Song Review: Dear Jane's "Unavoidable"

Dear Jane makes their 2013 return with their new single "Unavoidable". Right off the bat, it is obvious that this talented band have once again given it their all into this song.

"Unavoidable" is a song that will probably only appeal to a smaller group of listeners. It possesses a softer rock sound, which fans of the band's former rougher and more punk influenced music may not be fond of. At the same time, it is not a song whose melody will immediately stick to you because it's not as catchy as their other material. However, it does not stop "Unavoidable" from being an overall great song.

This may sound strange, but in some ways this is one of Dear Jane's weaker songs, but in other ways their personal best. It's weakness consist of the reasons stated above. One must be more open minded and really appreciate music to realize this is actually one of Dear Jane's best yet. The song embodies what I love this band so much for: true passion and honesty. Howie's songwriting and composition is beautiful, personal and meaningful and Tim is able to showcase his voice and bring his lyrics to life. I'm pleased to see that Dear Jane, while conforming a bit to make it in the mainstream HK music industry, is also staying true to themselves and giving listeners the opportunity to hear something different and full of heart and substance.

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Additional Notes: Against my initial expectations, "Unavoidable" is doing incredibly well! It went #1 on the iTune store as well as on HK music charts, and still high up as we speak. It is wonderful to see a song that doesn't conform to usual HK mainstream tastes garnering critical and commercial success. Congratulations Dear Jane!!!

"Slow Boat Home" Review

"Slow Boat Home" had promoted itself to be a refreshing youth-oriented and romantic lighthearted comedy. While the first half of the series did manage to be quite enjoyable and deliver many laughs, a closer look and one can easily tell that it quickly morphed into another typical TVB family drama. Although quite funny in its earlier episodes, it became yet another series with poorly written story lines weeded together and love stories that lacked a romantic factor that turned it lackluster and draggy.

The four leads all deliver, but the development and outline of their characters was sloppy.

Raymond Wong is solid as always and delivers as "Cheung Bo Jai". The character would have easily become annoying with his obnoxiousness in the early episodes, but instead Raymond made him quite hilarious. Yet, Cheung Bo Jai found himself primarily pining after Bo Bo (portrayed by Aimee Chan) and caught in the middle of family drama, lacking his own direction in life. Although he has a dream of owning his own boat, not much is ever done with this subplot until - you guessed it - he buys himself a huge yacht in the last episode.

Aimee Chan is surprisingly pleasant and very likable as "Bo Bo". She is charming and appears very comfortable onscreen due to the tailor made role and casual atmosphere. However, it is actually her character that puzzles me the most with her odd actions and behavior. She so readily settled down into life at Cheung Chau and gave up her career as a director that it was simply bizarre. I find it hard to believe Bo Bo would not return to New York when she could, had such a good attitude about working as a waitress when she was formerly a director, and so easily gave up on looking for her father (the reason she came to Cheung Chau) after learning it is not Mui Kei (portrayed by Ngok Wah).

As a huge fan of Ruco Chan, I become giddy every time I start a new series with him as lead. Now, this giddiness literally lasted all through out "The Other Truth", yet wore off for me here after just a
few episodes. Why? "Fit Wing" offers absolutely no challenge to Ruco's acting skills and range, and didn't present much more substance than that of a fool blinded by love.

Selena Li is given more of an acting challenge with "Heidi", who goes from greedy to good to being even more greedy than before and finally back to well, volunteer work doing, no make up wearing good. She does what she can with the role and it's nice to see her exercising her abilities a bit, but Heidi's character changes were abrupt and poorly done.

As said above, the love stories lack actual romance. Ruco and Selena share so much sweet and genuine chemistry, yet Fit Wing and Heidi's relationship was a constant back and forth with Heidi's regression, hurting and using Ruco as well as his loved ones time and time again, only to end with him forgiving her. And then the cycle repeats again. And again. Their relationship was dysfunctional and kept suffering the same setbacks. I feel teased that two such lovable and endearing onscreen love interests were given such a terrible love line.

Raymond and Aimee's line fared better. They were entertaining during their take as the classic bickering rivals turned couple, but I failed to see when Aimee started to return Raymond's feelings for her. Although they were fun together and shared chemistry, they too lacked romance.

However, "Slow Boat Home"'s most significant setback is how disconnected from each other the four main characters are. At first, the series seemed to tell two completely different stories, with one taking place in Cheung Chau and one in Hong Kong. Although this improved when Ruco and Selena's characters relocated back to Cheung Chau, it still couldn't hide the fact that the four were very much disconnected and lacked cohesion.

Friendship was a theme that would have been enjoyable to see develop, but the bonds beyond the two couples was not explored. Aimee and Ruco do not even share a scene together until almost halfway into the series, and Raymond and Selena had almost no interactions despite being childhood friends. It focused almost solely on the two couples and unnecessary family drama.

The most enjoyable aspect of the series though, was the bromance friendship between Raymond, Ruco and Matt Yeung. The three guys appeared very comfortable together and their friendship looked realistic, resulting in fun and warm scenes. However, these scenes were limited, particularly with Matt's minimal screen time and once again, disconnection to the group overall. Poor "Chuen So Kei" was constantly lost about what was going on between the four and almost consistently the last to find out.

Easily the most refreshing thing about "Slow Boat Home" is its location filming in Cheung Chau. It was a breath of fresh air to not see the same boring sets and filming sites yet again and instead see the natural beauty of this small town. Of course, this alone was not able to keep "Slow Boat Home" entertaining and fresh.

What becomes most evident about halfway through the series is that there is no actual point to it. There is no central story line, and just a bunch of poorly written story lines weeded together while the two main couples were pushed apart and back again and again. Not only does it become mixed with trite family drama, but allows itself to fall victim to cliched and random story lines like Oceane Zhu's and Elaine Yiu's. These subplots added nothing to the overall story (whatever that was) and seemed like they were simply included to drag out the series length. In addition, Lee Yee Man's character can probably go down as the most annoying character of the year.

Here's a fun fact: when the series was first proposed, it was supposed to have a music theme and showcase the musical talents of the cast. Ruco and Aimee were to play together on the guitar and piano respectively. Sadly, what showed up in the final script was Ruco strumming random guitar chords two or three times and no use of music as a theme. This is disappointing as it could have helped make "Slow Boat Home" more refreshing, particularly with its musically inclined cast (Ruco can play guitar and sing, Aimee can play piano, Selena can sing and compose and plays the piano, and Cilla was originally a singer). My guess is TVB backed out of this original concept to ease and simplify the filming and production process, since they love taking the easy way out. I would have loved to see music incorporated into this series.

Overall, "Slow Boat Home" is a series that starts off funny and entertaining, but its humor quickly wears off and goes down the trite family drama route traveled a hundred too many times by TVB series. All four leads are strong and likable, but either poor or inconsistent characterization keeps them from being utilized to full potential. If it weren't for the large amount of free time I have on my hands these days and the main cast, I would probably have dropped it by the last five episodes. There was plenty potential, and marketed as a youth-oriented romantic comedy, it had the opportunity to be something fresh. As most TVB series these days though, it is once again wasted potential.

Rating: 2.5 stars

"A Great Way to Care 2" Review by Lynne

If you ask me whether "A Great Way to Care 2" is better than it's prequel or not, the answer would be no. But if you ask me whether it's a good series or not, I would say that it was an enjoyable watch. So depending on the question, this review will come out differently. For this review, I'm just going to be talking about "A Great Way to Care 2" without making any comparisons to it's prequel. (I will then later write one comparing the two.)

General Storyline: With a mixture of psychiatry and police work, "A Great Way to Care 2"'s story line weaves in between the two forces as they work together and solve the cases. From the forensic psychiatry branch: Alex Fong, Yoyo Mung, Edwin Siu, Power Chan, Oscar Leung, Eric Li, Henry Lee and Christine Kuo. The police force consists of Ben Wong and Tavia Yeung. Aside from these two main teams, other supporting characters also includes Ram Chiang, Aimee Chan and Leanne Li.

Waste of a Good Cast? I initially wanted to list all the character names of the artistes but as you guys can see, there were just too many names. Unfortunately out of that chunk, only a few were focused on. There were just too many necessary characters, or should I say, the characters were too small for the assigned artistes. With other series lacking artistes, they just had to throw a bunch into "A Great Way to Care 2". Trying to make it 'star-studded'?  Meh.  I found it frustrating.

You know what? It would've been alright if the series focused on the cases alone. But no, that didn't happen.  Instead, there were a bunch of unnecessary side-stories thrown into the script to distribute the screen time to all the characters. That's why the typical cases that are usually 1-3 episodes long stretched to 6-7 episodes. While I was okay with it in the first 1-2 cases (because they had to introduce the characters), it got on my nerves afterwards as I struggled to focus on the continuously "disrupted" cases.

Overall comments, a lot of the cast members could have been put to better use.

picture credit http://starphoto.joinbbs.net/

Characters and Acting:

Alex Fong
I was not a big fan of Alex Fong, but I've begun to like him since "A Great Way to Care". Resuming his role as Ko Lap Yan, his character did not differ much beside the huge screen-time cut! It is such a pity because I actually like Ko Lap Yan alot, and was looking forward to watching him every time he appeared onscreen.

Best scene? It'd have to be the one where he was reading Monkey's (Kate Tsui) letters. Didn't think Alex would be good in an emotional scene like this, but he proved me wrong.

Though Alex often comes off monotone, there is something about the guy that makes him interesting to watch. I cannot clearly describe it, but it's definitely not something a lot of actors can do nowadays. So despite the fact that he had little screen-time in each episode, I can still feel that he's leading the series.

Edwin Siu
His character had the potential to shine but that did not happen. If I were to define Leung Kai Wing by a geometric shape, he'd be a circle. Absolutely pointless. Wanna know his story line?

"I have a crush on this girl and is trying to woo her (lasted for half of the series). Finally got together with her! But wait, my childhood friend. I want to be there and protect her too. So in the end, who should I choose? I love both Q.Q Becomes a two-timer. Busted. Realization. Too late."

While I may have exaggerated this a bit, it's still pretty close to what actually happened.  Honestly they should have just crossed Scarlett (Christine Kuo) out of the whole picture (bias here because I actually really enjoyed the scenes he had with Aimee Chan).  Personally disappointed by how much they focused on his love life instead of his profession when he's one of the main characters.

Acting wise, Edwin is a capable actor and was funny at times in the series.  Unfortunately his story line was just nonsense.

Yoyo Mung
Don't let her position on the poster fool you. As a matter of fact, she and Edwin should switch places on that thing! Yoyo Mung barely had any screen-time and when she did, her sub story was boring and random. Maybe the scriptwriters/producers realized that they did not give her any screen-time even after the first 8 episodes or something, and so had to squeeze in that story about Franco And speaking of Franco, we never got to see his face or anything but at least we got to see his shadow right? Had an entire episode dedicated to that guy! Overall, she serves little purpose to the series and is only there because TVB wanted to push more stars in.

Putting my rants aside, Yoyo's "Cheuk Wai Kui" was pleasant to watch. I really liked her personality: stubborn and straight forward. Her relationship with her subordinates is quite cute and I love how they call her "Big Brother". And when she got "together" with Alex Fong, they called Alex dai sao (sister-in-law). Though this character is nothing new for Yoyo, I still enjoyed seeing her again (which is why I am unhappy that she did not have much screen-time).

Tavia Yeung
If there's a character worth watching for, it would be Lam Chung Yan. She first appeared as the daring and spunky prostitute who then turns out to be an undercover cop. TVB always like to surprise us don't they? Anyways, after she finished her case, Chung Yan returned to being a cop and begins to work under Chung Kwok Ban (Ben Wong). Growing up as an orphan, Chung Yan endured many hardships and there were a number of times when she almost lost her life too. But even then, she continued to live on an optimistic life. Unfortunately there is a limit to all of us and she eventually reached the level that she herself could no longer handle...

To be honest, I think a majority of the series was dedicated to Tavia Yeung. Thus she ended up being one of the very few with a decent character development. Thoroughly enjoyed Tavia's performance and notably in episode 23.

As for her pairing with Ben Wong, there was nothing special going on. Instead, I think that it would've been better if Alex paired up with Tavia since I liked the two of them together. But then, Alex would be dating another police woman like he did in the prequel. What are the possibilities of TVB copying something from the prequel into the sequel? BTW, this is within that rare percentage that they did not.

picture credit http://starphoto.joinbbs.net/

The 'Others':  While I would love to talk more about the other characters, there is little to talk about due to their minimal screen-time. So I'm just going to sum it up that the rest of the cast were great with the exception of Christine Kuo.  I'm relatively easy going when I talk about newcomers (or at least I think I am), but Christine has driven me to the point where I want to bang my head against the wall.  More so than the bad acting, it's the fact that her acting is going absolutely nowhere.  Back in "Ghetto Justice 2", I understand that her character in there may have been too complicated for her to portray.  But even in here, she's still not giving me much to look out for.  Acting in 8 or so series already, I expect her to be a bit better than now.

**To make it clear I am not criticizing her accent because I do not know Canto :P  Just the acting (ie. facial expressions, body language etc).

The Cases:  I would talk about each individual case if I wasn't so confused which case is which.

While there are a few main cases that are featured in the series, there were also a lot of sub-cases within those big cases that confused me.  So I'll only talk about a few:

Otto Chan and Aimee Chan:  Wrote this in a separate post before-hand.

The Pedophile Case:  This case focused on Chung Yan (Tavia)'s childhood friends, who she considers as brothers.  They grew up together in an orphanage: Chiu, Wai, Man and Yan.  Unfortunately Man disappeared when they were young.  Chiu and Yan then ended up working for the government (police officer and the other a lawyer).  On the other hand, Wai is crippled and often went into debts.  On with the case; a few murders took place.  Father, the one who took care of them (Yan, Chiu, Wai and Man) then confessed that he was the one who killed them.  Why?  Father works as a volunteer for a kids recreation center and cares a lot for the kids.  Later, he discovered that some of the kids were being sexually abused by a volunteer, foster father etc and thus couldn't stand it and killed all those pedophiles.  Eventually, we find out that he's taking up the blame for someone else (though the true murderer is also killed for the same reason).

While the identity of the murderer did not surprise me, I liked how the case slowly unwrapped itself.  Though the subject (issue) is something that's also used in other series, the length and the pace this one went at made it even more disturbing.  Honestly, I just really wanted the case to end because as it goes on more victims would be discovered and I just couldn't handle it.  More so, as it progressed I began to think of such situations happening in reality (which I know are not rare cases) and I just felt worse from there...

There are things in life you just wish you did not know because you won't have to worry or get hurt by it.  But then if you don't know about it, you can't do anything to help solve the problem.  On the other hand, there are so many things that is not within our power to resolve even when we do have knowledge of the issue.  I find it quite ironic how Ah Chiu is the murderer even though he's a lawyer.  Though he may work in the legal field, Ah Chiu couldn't see how law can punish those pedophiles and therefore took the matter into his own hands.  Thus this case in turn displays the imperfections of our justice system (nothing is perfect).  I personally pity Ah Chiu despite his wrongdoings and was saddened by his death in the end.

***Pedophilia is actually a psychiatric disorder.  

Serial Killer Case:  A number of people are killed and the police is investigating who the murderer is.  This is the last case of the series and it was quite interesting to watch.  Though I must say that its ending felt kind of disrupt.  (Not going to talk about it anymore since I don't want to give away spoilers.)

The Unnecessary Bits:
1)  Just cross out that whole love triangle between Edwin, Christine and Aimee.  More so, just cross out Christine because I liked Edwin's and Aimee's characters together.
2)  Yoyo getting a sperm donation from Alex.  While it increased their interaction with each other, it just felt ridiculous.  Although I know that they wanted to get the two 'together', this development was too hard to absorb.
3)  You know what, there's probably more but those two up above were the most frustrating to watch.

The Ending:
Here we have two professional psychiatrists helping a murderer escape.  Sounds a bit sketchy?  I can understand why they would want to help her, but yet at the same time, their whole set up is kind of ridiculous.  More so, even if she did manage to escape from the police, how in the world is she going to board the plane?  I'm sure the police would have restricted her (passport profile) from crossing the borders (or something like that).  Overall, it just seems too irrational.  I guess TVB wanted to be creative and add a "twist" to the ending.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well.

Overall Thoughts:
"A Great Way to Care 2"'s story line did not run as smoothly since it kind of jumped from one character to the next, but the series overall is not bad to watch.  It's actually one of the more enjoyable series released this year and if you have time, I would recommend it.  But if you're one of those who loved the original "A Great Way to Care", just watch this without comparing it too much to the prequel, since it focuses less on psychiatry and more on the police force.

R.I.P. Sita Chan

Hong Kong pop star Sita Chan, at only 26 years old, was killed in a car accident this morning after she lost control of her car and hit a divider. She was pronounced dead at 4AM. Chan debuted as a singer in 2011 and had just won the Best New Female Singer award 3 months ago.

Just a mere couple hours before her death, she posted this picture of her in the studio. She was a very talented and beautiful young woman with a great voice and had a bright future ahead of her. She was probably going to make it big, but now she's gone too soon. It breaks my heart to see this young woman's life suddenly taken away from her. Rest in peace Sita. Hong Kong has last another talent. My deepest condolences to her family. Life is just so precious.

Our Little Heaven Chapter 4

 Discovering Danny  
 It's Saturday morning, and Niki had just returned from the photoshoot. "Ugh," groaned Niki as she threw herself onto her bed and kicked off her heels. With the comfort of her soft bed and her feet now free from the restricting and painful high heels, she let out a sigh of relief.

She laid there motionless while staring at the ceiling and soon she was drifting off. She had been up since 4 in the morning preparing for the shoot and had spent the entire day so far on set, so she was sore to the bone. You would think that simply posing and smiling in front of a camera would be easy, but it's less than glamorous when you're stuck doing it for 7 hours straight.

Just when she was about to fall asleep, a loud beeping sound woke her up from her trance. She rolled over to her stomach and grabbed her phone. It was the alarm that she set to remind her of her tutoring session with Danny.

Great...I forgot about Dummy. Niki slumped down on her pillow, ruffled her hair, and let out a sigh of frustration before lugging herself out of bed.

Danny's house was a short 15 minutes away by bus and soon Niki found herself standing in front of his door ringing the door bell excessively. She had been standing there for at least 3 minutes knocking and ringing the door bell, yet there was no response.

"Where is that guy! I'm sleep deprived and the last thing he wants to do is blow me off. So help me I'll..." Niki ranted angrily. In the middle of her rant, she noticed that in the corner of her eye a little boy riding past on his tricycle had stopped and stared at her wide-eyed. She let out an awkward smile and waved lightly at the boy. "Hi..." she said softly.

"Mom! There's a weird lady yelling at a door!" yelled the little boy as he peddled off as fast as he could.

Niki sighed. "Great...for my future resume I can put yelling at doors and scaring kids," she muttered.

"Don't forget talking to yourself," a voice behind her added. Startled, she turned around to see Danny leaning against the door ruffling his hair. Danny was in a white T-shirt and sweatpants. From the looks of it, he had just woken up.

Niki gave him an annoyed look. She stood there for 3 minutes and he picked the most awkward moment to open the door?! "So, what are you doing here? Besides scaring my neighbors...and my door..." Danny asked.

"I was scheduled to teach a monkey how to read," Niki said smiling innocently at Danny.

"I know how to read!" protested Danny.

"Oh! So you're the monkey?" Niki teased as she slipped by Danny and into the house. Danny closed the door behind her and gave her a scowl.

  The inside of Danny's house gave Niki quite a surprise. It was nothing like she had imagined it would be. It was a relatively small house with a square design and you could see everything form the door way. The house gave off an aura of simplicity with its plain cream colored walls decorated with only a few family photos. It was almost a complete contrast to Danny's loud and (according to Niki) obnoxious personality.

What surprised Niki the most however, was how religious the family seemed to be. Besides family pictures and a  the only other decorations were religious symbols such as: a small statue of the Virgin Mary, several crosses scattered about the rooms, and a set of bibles.

 "So...." Danny said interrupting Niki from her train of thoughts. "Umm...can you wait for me in my room? I'll catch up with you in a bit," he said.

"Ok..." Niki said, still somewhat distracted.

"My room is the second one on the left," said Danny, and with that he ran off into the bathroom.

Niki walked down the narrow hallway and into the room instructed. She continued to be surprised by her surroundings. Danny's room was no exception to the rest of the house, it was equally simple and organized. The room only had a computer desk, a dresser, and a bed. What intrigued her was the level of organization; she was half expecting to be drowned in dirty laundry and magazines, yet everything was placed neatly in its respectable place.

Niki grabbed a seat at Danny's desk and tried to take in what she had seen.

"Hey," Danny said coming into the room.

"Hey..." Niki replied giving Danny an intrigued look.

"What... do I have something on my face?" Danny asked turning to a mirror and fixing his hair.

Well, he's still normal...as normal as he can be at least, Niki thought to herself as she rolled her eyes at Danny's vain action.

"It's just that I expected your house to be something...different," Niki replied.

"Oh? Like what, studded door, provocative posters, a gun?" Danny joked.

"Yes," Niki said looking at Danny with a straight face.

Danny stared back at her and there was a moment of awkward silence.

Niki let out a chuckle and said playfully "I'm joking! But I did expect the posters."

"Well no posters, but I do have some magazines hidden." Danny replied with a wink.

"So um, where's your parents?" Niki asked curiously.

"They're at church." Danny replied "On a Saturday?" Niki asked.

"Yeah, my dad's a pastor so he's up there preparing for tomorrow and my mom's pretty religious too, so she goes up there to help," Danny explained.

"So why aren't you up there helping out?" Niki asked continuing her probing.

"Do I look like I'm into religious stuff?" Danny asked.

"No, but your room says otherwise and you've managed to surprise me so far," Niki replied, frankly.

"Yeah, I just go along with it, whatever makes them happy. If it weren't for them I wouldn't care about all this tutoring stuff and grades...That's why they can't know about what I'm like at school...They'll probably die from disappointment," Danny said unconsciously rambling off.

Niki looked at Danny and for the first time she did so with a serious consideration. He's not as childish and mindless as she thought.

"I'm sure they won't be disappointed or...at least not DIE from it," Niki said kindly.

"Hopefully not...Anyways," said Danny, trying to change the subject. "Let's get to tutoring!...and what not."

"Sure! What do you wanna start with?" Niki replied happy to be moving on, yet still curious to know more about the new side of Danny that she's just discovered.

"Well let's see! I think my weakest subject would be....everything..." Danny said returning to his usual playful tone.

"Let's start with English, from our speaking exercise the other day I swear you were making up your own words," Niki chuckled and replied playfully.

"I was not!" Danny protested. "Really? Then what the heck was mooney (he meant money)" Niki teased.

"What! Didn't I say that right? You know mooney." Danny replied.

Niki laughed at Danny's silliness, this was the longest time she's spent with Danny (the first time she spent with him alone) and to her surprise she didn't feel like killing him. And here I thought I might want to rip his head off have way through.....Maybe this tutoring thing could work, Niki thought as she listened to Danny's hopeless English pronunciation trying not to laugh her head off.

**********

Niki and Danny continued with their lesson while exchanging a few jokes and teasing comments every now and then. They were disrupted by the jingling of keys and a big thump; it was Danny's parents returning home from church. Only then did the two of them check the clock and realized they had spent the last 2 hours together.

"Shen De! We're home! Where are you?" exclaimed a female voice from outside in the living room.

"Oh my parents are home,"said Danny. He got up and walked out to greet them, Niki followed suit.

Niki came out to see a middle-aged couple setting their things down. The woman was petite. She wore a light yellow sun dress with floral designs and her hair was cut in a shoulder-length bob that complemented her soft facial feature. The man was quite tall and thin, his hair was neatly combed in a side part and he had his pastor's suit on.

Danny walked out into the living room to greet them and Niki stayed behind in the hallway.

"Ba, Ma. Welcome home," Danny said.

"Oh there you are sweetie," said Mrs. Wong as she sweetly pat his cheek. Danny bent down to lightly kiss her cheek.

Then Danny's dad came up to him and said, "You should've came, your help would've been appreciated."

"Oh, honey give him a break. It's the weekend he's tired from school, let him have a break." replied Mrs.Wong.

"I'll come next week," Danny said wrapping his arm around his dad's shoulder.

Niki looked in envy as she saw their closeness, her family feels even more cold in comparison.

Danny's mom looked to the side and noticed Niki standing there. She flashed a smile towards Niki and asked, "Oh hello, Shen De who is this?" she asked.

Niki returned the smile and bowed respectfully towards the couple. "Hello uncle, auntie." Niki said.

Danny's dad nudged Danny slightly and teased, "So this is why you didn't want to come."

"Danny's never brought his girlfriend home before! He rarely brings anyone home actually. I was getting worried about him," Danny's mom added, smiling sweetly. She walked toward Niki and gripped her hands lightly, greeting her.

His parent's teasing comments made Danny glow bright red and Niki smiled widely.

"This is Niki, she's my new tutor," Danny clarified to prevent any further comments.

"Oh I see, well I knew your tutor was coming, but I didn't expect such a pretty girl," said Danny's mom.

"I didn't either," mumbled Danny to himself and smiled coyly.

Niki smiled shyly and scratched her head.

"Well, we'll be troubling you with Shen De from now on," said Danny's dad.

"Oh it's no trouble uncle," Niki assured Danny's dad then turned to Danny and asked, "Shen De?"

"It's my Chinese name," Danny replied unwillingly. "Don't you dare tell anyone," he added. He's always been embarrassed of his name; "Shen De", personal virtue, of course his parents would give him such an old fashion name it was so likely of them.

"Don't worry who am I going to tell," Niki replied giving him a wink and mischievous smile.

"So how is the tutoring going? Danny's slow so you'll have to be patient with him," said Danny's mom.

"We're just about done actually. I'm going to pack up now. I should get back home," Niki replied.

"Why don't you join us for dinner?" offered Danny's dad.

"I don't want to impose," Niki replied.

"No it's fine, we insist. Right Shen De?" Danny mom said nudging Danny to support her.

"Yeah, you should," Danny said.

Niki complied and stayed for dinner at Danny's house. They had a plain meal with rice, cabbage soup, fried eggs, and marinated ribs.

Danny's dad told Niki stories about his preaching experience, Danny's mom would tease him for being so geeky and Danny and Niki would burst out in light laughter. The atmosphere was warm and comforting, something Niki had not experienced in a long time. After dinner, Niki stayed to help with the dishes and chatted with Danny's mom who asked her many questions.

"Alright, I should get going now. Thank you for everything. Danny, I'll see in school," Niki said as she stood up and grabbed her stuff.

"Thanks for coming dear. Shen De, you should walk her out," Danny's mom said.

Danny listened and got up.

"It's no problem, I should thank you for the meal. I'll be troubling you from now on," said Niki.

"It's fine, come anytime you like Niki," Danny's dad said, looking up from his newspaper.

"Well let's go, its getting late," Danny pressed.

Niki bowed to Danny's parents and said goodbye again before following Danny out the door.

He walked her out into the Main street and hailed her a taxi.

"Sorry my parents are so old-fashioned," said Danny.

"It's fine, they're really nice. It's nice how close you guys are," said Niki.

"They're really dorky and well you only get one mom and dad, no point in constantly defying them," Danny said.

Niki smiled and said quietly, "You're lucky."

Danny couldn't make out what she said, but he returned the smile and said, "Thanks for coming today, Ms. symphony probably told you my problem with tutors."

"It went better than I thought it would, so we'll see," Niki replied.

"I'll see you Monday then?" Danny asked and realized how stupid the question was considering they have school.

Niki laughed and replied,"Yeah, I'll see you Monday." Then she opened the cab door and stepped inside.

Before driving off she lowered the window, looked up to Danny, and warned in a playful tone, "Oh, and remember to do your homework; if you forget I'll beat you up."

Danny laughed and returned a threat, "I will, don't worry, and if you tell anyone what you saw today I'll..."

"What? You'll beat me up too?" Niki interrupted playfully asking.

"No...I don't hit girls..." said Danny.

Niki scoffed and stuck her head back in the taxi. She signaled for the taxi to start and said, "Bye."

"Bye," Danny replied he began walking backwards slowly, waiting for the taxi to drive off out of sight. Niki stuck her hand out and waved back at him.

Song Review: Nam Soo Rim (Rimi)'s "Drive Me to the Moon"

Female K-Indie rapper Nam Soo Rim comes back after a year's hiatus with her new mini album "Drive Me to the Moon". For this comeback, Soo Rim trades her previous edgy style for a softer, more romantic one. The album's main focus is to tell the story of romance; each song provides a different perspective and situation. In her album-titled song "Drive Me to the Moon", Soo Rim takes us on a romantic and fantasy-like date.

The Song:
"Drive Me to the Moon" is a mid-tempo rock infused hip-hop track. The song features Nam Soo Rim's powerful rapping and the vocals of Park Ji Yoon.  The vocals and rapping blends nicely together and with the music to paint a story of love. Soo Rim keeps a strong and consistent beat with her rapping, which to me sounds like she's providing narration for the story and Ji Yoon's lovely vocals set the dream-like tone for the song.

I personally love this song, it's different, unique, and definitely not something you often come across in K-pop. Being a heavily rap focused song, I was surprised that Soo Rim was able to pull off a romantic style and sound using a genre that's generally more edgy.

The MV:
The music video uses stunning animations to depict the lyrics of the song. The video follows two girls as they go on a date through a fantasy-like amusement park. As it progresses reality starts to blend with fantasy as the girl's imaginations take over. The MV also raises a question about what the story is telling. It could be a story of two young lovers on a date, or it could be interpreted as two close friends hanging out. Personally, I think it's the former because of the romantic feel the tone of the song and the setting of the MV give off.

Overall, this is a phenomenal song that surpasses the usual boundaries of music. The song is sweet and romantic while still maintaining a funky and edgy sound. The quality of the animation used for the MV is stunning as well. Soo Rim did a fantastic job with experimentation in this new comeback. I will definitely look out for Nam Soo Rim's name in the future. This goes to prove that South Korea has much more to show than just its usual mainstream K-Pop.

Song Review: Fiona Sit's "告別我/Farewell"

Following the smash hit "Cold Joke", Fiona Sit releases her new single "Farewell", which is burning up the charts!

Over the last year, Fiona has made great strides in her musical career.  Her vocals as well as musical style have sharpened and matured, showing she will be the star and diva of tomorrow.  This latest plug joins the streak of great singles Fiona has been releasing.

"Farewell" is a beautiful and phenomenal ballad.  Its musical composition is lovely and pleasing to the ears, with a sound that is slightly reminiscent of 90s Cantopop.  The instruments and musical elements blend together beautifully.  The lyrics, which talk of falling in love with someone you know you will have to say goodbye to, are emotionally sung and executed gracefully by Fiona.  The pacing of the song is very nice, as it is neither too slow for a ballad nor too fast.  "Farewell" also gives a more sophisticated musical direction and image to Fiona.

In addition, the music video is nicely executed with tasteful artistic direction, and as a result compliments the song very well.  There is a melancholic feel to it, allowing the song to touch you more.    Everything about the song comes together so effortlessly and beautifully.

Overall, "Farewell" is a heartfelt and stunning song, and one of the more memorable ballads I've heard. It continues to show how Fiona is improving and maturing, as well as on her way to becoming one of the brightest and biggest singers in Cantopop.  This is definitely my new favorite song from Fiona (which I seem to say every time she releases a new single nowadays?), and I'm sure there is more great material to come.