi. We will even get to play some of his compositions during the program on Wednesday evening.

But Christopher has another side. He has found he has been able to communicate with the spirit world, and tells a few stories of his encounters, including the spooky "partying" in his family mansion of the spirits of aborted babies from some 30 years previous, when a family member had been involved in some illegal medical activities.

Christopher led a "straight" life (girlfriends and the whole bit...) until a chance sexual encounter with another male in the 1990's suddenly awakened his gay side, and has never looked back since. For the past 3 years or so, Christopher has become an active Buddhist, and literally daily consults with his Buddhist Master in whom he places a lot of trust, and who has helped him interpret some of his ghostly spirit world encounters.

All of the music to be played in this weeks program will also be by Christopher. So Join Allan as he presents this interview with another interesting Hong Kong chinese guy with a fascinating Canto pop musical background.
JOY 94.9FM at 7:00pm, Wednesday, 1st October, in Melbourne, or "Listen Live" by going to the JOY website and click on the "listen Live" icon at the top of the page.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

An interesting guest on tonight's program

Earlier this evening, Hugh and Allan had a very interesting discussion with Geoffrey. He is traditional Anglo/Australian, born in the western suburbs of Melbourne, then a family property in Gippsland, and finally back to the western suburbs again. Geoffrey outlined how he later got involved in self-funded support work in India, which grew out of his attendance at the AIDS Conference held in Melbourne in year 200. As a consequence of that conference, and discussions he had with attendees from places like India, he felt the urge to try and help out with training and education in India, on a totally self-funded basis.

So for several years in a row, each year, Geoffery spent time in India helping with AIDS support, training, advice, assistance etc.

More latterly his current involvement is running accomodation and support facilities in the western suburbs of Melbourne, providing fatherly guidance, support, and accomodation for up to eight overseas students here in Melbourne... particularly those who come from difficult and/or poor circumstances in their home country. The objective being to provide them an academic foundation that will set them up for life in the future, and create a path out of poverty. Most of those he supports are younbg gay men, but he also helps and supports some straight students as well, and they all apparently get on very well. Again, all of this primarily provided using Geoffrey's own resources.

Geoffrey also briefly discussed his marriage, his children, coming out, and some difficult family issues that have affected his life.

If you missed the program, then please check out the podcast version of this interview available from the JOY website.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Program details for 17th September

Earlier this evening, on Orange Ribbon, we interviewed Raina, who is of an Anglo-Indian heritage. Her father is Anglo Australian and her mother is Fijian Indian, although Raina was born in Australia, spending her childhood days in Gippsland where she endured a lot of racism.

Raina spoke a lot about the racism experienced, and the racism and queer activism she was involved in when she later went to Monash University. It was at Monash that she met up with two Chinese girls who were of similar mind and experience. Through a series of events, Raina and her two "co-horts" decided to put together a cabaret performance with the objective of highlighting their views on racism, and so Ladies Of Colour Agency (or LOCA) began. (You can do a search on Myspace for Ladies of Colour Agnecy to find their profile.)

We learned more about their performance piece, and also that they have done a number of different audiences, from straight to gay/lesbian, and Raina discussed some of the varied audience reactions... particularly about the "hairy lesbian stripper" criticism from one of their performances.

The girls (as LOCA) will also be performing at the upcoming Melbourne Fringe Festival, where you can obtain more details of their events.

A different, and very entertaining chat on tonights program. Check out the podcast of tonights program from the JOY website if you missed this interesting interview.




(The three girls of LOCA make an important point)

Monday, September 8, 2008

Coming up on Orange Ribbon this week (10th September)

This will be my last post from Hong Kong before I fly out of here again early tomorrow morning, arriving home tomorrow evening, Melbourne time. Hopefully my partner will be able to pick me up from the airport, depending upon whether his dance class will have finished in time or not. Otherwise, I am going to have to take a long (and expensive) cab ride home from the airport.

As usual, I have had a great time back here, meeting a number of new friends, and picking up a couple of interviews. I had hoped to arrange more than that, but circumstances seemed to prevent that happening. But as previously reported via this blog, I did get to chat to two very interesting people here, and these interviews will be run over the next few weeks on Orange Ribbon.

For this coming program (Wednesday 10th September) I will be running the interview I recorded with Chung Yiu two weeks ago. (Refer to my blog entry for 26th August.) A fascinating guy, with a great story to tell. So please do join me this week on Orange Ribbon (7:00-8:00pm Melbourne time) and hear what Chung Yiu chatted to me about.

In the meantime, I am already planning my next return to Hong Kong late next month when I will be back here yet again for another (almost) 4 weeks. But do join me this coming Wednesday evening for my chat with Chung Yiu.

Allan Smales (A final report from Hong Kong before returning to Melbourne tomorrow morning)

Friday, September 5, 2008

Another day, another interview in Hong Kong

During my stay here in Hong Kong this time I have gotten to know Christopher, a Hong Kong Chinese local who is a long-time musician, lyricist and writer, and who was involved with a band here some years ago and became well-known through their recordings and albums here, a number of which were very popular at the time.

Christopher got involved in Bhuddism about 5-6 years ago, and spends a lot of time these days with his so-called Bhuddist Master who is his counsellor and advisor in all things spiritual.

On the subject of things spiritual, Christpher also has the ability to liaise with, and interpret the spirit world. There is a very interesting background to his involvement in this spirit world and he has discussed with me his experiences dealing with the spirits of babies who were illegally aborted here in Hong Kong some 30 years ago.

Last night I was fortunate to record an interview with Christopher which I will be playing on Orange Ribbon sometime after my return to Melbourne next week. Christopher talks about life in the old Hong Kong of his childhood, and also about the "old" Macau he remembers before it was over-run by the casinos of the past 10-15 years or so.

Keep up-to-date by monitoring this Orange Ribbon blog so that I can let you know when I will be running Christopher's prerecorded interview.

  • POSTSCRIPT: This interview is scheduled to be run on Orange Ribbon on Wednesday, 1st October, 2008. Listen in for this interesting interview.

Allan Smales (in Hong Kong, but back to Melbourne next week)