JULY 18, 2008

Staff in my office and even some of my friends frequently ask me “Why are you always so busy? You’re constantly working and you always have so much to do. Is it possible to slow down a little or maybe stop and take a rest?” Actually, I don’t really understand why I have so much work to do every day. For example, the day after I came back to Hong Kong, I had to record the voice over for The Shinjuku Incident. After recording the voice over, I had a meeting with the director in the evening and we started discussing two new projects; one of them we’ll start preparing for after the Beijing Olympics, and the scrīpt for the other project is currently being written.

Make a Wish

Today, I was involved in doing something very meaningful - I met an ill child through the Make a Wish Foundation. I’ve actually known about the Make a Wish Foundation for a very long time. This foundation is a non-profit charity organization and began their services in 1989. During the early stages when they were first established, the organization was named Make a Wish, and was managed by the Keswick Foundation. It wasn’t until 1998 that Make a Wish registered as a non-profit organization in Hong Kong and also became a member of the American based International Make a Wish Foundation. Make a Wish Foundation hopes to grant every child in Hong Kong suffering from serious illnesses one special wish, bringing a bit of joy, happiness, and hope for the sick children and their families, and create for them a wonderful memory.

Over the past ten years, the foundation has received amazing support from people of all walks of life, benefitting quite a few children and their families. Wishes made by these seriously ill children can be as small as a request for a little gift or as big as a trip overseas. Among the wishes, quite a few sick children hope for a chance to meet their favorite idol and there have been many famous people who’ve assisted and participated with the services offered by Make a Wish. I’m also involved in assisting the cause because I hope through the Make a Wish experience, the lives of seriously ill children can be filled with hope, willpower, and happiness. The thing that delights us the most is that there are many cases which have proven how a child becomes more optimistic and positive towards fighting their illness after having their wish come true.

The child who participated in this particular Make a Wish program was from Australia. He is only fourteen years old and suffered from a brain tumor. When I saw him, I definitely couldn’t tell from his appearance that he was a child suffering from an illness. I could sense that he was very optimistic and was no different from any other ordinary child. I took him on a tour around my office, then took him to my house and he played with my cats and dogs. In the end, I gave him a few small gifts. This is all I did; I didn’t know what else I could do. Hopefully when he goes back home, he will continue to have the strength to confront and defeat the illness, and I hope he can fully recover soon.

Connor's mother showed me photos taken in the hospital during his treatment for the brain tumor.

We compared scars. Here I am letting him feel the scar from my injury in Yugoslavia.

I took Connor and his family on a tour of my office.

Connor's sister Heather made a wish to kick my butt. Even though it wasn't her "Make a Wish" day, I let her do it anyway. Ha ha!

I showed Connor the view of Kowloon out my office window.

Connor tried out a Segway PT. He learned very quickly.

Connor meets Ding Ding.

Meeting JJ and Jonesie.

The World Sings for the Olympics

Afterwards, I participated in another very meaningful activity. That is, I took part in the World Sings for the Olympics rehearsal. Initially, I was going to politely refuse and not take part in this program because first, I’m really very busy, and second, they said I had to sing live accompanied by an orchestra. Oh my God! I’m not a professional singer so doing something like this would be quite a lot of pressure for me. To tell you the truth, I know I don’t have sufficient qualities or the capability to be accompanied by an orchestra when I sing, but the event organizers said that because many choir members were from overseas and a lot people wanted to meet me, they hoped I could try and make some time to attend the program, and also morally support the Beijing Olympics. Because of these reasons, I went and met these choir members and morally supported the Olympics. This program was held at the Asia World Expo next to Hong Kong airport. The event is organized by the Hong Kong Youth Choir Association and jointly sponsored by the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China.

I arrived at Asia World Expo and saw 2500 choir members already at the venue. Most of them were students. Inside the exhibition center, there were 1,500 choir members from Hong Kong while the other 1,000 choir members were from 33 different countries. Furthermore, there was another group of students that made up the orchestra, and two conductors of different nationalities who conducted them respectively to perform different types of music. One of the conductors was American and the other was from Hong Kong.

I sang two songs; one was We Are Ready and the other was One World One Voice. The American conductor was responsible for conducting We Are Ready while the local conductor, who also composed the second song, was responsible for conducting the orchestra to perform One World One Voice. I watched them both as they conducted the music and it was very fascinating. I’ve always admired people with musical talent - especially conductors. I think that when they’re standing on the stage conducting music, they look really cool, they have personality, and they’re very energetic.

During the rehearsal, there wasn’t too much difficulty in performing We Are Ready because I was already quite familiar with this song. It’s just that at the very beginning, I wasn’t used to the version of the music played by the orchestra. After practicing the song a couple of times, I pretty much had the grasp of it. As for the song One World One Voice, I had only just received the musical score when I arrived at the exhibition hall so I had to learn a new song on the spot. The other two female artists who sang the song with me were 1999 Miss Hong Kong finalist Marsha Yuen, and Starmaker II Super Idol competition winner from Mainland China, Wang Jing. They were also like me and had to learn the song One World One Voice offhand. I have to give credit to these two ladies and myself. We only just came in contact this new song and we had to try singing it with several thousand choir members. After practicing a couple of times, we were able to sing the song together and coordinate our positions on the stage.

This was one of our first attempts to sing the new song.

Very soon, it was the end of rehearsal. I went home first to change my clothes and then came back in the evening to participate in the actual performance. During the official performance, I listened to the choir groups from different countries around the world. Their voices were like the sounds of nature; it was beautiful music to my ears.

Shaking the American conductor's hand. He was amazing!

After the event ended, I took big group photos with many of the children and everyone was very happy. As for this big boy, can anyone guess how old he is?

I won’t tell you the answer right now. Next time when you read my diary, I’ll tell you. Okay, bye bye.

You can see many more photos of the concert at this link.

©2008 The JC Group. All Rights Reserved.

July 18 (星期五)

停不下來：

          公司同事和朋友經常問我：「為什麼你會那麼忙呢？經常都要工作，而且經常都有很多工作，可不可以慢下來，或者是停下來休息一下」。其實，我自己也不明白，為什麼每天都有那麼多工作要做？例如：我回到香港，第二天就要為《新宿故事》配音。配完以後，晚上跟導演開會，我們開始談論兩個新的計劃，一個是北京奧運後開始籌備，另一個正在研究劇本。

願望成真：

          今天，我參與做一件很有意義的事情，就是去看‘Make a Wish’（願望成真）的病童。其實，我很久以前已經認識「願望成真基金」，就是因為這個非牟利的慈善機構，它於1989 年投入服務，成立的初期命名為‘願望成真’，並由凱瑟克基金管理。及至1998年在香港註冊為非牟利慈善機構，並成為總部設於美國的「國際願望成真基金」的會員。「願望成真基金」希望給予香港每位正在受嚴重疾病煎熬的小朋友，能夠實踐一個特別願望的機會。從而讓病童及其家人帶來一點歡欣的喜悅與希望，更為他們創造一段美妙的回憶。

          在過往的十多年，基金會得到各界人士鼎力支持，令不少兒童及其家人受惠。這些患重病的孩子的願望，小至要求一份小禮物，大至到外地遊玩，都一一獲得實現。當中不少病童希望能與偶像見面相聚，而不少著名藝人都曾協助及參與‘願望成真’的服務，我也是其中參與協助的一份子，因為我希望透過‘願望成真’的體驗令他們的人生充滿盼望、毅力及歡樂。。而令人最欣慰的是不少事例證明，小朋友在完成心願後變得較為開朗，更積極克服病魔。

          這一次參與‘願望成真’的小朋友是來自澳洲，他只有十四歲，並患有腦腫瘤。看到他以後，從外面絕對看不出他是一個病童，我感覺他很開朗，與普通的小朋友沒有分別。我領著他參觀我的公司、我的家，他還跟我的貓貓狗狗一起玩，最後我送一些小禮物給他。我所做的就是這些，我不知道我還可以做些什麼，希望他回到家以後，繼續堅強面對並戰勝病魔，可以早日康復。

世界同聲頌奧運：

          其後，我參與另一件很有意義的事情，就是參與‘世界同聲頌奧運’的綵排。本來我打算婉拒這個節目，一來是因為我真的很忙；二來他們說是唱現場，並由管弦樂團伴奏的，我的天呀，我既不是專業歌星，這對我來說是挺有壓力的。坦白說，我自知沒有足夠的資格和能力由管弦樂團為我伴奏唱歌，但是主辦單位說因為很多參與的合唱團成員都是來自外國，很多人都想跟我見面，希望我可以盡量抽空出席，也可以為北京奧運打打氣。就是為了這些原因，我去見那些合唱團成員，為奧運打氣。

          這個節目將會今天晚上在機場的亞洲國際博覽會舉行，由香港童聲合唱協會主辦、中國香港體育協會暨奧林匹克委員會協辦的。

          我來到亞洲國際博覽會後，已經看到2500位合唱團的成員，他們大部份都是學生。在會場內，其中1500人是來自香港，另外的1000人是來自33個不同的國家。而且，還有一群學生組成的管弦樂隊，分別由兩位不同國籍的指揮家指揮他們演奏不同的音樂，一位是美國人，另一位是香港人。

          我唱了兩首歌，一首是‘We Are Ready’，一首是‘One World One Voice’，美國指揮家負責指揮‘We Are Ready’，本地的指揮家既是‘One World One Voice’的作者，又負責指揮樂隊演奏這音樂。我看著他們二人在指揮，真的很有趣，我一直都很羨慕別人有音樂天份，特別是指揮家，我覺得他們站在台上指揮的時候很有型，很有個性，很有活力。

          綵排的時候，由於‘We Are Ready’我已經很熟了，所以沒有太大的困難，只是最初我不大習慣由管弦樂團演奏的音樂版本，試了兩三次，我已經大概可以掌握到了。至於‘One World One Voice ’，我來到場館才收到樂譜，要即席學這首歌，另外跟我合唱的兩位女士分別是1999年香港小姐亞軍原子鏸和國內‘藝星製造Ⅱ超級偶像選拔賽’的得獎者王婧，她們也跟我一樣，要即席學唱‘One World One Voice’。不得不稱讚兩位女孩子和我自己，剛剛接觸一首新歌，還要跟在場幾千位合唱團成員一起試唱，練了幾遍以後，我們就可以與合唱團成員合唱，並配合走位等等。

          很快就綵排完畢，我先回家換衣服，才回去參加今晚的正式演出。

          正式演出時，我聽著來自不同國家的合唱團唱歌，他們的聲音有如天籟，讓我聽出耳油。節目完畢後，我與很多小朋友來張大合照，大家都很開心呢。至於這個小胖子，大家猜猜他有多大？現在先不說出答案，下一次看我的日記，我會告你們的，好了，拜拜。