Final Update about Teresa Tseng: Final Conversation with Teresa's Family

I just had a long conversation with Mdm Tseng and Teresa's family at Plaza Singapura during the One Million Star qualifying auditions.

Apparently, after talking for nearly 20 minutes, I finally found out after two years, the following things:

1) Teresa's family does not wish to answer any more questions from anybody regarding Teresa's future events or participation of anything because they believed that such issues are to be internally discussed within the family circle, not with any outsiders. This automatically means that I cannot enquire any further things from Teresa's family because they have been finding these questions intrusive into family affairs.

2) Teresa's family also wishes to express that they would like to just explore Teresa's potential talents and wishes to make no further confirmation or commitment to any particular direction of advancement to any interests at the moment.

3) Teresa's family stand on the issue of the Official Teresa Fanclub - Let nature runs its course. If the fanclub is to die a natural death, so be it. Unless there is any exceptional message that Teresa wishes to announce, she would not be making any messages there like informing supporters of any particular events that she may be participating.

4) Teresa's family wishes everyone to treat Teresa as just an ordinary girl, and they would not actively seek any support from anyone even though passive support would be heartfelt and appreciated. They would like supporters to concentrate on their main work at hand and only use surplus time to support Teresa.

5) Teresa's family believe this is a free world and anyone can choose to do anything as they please and they would impose no wishes or wants from anybody nor require anything from anybody at all. They wish Teresa to desire and crave nothing, only to gain exposure to whatever interests Teresa has on hand at the moment and in the near future.

At the moment of typing this post, Teresa is still at Plaza Singapura, waiting for the results of the One Million Stars auditions. I did not watch her perform because I had to go back here to quickly finish this blog post and head off for work again. I wish her all the best!

In response to the abovementioned information that I had recently acquired, I will politely:

1) Be fully reassured that my decision to leave TFC was absolutely correct and necessary.

2) Remove all the TFC tags from the blogroll of affected bloggers because I no longer believe TFC's existence is of any further use at all.

3) Wish Teresa and her family all the best in pursuing what they believe to be right.

4) Continue to help anyone else who wants to pursuit their love of music, singing and performance.

曾夫人，Thomas, 咏霖，

我并不知道“无求”是否在这现代社会能帮助人生存，可是我尊重你们的想法。

遗憾的是，在我的世界里，“无求”代表“无进”，而若我是“无进”的人，就会失去了我对生活的信念 - 做个对社会有用的人。这就会牵涉很多和我有关的人。

虽然“道不同，不相为谋”，可是我庆幸能得你明白，我的处事方法虽非“无求”，我唯一的目的只是想 - 帮助咏霖。即然是“无求”， 我再你们的世界的存在已然不重要，当然就会消失了。

无论今后缘份如何，祝你们都能幸福快乐！

Official Announcement of Retirement from Teresa's Fanclub 01 Feb 2008

Why do I call it a retirement?

1) Because I did not quit on Teresa due to any negative ill-feelings.

2) Because I did not surrender to any anti-Teresa or anti-Sean Ho critics.

3) Because I have done as much as I could for Teresa in the time frame given.

4) Because I did see Teresa blossom into a wonderful celebrity, capable of giving high quality performances time and again.

5) Because I have a very important assignment at May 2008, which would require my full attention so I would like to leave TFC now so I can have a good three-month rest before that officially begins.

How long has it been? I think it is nearly two full years – from 06 February 2006 when Teresa first sang 爱昧 when I first noticed how crystalline her voice was till 01 February 2008 today. I decided to find out more about the girl so on that night I surfed the Internet and found the now-defunct yahoo fanclub for Teresa. I noticed that Teresa already have quite a base of supporters rooting for her in the Campus Superstar Season 1 Competition but she was facing tremendous pressure from unfair rumors and taking a lot of fire on the various competition-related websites across the Internet.

A number of Teresa’s supporters fought back but most of the supporters (who were probably like Teresa, quiet and un-aggressive in counterattacking) were passively quiet. As I read all the terrible-sounding rumour, I fully understood the potential consequences on such a potentially wonderful young singer – if nobody retaliated the rumors properly, many neutral watchers of the competition would slowly believe the rumors and that would be the end of that girl’s trip to stardom.

I did a little bit of quick research and found out that Teresa was a reluctant contestant, being encouraged onstage at the last minute after most of her school contestants were eliminated during the preliminary auditions due to the stiff competition from thousands of contestants all over Singapore. However, Teresa was strongly backed by her choir teacher, Mr Liew, and many teachers in CHJC Katong Convent, as well as members of the public.

I looked through my schedule and decided I could squeeze some time from my work to help Teresa in the competition. Henceforth began my two year adventure into the world of young celebrities and the Superstars competitions.

All in all, in public messages across the fanclub, I have started a total of 67 topics on Teresa and posted a total of 328 posts updating, replying and encouraging Teresa and supporters on the Official Teresa’s Fanclub. In private messages to Teresa and her family, I have sent no less than 20 different sets of notes to either advise, recommend, suggest, compliments and sometimes reprimand on the different aspects of her celebrity career such as song selections, dance techniques, stage interactions, audience interactions, emcee interactions, singing techniques, voice control, emotions management, camera interactions, fan management, media management, crisis management, fashion selection, media and celebrity updates, personal security updates, and celebrity etiquette. I think I have given her as much as I could, given the time frame and the opportunities both of us have. If time was to be rewound, I think I would still plunge in with the same zest because I never regretted the experience of being able to help someone fulfill her wish of becoming a singer, realize her potential as a celebrity and of course, exercise all those skills which I have on hand.

Teresa did blossom into the wonderful celebrity that so many of her faithful supporters have been hoping for and has given so many people high quality performances that never failed to please and excite audience of various age groups. Of all the contestants in Campus Superstars Season 1, Teresa managed to stay in the limelight for the longest period of time and the number of her supporters continues to grow as she attracts them in each subsequent public performances and appearances on the various channels.

I am genuinely happy for the girl and no matter if she decides to continue on this path of stardom or goes back to her studies, I hope she enjoys this wonderful experience of being able to entertain and share quality singing and music with so many people. Few can say they have such a similar chance as she did.

Teresa, before I disappear, my final lesson for you (should you choose to learn) is actually embedded inside this very post itself. What is the lesson? I believe you are intelligent enough to learn on your own. If you can understand all that I have taught you throughout these two years, this lesson should not be that difficult. I hope you will be happy, no matter what happens.

For myself, I would like to tie up some loose ends before I leave. Yes, I will not post ever again on any of the Teresa-related websites again so don’t bother expecting my reply to any TFC-related posts after I publish this retirement announcement. The loose ends are:

1) To the idollic.com administrator, please kindly remove my account completely so that there will not be any impersonator of Sean Ho creating any future trouble using my name after I am gone. It has been a wonderful experience working with you on the fanclub.

2) To all the Blanket, JR, Jinfu, the fanclub photographers that I have worked closely with, thank you for tolerating my sometimes authoritative attitude towards all of you. I hope you can understand that I have to coordinate publicity timely so sometimes I pressure all of you here and there. I seek your forgiveness if I ever offended any of you during any of the occasions. Your photos of Teresa and her events were excellent and made such a great difference in the growth of the fanclub and extended the memories of all the performances by Teresa.

3) To all the passive faithful supporters of Teresa, thank you for bearing with the talkative Sean Ho. I would most gladly shut up but sometimes updates must be done in time or we will all miss the events’ schedules.

4) What happens to Yu San in SPOP? I have done a little research on Dione Tan’s background before the SPOP competition begins and she has a considerable base of supporters as well. However, I suppose complacency is a terrible thing because even though Yu San is now one of the strongest contenders of the grand finals of SPOP (where Teresa may get to perform in front of some of Asia’s superstars), I hope all of you will continue to support Teresa, Dione and the song Yu San all the way. With the combined force of Teresa’s and Dione’s supporters, Yu San will have even a higher chance of getting into the Singapore Indoors Stadium in March 2008.

5) What happens to my personal blog http://www.heaven-earth-human.blogspot.com/ ? It will remain there because even though I retire from TFC, I have never said anything about retiring from the music and entertainment scene. My blog will continue its direction of promoting quality music and quality singing and performances, giving commentaries to all those brave enough to send in their singing/performance recordings. So if you want to learn more about singing and dare to be critiqued by me, send them in. I promise I will go through them carefully.

6) For all the TFCians-related handphone numbers, email addresses MSN contacts, Facebook addresses, Friendster addresses, I decided to keep them intact. This means those who have the abovementioned contact means to reach me will continue to be able to communicate with me. We are still friends even though we are no longer linked as TFCians.

What about my plans after retirement? I will…

Read a book on my left hand,
Nibble an ice-cream on my right,
Relax with the wind in the hair,
Feel the sunlight on my face,
Walk on the grass with bare feet,
Prepare for the next page of my life.

Goodbye TFCians! Have a wonderful and enjoyable Chinese Lunar New Year!

Sean Ho
“Music clears the mind, fills the heart, moves the soul.”

Pre-Announcement of Retirement from Teresa's fanclub

Hi faithful supporters of Teresa!

I think the time has nearly come for me to leave TFC and put down all the Teresa-related activities and updates once and for all.

I will be making a final farewell post within two days' time on both the Official Teresa's Fanclub and on this blog so for those interested in what I have to say can stay tuned.

In that post, I will elaborate on the reasons that I have to depart.

This pre-announcement is made for the following reasons:

1) I hope those who have been hoping me to stay on in TFC will have some sort of mental preparation that Sean Ho will no longer be around to provide any updates for Teresa's activities again.

2) Teresa and her family will have some pre-notification that I will cease any form of help in any part of Teresa's celebrity career once the final farewell post is made within two days' time.

3) I want to make it clear that my departure has nothing to do with anti-Teresa people or anti-Sean Ho people from anywhere. So these people won't celebrate and run all over cheering, thinking that it was because of them that I left TFC.

Meanwhile, I will appreciate if nobody phone sms, phone call, MSN msg, tagboard msg, blog msg, email, Facebook msg, Friendster msg me to ask why I need to go at all.

All details will be revealed in the farewell post.

That's all for now.

Sean Ho
"Music clears the mind, fills the heart, moves the soul."

More Photos from Today's Health & Wellness Expo 2008,Teresa's Performance of Yu San at Ngee Ann Poly

Commentary on Singing For Samuel on 《恋人未满》:

Before anyone of you click the video below, please take note that the video was recorded with sporadic sudden volume bursts so don't put your ears too close to the speakers or earpieces or you may suffer a few shocks like I did when I first listened to it.


Samuel, since I have promised you that I will comment on this song so that you can improve, so here it goes:

Given the audio quality of the recording, I can only comment on what I could hear amidst the background music and static. The following is what I found out:

1) Male's starting part was too weak. There was no clear input of variation in the singing of the lyrics. Male sounds like reading the lyrics rather than singing them.

2) Female's starting part was quite clear. However, her endnotes are not very clean as if the lines just run-on to the next line without a specific break.

3) Female's second part was over-done with the endnotes. This time, she breaks the endnotes too hard, sounding as if she was chomping on the last word of each line of the lyrics. Control of endnotes and end lyrics is very important.

4) Harmonization is not good because both male and female are not communicating enough to decide on which key to rest on. Hence, the parts sounded uncompatible to blend into the song.

5) I admire the courage of both singers to jump enthusiastically into the crescendo part of the song. That is the spirit - keep that burning. However, control is the key word. Singing high and singing with control are two ends of the singing skill spectrum. To prevent screaming into the mics during crescendo portions of songs, allocation of enough breath and awareness of when to stop should be made known to oneself first.

6) When the song is supposed to fade after reaching its peak/finale, one's singing volume and emotions must adjust accordingly. By the end song, I could not really hear that difference. If a male singer is to participate in this song, he should know when to sustain his part because I find the male's voice disappearing for extended time with no reason when he should be following through with the female for some parts of the song.

That's all, Samuel. Hope my commentary can help you improve somehow. Have fun learning!

More Photos from Today's Health & Wellness Expo 2008:

As I was saying in my previous post, before I started reporting on Teresa's performance, I was hanging around the abovementioned exhibition and I must say it was very interesting. Full of stalls selling and promoting and introducing new healthcare products, giving free health tests and checks. A pity I did not have much time there but I did manage to take a few shots of a couple of performances onstage then.
This is Dongfang Billy, a famous and popular artiste amongst the middle-aged populace of Singapore and similarly so in a number of countries. He is a cancer survivor, and he now works even harder to entertain, after dancing with Death itself before. He is seen here demonstrating some healthcare food and is later going to distribute those food to the audience. I did not eat because I don't want unfamiliar food to interrupt my report on Teresa's performance then.
This is him promoting some powerful blender that he is the spokesperson for. He said it could spin 30,000 times a minute and he uses it liberally to make all his healthcare food onsite. I must say his cooking skills are very well-honed. Precise and decisively confident.
This is the first time I hear Billy sing live onstage. His singing skills are not on par with the various Superstars but considering his multiple skills in hosting, cooking, entertaining, it will do.
The is the end part of his song. He ends it with a rather amusing pose but at least he is enjoying himself onstage. I remembered Billy before he was diagnosed of cancer was quite a hot-tempered celebrity, now he is a much more humble and better artiste.
This is the immediate yoga performance before Teresa started singing. I could not remember the name of the yoga centre but I remembered what this yoga instructor said "Yoga is not about the postures, not about the time you spent doing it, but it's about connecting yourself with your body, having time being yourself." How true, I am not a yoga person but most of the time, many people aren't even aware of themselves, just busying away from activity to activity. No wonder they don't enjoy themselves much.

Teresa's Performance of Yu San at Ngee Ann Polytechnic 18 January 2008:



(Video source: Ada from TFC and matsufuyu , 18 January 2008)

Teresa Tseng at Health & Wellness Expo 27 Jan 2008 Photographs and Report

I arrived at the Singapore Expo Hall 6B around 11.30am and I was browsing the various stalls and eventually settling down at the stage area to watch DongFa Billy giving a talk about healthcare and demonstrating how to cook healthy food using some powerful blender, which he is currently promoting. Photographs of those will be up in a separate blog post.

Teresa appeared onstage at around 12.50pm, 20 minutes later than the scheduled time because there was some delay on programme schedule. I'll do the commentary, photo-by-photo and the final performance commentary at the end of this blog post.

Teresa interacting with the emcee on the stage before her performance of the three songs. I am very pleased with her because she has learnt to put her hands behind her back (the posture is more respectful to the emcee and presentable onstage). She's a very fast learner.
Notice Teresa is always facing the emcee and looking at her directly in the eye, this is actually very polite of her because she is not distracted by the audience and concentrates on answering the emcee's questions. An example of good emcee interaction skills.
Teresa started her first song 飞行部落 by F.I.R The crew was nice enough to add those special moving lights for effects. Good thing because it warmed up the stage. Bad thing because it screwed up the lighting of my pictures. Hahaha.
Yes, Teresa was actually dancing abit for this song because it was necessary according to the genre of the song. Big mega-watt smile and much smoother gesticulation makes the song enjoyable. The downside was that the song's background music was a little too loud. I was tempted to go to the sound crew and requested them to tone it down abit but I decided against it. Taking the photos was much more important.
More gesticulation and gentle swaying. Teresa's movements were not so large as her previous renditions of the same song and that was because she had another studio appointment after the expo performance. I suppose it was wise to conserve some energy to make sure she could optimize all her celebrity appointments.
Teresa did not speak during the song interval because the music was simply too loud but I suppose she did what she could keeping the beat and posing for the photographers who were standing on her right hand side downstage.

Could not capture her facial expression. But I think she was smiling to the photograpers snapping away. As usual, many were whipping out their camera phones after hearing how good she sounded live onstage. From age 8 to age 80, nobody flinched at the audience area because they were really captivated by her crystal-clear singing. I was moving around because I wanted to capture Teresa from as many angles as possible.
Teresa is preparing for her second song 月牙湾 by F.I.R again. This is currently one of the most difficult songs on the Mandarin pop market and requires alot of pre-performance preparation. Teresa did not underestimate the song either and hence the concentration in the semi-dark interval.
Teresa is now tackling the song, which attracted even more people to the audience area because they all knew it was a difficult song to sing live onstage.
Teresa remembers to move around onstage. I caught her in motion in this photograph, which makes it look as if she was skipping from point to point. Hahaha..She was actually walking from right to left.

The challenge of the song was to be able to reach and sustain the falsetto at the chorus portion in style and Teresa did not disappoint. Pitch-perfect, hitting the necessary notes without breaking a sweat. A quick look around the audience area showed nods of approval and admiration. She is one impressive singer indeed.
Towards the end of the second song, Teresa was nice enough to pose for me. Teresa had already noticed me around but I did not wave back because I did not want to distract her from the difficult songs onstage and I also did not want to give away my position to the people there. There was actually a camera pointing in my direction, which made waving way too obvious.
Teresa is now singing her third and final song 随爱而飞 by Cass Phang. It's not an easy song either and required a decent build-up to sound convincing. A good choice of song because most of the audience are middle-aged, which makes the song very familiar to the listeners.
I could not resist taking a shot of the two projector screens beside the stage because the images, though blurred, were large. This one shows Teresa connecting with the song at hand.
Teresa continues to remember to sing to the audience (not at the audience), which is actually a key to sustainable performances. As I said, she is a fast learner since her nascent days during Campus Superstar Season 1. For those who are not familiar with Teresa, she was the Female Champion For Campus Superstar 2006, out of a total of 4,000 contestants.

She looks great in her outfit today - white silken top, with a semi-transparent lace front, well-tailored jeans and in one of those rare occasions, let her long hair down. The emcee was full of praise about how beautiful and slender Teresa looked onstage.
After the thumbs-up I quietly gave Teresa after the second performance, I signalled to Teresa again seconds after this shot was taken. The reason: I felt that Teresa was facing the right hand side audience more often and was a little neglecting the left hand side audience. Using military handsigns, I managed to communicate to her discreetly from downstage. She looked puzzled for a second, gave it a three-second thought, and started facing the right hand side audience as advised.
Although the hand signal was given in the middle of the third song, Teresa was apt enough to make a decision onstage and followed accordingly. Let me say this a third time for emphasis sake: She is a fast learner.
Of course, as she reallocates her facing time onstage, I continued taking photographs, moving from angle to angle to try and get some decent shots from my lousy camera phone. Hahaha.

A new shot of Teresa from the right hand side as she faces the left hand side audience. Way to go, girl!
Gesticulation continues on during the song and it is important because it is stage performance, not studio recording session so both audio and visual entertainment are equally important.
The photographers love Teresa because she looks good onstage, anywhere and gives stellar performances everytime. Evidence? See that guy? He whipped out his massive camera and started snapping like crazy, holding steadily all the way until the end of Teresa's third song.
After the end of all three songs, the emcee refused to let Teresa go offstage and caught her on to ask Teresa more about her personal life, on how she manages to juggle schoolwork, personal life and celebrity life. Teresa answered gracefully and kept up the sense of humour from the emcee. Another point for the girl for quick thinking and interactive ability!
The final photograph before I went off as the emcee continued a few more questions on what sort of Chinese New Year goodies Teresa likes. The answer: She does not eat Chinese New Year goodies. Hahaha. Why did I go off? Because the emcee was pointing at Teresa's mother, whom I must greet out of courtesy and ettiquette since I already know her.

It was only a quick chat with Mdm Tseng because Teresa was about to go offstage. Here's what was exchanged:

曾夫人~~
嗨！
好久不见了！近来还好吗？

还好还好！
近日只跟Thomas联络，没机会和您联络聊聊。

嗯，年底公司比较忙，所以都在忙着。

我明白。

今天只有你一个人吗？其它人呢？

哦，我先到场，所以没看到。他们可能还在后头。

(Teresa started going offstage towards us.)

好了，我们得走了，她还得到电台那儿去录影呢。新年快乐！

曾夫人，新年快乐！

(Teresa is now within two metres of us but is heavily surrounded by the expo security and MediaCorp personnel who was accompanying her)

Without wanting to appear in public, I gave a quick wave to the girl who smiled before vanishing into the audience who was surging up to have a closer look at our Teresa, giving me the perfect cover. Thus, there was no time for exclusive photographs because from there onwards, Teresa was quickly escorted out of the hall and into the transport whilst I had to rush off to another part of the island again.

Note To Teresa herself:

咏霖，

今天唱得好！尤其是《月牙湾》，看来下了不少功夫。

记得我曾跟你提的：要均衡地分配面对观众的时间。

彭羚的《随爱而飞》开头有点抢拍，要注意喔！

保重，摄影完后，好好修息吧！

That's it. End the report.

Happie Bday To Mie Part III and Part IV

Birthday Celebrations 2008 Part IV : Movie - American Gangster
After dinner at NYDC Holland Village, the three of us decided to try and catch and movie and both of them actually chosed Alien versus Predator 2 at VivoCity and we proceeded in The Married Soldier's vehicle. However, when we reached there, the movie had already started and hence we picked another movive - American Gangster. It turned out to be a very entertaining and informative movie. It's about how one of the greatest kingpins, Frank Lucas, in America rose to power through a combination of wit, intelligence, discipline and sometimes, fiery rage. The kingpin was arrested eventually but he helped the police tracked down all the corrupted policemen and foreign nationals, which helped made America then to be so drug-rampant.

I loved the movie and it was the good acting and the gripping plotline that made the movie captivating. I would definitely recommend the movie if you are those that preferred acting to shooting and kissing scenes. Hahaha. One good movie after one good meal - Perfect!

Birthday Celebrations 2008 Part III: Dinner and Dessert at NYDC
One of the best places to hang out at Holland Village, in my opinion, is NYDC. Why? Because the ambience is comfortable, the service is friendly and polite, and the food is absolutely delicious. I met The Changed Man and The Married Soldier for dinner and dessert as part of my birthday celebrations and we ordered NDYC's famous baked rice and mudpies. I didnt' take pictures of the food because by the time we reached there, we were all famished and we tucked in as soon as the food was served.

However, mudpies were slower because we were busy chatting about our exploits and adventures over the past week. The above picture showed Band Aid Mudpie - slighly alcoholic but yummy to the taste buds. The below photograph showed Tiramisu Mudpie - one of my favourites not because of the colourful chocolate rice, but because of the perfect proportion of cake, ice-cream and fudge.

Birthday Celebrations 2008 Bonus: SPOP Victory For 《雨伞》

Word had reached me amidst my celebration that the SPOP song, Yu San, had made it to the top 6 song compositions of the competition. This was the icing on the cake for my birthday celebrations because the voting efforts of faithful supporters of Teresa, supporters of Dione Tan, and supporters of the song itself had not gone to waste.

Although I don't have the actual statistics, personally , it was another affirmation that the Campus Superstar of my choice, Teresa Tseng, has proven her worth once again that she continues to be able to shine with her singing, propelling the song well enough to earn the confidence and collective action of the various groups of supporters throughout the population of music listeners to send the song to the semi-finals.

The SPOP competition is not over though, since it's only the semi-finals and there would be another few more rounds of voting but for now, there is a definitely a cause for quiet celebrations. I have already sent my congratulations to the girl and I hope she will be give the chance to be featured in the upcoming music video for the song Yu San in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, my birthday celebrations have simmered to an end even though I am still receiving ice well-wishes across the various communication channels.

My heartfelt thanks to all those well-wishes, Natasha, skyvel, zena, LK, Cuiping, Michelle, Xiangrui and many more whom I cannot openly name here. Take care and have a good weekend ahead!

Report on SPOP Songwriters Concert @ Eastpoint Mall 19 Jan 2008 (with exclusive video and photo coverage of Teresa too!)

Exclusive Slideshow of SPOP Songwriters Concert @ Eastpoint Mall:

Hope everyone reading my blog likes the slideshow that I have made for the songwriters and superstars singing at Eastpoint Mall on last Saturday. Remember to credit me if you are going to take anything from the slideshow.


For those observant enough, you may noticed that Teresa's performance photos are not included inside yet because her fanclub photographers have not finished processing those shots yet so I'll add hers in once they are ready.


Alright, since I promised a report so I'll make sure I comment on each of the twelve performances on that day. Here goes:

《谢谢你的好》 By 陈铿百 Nat Tan

Nathaniel's performance was very stable. Nothing extraordinarily memorable or worth negatively commenting on. Good job, Nathaniel!

《Love is Forever》 By 阮诗凯 Keely 曾裕淑 Maxilian 许政宁 Zhengning

The more people onstage, the more my expectations of being entertained is. The three girls did alright for their performance but fell a little bit short of my expectations of them moving around more onstage and maybe doing a little bit of synchronized movements. However, they just swayed and waved, without further explicit attempts to increase the total entertainment value of their performance.

《沙漠》 By 陈迪雅 Diya

Diya's performance was postponed until the second half of the concert and her skills were still there and the song was performed with relative ease for her. I don't know if it was deliberately planned by MediaCorp's artiste or wardrobe department, but I kept seeing Diya in suspenders, which actually shortened her height even more onstage and gave neither a matured nor a youthful look to Diya. Perhaps Diya should consider a wardrobe change or stick to jeans or skirts like the other female performers?

《蚊子咬咬》 By 谢子伟 Jeff Teay 官镜瀚 Jeremy Kwan

Again the same thing happened, both the guys just sang and sang without any significant or memorable planned moves. It was quite a waste because I thought they were already well-trained in their music school to learn about stage movements. This song actually has a lot of potential for very comical moves onstage but neither of the guys seemed keen to entertain the audience. No wonder Spicymac (another celebrity blogger) was complaining the atmosphere then was a bit cold. Half the responsibility laid with the performers.

《雨伞》 By 曾咏霖 Teresa

Teresa's vocal quality was undisputedly par excellence that afternoon and had won quite a few rounds of resounding cheers, applause and whistling. Like most of the abovementioned performers, she knew her song well and I have no much to comment on the vocal aspect of their performances. Teresa did her stage movements as well as she could but my expectations of her are, as usual, higher than normal. There is still some room for improvement for her stage movement and because I am nicer to the girl (obviously), my more detailed advice is given to her at her own official fanclub instead.

《Sunday Evening》 By 杨佳盈 Carrie

I read Carrie's blog yesterday and I was surprised to find her "moody" because her song was not moving up into the leaderboard at all for the past few weeks. Carrie, if you are thinking it was to do with your performance, let me tell you that your performance last Saturday was, in my opinion, was amongst the best three. Good stage movement, good involvement in the song and genuine interaction with the audience there. Excellent work!

《男人香水》 By 林昱志 Leon

Leon seemed very emotionally connected to the songwriter and hence he was hugging and cheering with the songwriter fairly often but I was thinking it was really very disrupting to the overall enjoyment of his performance. He modified the song with a personal rap portion, which was creative and well-done, but it was again disruptive to the audience trying to identify with the song. Imagine first-time listeners were impressed by the rap portion but found to their disappointment that the official version had not such portion, how then is it possible for listeners to stay with the song?

《婚礼》 By 杜蕙甹 Candyce 张乐声 Lesheng

Yet again, very little stage movement that was doing justice to the song. I thought both of them were supposed to be singing a love duet but I sensed zero chemistry between the two singers. With no chemistry or attempts to form it onstage, the song was lost and attention for the performance waned. Lesheng and Candyce, both of you should be able to see from the stage how the audience faltered because there was little commitment to the song from both of you, both vocally and visually.

《不再》 By 孙文海 Wenhai

Perhaps I had high expectations that Wenhai could pull off rock songs without a sweat but I was utterly disappointed when he relied on the deejay to switch vocal ranges in-between the songs. He was supposed to impress the audience with his power but I could tell that he was just waiting for the special effects to hit in when the portions were reached. Wenhai, you have to show your own strengths instead of relying on those special effects to pull your designated song off the ground.

《爱的味道》 By 黄俊辉 Adriano 李俊纬 Marcus

Chemistry was slightly better between the two guys for this song and they were really enjoying themselves onstage. However, there was still much more room for improvement instead of just swaying their bodies to the tune of the song. Both of them must take note of their stretchnotes because I caught both of them going off-key near the end of the song. Considering the relative strengths of the other more senior singers, such a mistake became quite glaring to the trained ears.

《发烧》 By 汤灵伊 Tang Lingyi

Lingyi was as cute as ever and was doing all she could to portray that image throughout her performance, which was absolutely fine since it is a cute-sounding song to begin with. However, her voice projection through the microphone sounded too soft and she did not seem to notice that and compensate for it. With no adjustment and stage moves that were getting rather stale towards the end of her performance, my attention wavered too. I hope she could do better next time round.

《我死了怎么办》 By 潘嗣敬 Sugianto 田铭耀 Mingyao

This group put in the most effort to come up with synchronized stage moves to impress and entertain and I was a lot more pleased with them for their efforts. Yet, more could be done if they had more practice because I could see that they did not really coordinately completely and Sugianto was more like trying to catch up with Mingyao throughout the performance. It may look alright for the general audience at Eastpoint Mall but it would not make the cut if the stage or setting was a notch more formal. Practise! Rehearse!

Teresa performing 《雨伞》at Eastpoint Mall on 19 Jan 2008:

Okay. I admit the video quality dropped considerably from that on my camera/video phone when I uploaded the performance onto Youtube but I hope everyone can still enjoy the song and Teresa's singing beyond all the pixel and static issues in the video. It's actually a beautiful and endurable song once you listen to it a few times.

Attempts to dilute SPOP votes on MediaCorp's SPOP Official English Forum

Hi faithful supporters of Teresa!

I have been notified of the following incident at the abovementioned forum (thank you ZZZ for the information) and I have decided to share with all of you what I have responded to that person's post.

This is what he wrote:

Re: Kindly refrain from voting this song!

Originally posted by tida Given her popularity and the number of fans out there, there's no need to vote anymore for Teresa Tsang's song. As you can see from the 'who's leading chart'...her song is already there. She is very safe so no no risk.So, please redirect your energy and vote for Nathaniel's song number 1 instead.

This is what I replied:

Hi tida!

I am agreeable with the notion that Teresa is popular and she does have an incalculable number of supporters (active ones you see in the main fanclub websites and passive ones around the island). Thank you for affirming that with your post too.

But your "no need to vote anymore" suggestion is far from accurate and realistic because I believe many faithful (and thinking) supporters of Teresa understands that the other 11 SPOP songs have also wisely chosen their designated singers who have large fan bases too.

Diluting Yu San's votes to support Nathaniel's song is not a very wise option if supporters really wish to see Yu San steadily holding on in the SPOP competition.

Also, I would like to make it clear here that we have no illusions about the following - The song "Yu San" is written by Dione. Teresa is just the designated singer for this SPOP competition. So the votes which kept Yu San on the leaderboard is not just from the supporters of Teresa but people who genuinely support the SPOP song composition "Yu San" and of course, Dione herself.

Hence, I would like to continue my appeal to supporters of Yu San, Teresa and Dione to vote for the song Yu San in the SPOP voting competition. The closing date is 21 January 2008 so keep the votes coming in! Jia you everyone.

May the best song wins!

Sean Ho
Music clears the mind, fills the heart, moves the soul."

I would like to appeal to all faithful supporters of Teresa not to respond and reply on impulse to such tactics to attempt to dilute the votes of Yu San or to stir anger between supporters of Teresa and supporters of Nathaniel.

Let me deal with these posters. All of you just carry on with your daily voting until Yu San reaches the semi-finals of SPOP, from where a new strategy will be put up if the song makes it to the top 6 compositions.

Have a good week ahead! = )

More SPOP Public Appearances By Teresa in Jan 2008, Recent Duet By Teresa and Geraldine at MusicDreamer Live! Cafe, Screenshots of Rome: Total War

More SPOP Public Appearances By Teresa Tseng in Jan 2008:

日期：1月18日（星期五） 时间：下午4时 地点： 义安理工学院 Atrium

Date: Friday, 18 Jan Time: 4pm Venue: Ngee Ann Polytechnic Atrium

S-POP 万岁！首次走入校园！Super系列参赛者将带来12首“原汁原味”的本地创作，势必让你听出耳油！我们约定你了，不见不散！

Take a break from your books and immerse yourself in the original tunes of the Top 12 compositions from S-POP HURRAY's Songwriting Competition! Meet with the song composers in person and play exciting games and stand to win limited edition S-POP HURRAY! Premiums!

主持人：林翠芳出席歌手：陈迪雅、陈铿百、杨佳盈、汤灵伊、田铭耀、阮诗凯、许政宁、孙文海、曾咏霖、张乐声等。

Host: Lin Cuifang

Performers: Diya, Nat Tan, Carrie, Lingyi, Mingyao, Keely and more

日期：1月19日（星期六） 时间：下午3时 地点： 东福坊
Date: Saturday, 19 Jan Time: 3pm Venue: Eastpoint Mall

想一口气听完12首【S-POP 万岁！】创作大赛的作品吗？那就别错过这场热闹的S-POP 万岁！飚唱会。除了多位本地歌手之外，参赛的词曲创作人也将和大家见面。主持人林翠芳也会在现场和你一起玩游戏，送出超限量发行的S-POP T恤和公仔。以实际行动支持本地创作，S-POP 万岁！飚唱会等你一起来狂欢！

S-POP HURRAY! is moving out of the studio bringing you the Top 12 compositions from S-POP HURRAY's Songwriting Competition. Catch also the song composers in person as well as play games with our host and win limited edition S-POP HURRAY! Premiums!

主持人：林翠芳

出席歌手：陈迪雅、陈铿百、杨佳盈、汤灵伊、田铭耀、阮诗凯等。

Host: Lin Cuifang

Performers: Diya, Nat Tan, Carrie, Lingyi, Mingyao, Keely and more!

(Information and Image sources: SPOP official events webpage)

Recent Duet By Teresa Tseng and Geraldine See at MusicDreamer Live! Cafe:

I would like to thank skyvel of TFC and of course the video originator, eileen5537 (possibly a Geraldine supporter) for the provision of this exclusive video of our Campus Superstars singing!



Screenshots of Rome: Total War:

Okay, as promised, here are the screenshots of the classic computer game that I am currently entertaining myself whenever I am not working.

That is one of my generals, Victor, in red near the coastal ancient city of Sidon. Although he is well-accompanied by eight units of Roman archer auxilia, four units of Roman heavy calvary, 4 units of Roman Legionary heavy infantry, 2 units of Praetorian heavy infantry, poor Victor is stuck with two major enemy armies (in blue) from the front and back, not to mention the enemy garrison in Sidon city and another incoming reinforcement enemy army at the bottom of the screen. Victor needs to break the encirclement or risk being wiped out completely.
This is the battle screenshot where Victor tackles the army behind his back. I adopted the box formation because the enemy army has more calvary units than Victor's army and those could easily outflank my infantry and archers so the box formation will protect them as best as possible compared to other army formations. All my calvary units are placed behind, ready to charge at the enemy units which will be pounding at my box formation later on when the battle starts.
Engaging the enemy army. I am currently doing the calvary run, which involves harassing the enemies so that their ranged units, especially artillery and archers cannot concentrate on my main body of archers in the box formations. This, of course, puts that particular calvary unit doing the run in great danger but it fulfils a greater objective of keeping the box safe so that my ranged units can shower arrows on the moving and frustrated enemy units.
Of course, the calvary run tactic can only achieve that much effect before the enemy units finally lose their patience and charge at my box formation. By then, their numbers and morale have been greatly reduced by the arrow showers. The infantry charge is braced by my fresh and ready infantry units surrounding the box and thus will withstand the enemy's attacks long enough until they start to rout and retreat from the box. From there, my calvary would be chasing them down from behind and cutting them down. The battle was won and General Victor broke the encirclement with over 100 casualties whilst the enemy army lost over 1000.
With the routing of that enemy army, General Victor broke through and suddenly changed his route, attacking the neighbouring city of Damascus and taking it so that the army can rest within the city's walls. Meanwhile, my reinforcement army arrived in the next turn, went around the city of Sidon, successfully survived an ambush by 300 enemy soldiers and has now besieged Sidon instead. By this time, the city garrison, though has increased due to the influx of escaped soldiers from all these nearby battles, is of lesser threat because they have incomplete units, which have suffered casualties of varying degrees. Those enemy units could not recover during the siege because my spies and assassins have already sabotaged those re-training facilities. The city of Sidon fell in the next turn.

There you go. Hope those interested in this game enjoyed my little story telling. Have a good week ahead and thank you for frequenting my blog all these time! =)

Report on SPOP New Year Eve Mini-Concert @ Hougang Mall, Teresa's Latest Photos and Message to Her Supporters, My Christmas and New Year Celebrations

This will be an ultra-long post because I am packing a lot of things into it. Without further ado, let's get started.
For those who can't get enough of Teresa appearing on SPOP with Chen Weilian, the above are a series of screenshots some of the highlights of that episode. Everyone was teasing Weilian as he was blushing when Teresa sang "Cinderalla" and they had a lot of fun together during the recording.

Report on SPOP New Year Eve Mini-Concert @ Hougang Mall on 31 Dec 2007:

I was there at around 1pm and found Jolyn already sitting at the main audience area in front of the stage. However, the stage was elevated on two platforms and I thought the viewing of the performances would be rather difficult because of the stretched necks since the stage was so high up. So I took the liberty to find a seat on the second floor at Gelare and subsequently, Jolyn and Michelle joined me at the table.

Both Michelle and myself had not eaten our lunch so we ordered spaghetti and dessert to fill our stomachs whilst waiting up there. Blanket and JR, two of our fabulous fanclub photographers, arrived shortly and joined us for a while before they took up their positions to capture the best shots of Teresa's performances onstage.

At around 2.20pm, the Mini-Concert finally started and each of the twelve song compositions' singers came up onstage one by one to perform the SPOP songs. Here are some of the photos I have taken from my position. Some of them are blocked by a decorative tree by the side of the stage but at least it was a comfortable position to sit and watch the performances. With Blanket and JR around, I could relax abit without worrying too much about the photo-recordings of the event itself. =)

This is Nathaniel performing onstage. His singing is very good and he is confident of his performance.

This photograph shows Zhengning, Maxilian and Keely waiting for their turn to be onstage. The three girls are busy posing for the people there and Keely and Maxilian were like holding hands and swinging them. Very funny. Haha
This is Diya posing for the people as well. The shot is blurred but I can tell you that Diya is a very friendly and obliging celebrity, posing and signing autographs. No wonder she has so many supporters.
This is Jeremy Kwan posing at the same waiting area downstage. Quite a friendly guy and even without his singing partner, he could nail the song just as well.

Carrie belting out her song onstage. Her live version sounded alot better than the SPOP studio version but my alignment is still with Yu San. But way to go, Carrie. =)
Teresa going onstage for her turn to perform. She goes onstage with a smile and comes down fron it with a smile too. Could tell she really enjoys singing and her performance was flawlessly beautiful, attracting nearly everyone with a view of the stage to turn and look at her performance whilst she was singing Yu San. There was almost no qualitative difference between what you hear on my IMEEM player and the live version she sang at Hougang Mall. She must have put in a lot of work to master the song for all these outdoor events.

Teresa singing onstage. Unfortunately, the tree was in my way again but Teresa knows her stage movement well and managed to traverse from platform to platform. Unlike her first few public performances, I have little else negative to comment for all her recent performances. Teresa is a fast learner and can now manage her stage, audience and emcee interactions very well.

Yes, I know the photos I took of Teresa are no good but thankfully, both Blanket and JR have done their work well. JR has not uploaded all his photos yet but Blanket has finished his. Below are extracts of some of their work. Want to see more? Don't go Mocca, go to the Official Teresa Tseng Fanclub Forum Site on my Blogroll on the left and view all the excellent photos of the beautiful and talented Teresa.

Teresa's Latest Photographs and Message to Her Supporters:

Turning and facing different groups of audience at Hougang Mall, Teresa knows not everyone can see her onstage so she makes the effort to allow people to see her better by moving around from platform to platform.
Teresa smiling for the photographers at Hougang Mall, including one which she looks directly at Blanket himself on the fanclub shots. As with most of her public performances, almost all the professional photographers were busy snapping photos of Teresa. I could see all the flashes shimmering away the moment Teresa was onstage from my position on the second floor.

After Teresa's performance, I brought Michelle and Jolyn down to the first floor to wait for Teresa because Jolyn wants a photograph with Teresa and her autograph (Lucky her, she got both of them). Teresa did not leave Hougang Mall with the rest of the celebrities but she made her way to the escalator lift with her family, Thomas and Mdm Tseng instead. JR followed the three of us and we managed to get hold of Teresa whilst she was waiting for the lift.

Below is the fanclub exclusive photograph of Teresa at the lift waiting area of Hougang Mall.

Teresa left after taking a few photographs but she knew her supporters really wished she could stay a little longer, so she left a fanclub message at around 9.24pm last night:

大家好：

我是曾詠霖，祝福大家在新的一年裡心想事成！

添平，謝謝你製作了一份最特別的禮物送給我，感激不盡。

Jolyn Teng，也謝謝你送的禮物，我會好好珍惜它。

因今日是歲末，我有要事在身，故！無法跟大家一起合照，很抱歉，謝謝大家的諒解。

後天就開學了，所有的同學我們一起努力吧。最後，祝福大家身體健康！曾詠霖

Below is last week's results of the SPOP voting contest as of 31 Dec 2007 9pm

编号 Song No. 05 雨伞
编号 Song No. 07 男人香水
编号 Song No. 08 婚礼
编号 Song No. 09 不再
编号 Song No. 10 爱的味道
编号 Song No. 11 发烧

Teresa's SPOP song "Yu San" is currently STILL on the leaderboard for the votes! Hurray!

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of Teresa to thank every single supporter who has been voting for the song all this while to make it happen and appeal to them to continue to vote for the song to keep it going through the competition.

Once again, thank you and keep on voting!

My Christmas and New Year Celebrations:

I was really busy for the past week because most of my free time was spent celebrating Christmas and New Year with my VIP friends and family. Below are the photographs I have taken for my gatherings with my VIP friends for the past week.

What is this? Mashed potatoes. Why take this? Because I was doing all the mashing. Why am I mashing potatoes? Because I was part of the team preparing food at The Changed Man's house for a Christmas celebratory dinner gathering of the VIP friends. Mashing potatoes is not easy work but the end result earned praises because it tasted really smooth and yummy. Hahaha.
Another dish prepared on that night. It's carborona spaghetti with ham, peppers and bacon bits. Very nice and delicious and everyone ate their fill that night.
More dishes taken just before the dinner. Sausages from Germany, Mushroom soup from Campbell. The missing dish was the mashed potatoes, which I was taking a break from mashing it then. Hahaha
This was taken from another KTV session with my VIP friends. Sam Lee was one of our favourites and happy to say, I am getting the hang of singing his difficult and challenging songs. When I feel up to it, I may even post another performance video of myself singing his songs on this blog. Stay tuned! Wahahaha...
This is Landy on the KTV screen. Pretty hor? She is talented but unfortunately not a bright star yet because she has too few songs under her name so far.
The Chinese temple at Si Ma Lu. Yes, my VIP friends pray at that place and I followed them. Although I am a free-thinker, I pray for strength to continue my work to save the world whilst I was there too. I heard the temple was the only building left on that street during World War II. Apparently, even the Japanese bombers did not dare to offend the gods inside by bombing the temple.
This was where I was last night - St James Power Station - Boiler Room with twenty other young elites. It was by invitation and I was honoured to be part of them last night, partying away at that place. I have never been to that place and it was very nice - lots of live performances, lots of drinks and lots of beautiful people to look. Hahaha
As the night approached 0000hrs, the party got wilder and the lights got crazier. The end effect? A very high crowd jumping around, toasting around and dancing around. By that time, I was already 50% drunk. Haha.
A photograph of how much we had drunk last night. We ordered a 8.5litres of Chivas, two bottles of Absolute Volka, two bottles of Cordon Bleau and two tanks of beer - and we finished everything at night. I heard the bill footed by the two hosts was more than $2000. Woohoo~

By 1.40am, I was nearly 80% drunk and it was time for me to go because I had to some blogging and work to do today. Oh, I was the first to leave as the rest continued to party until daybreak. Those folks were simply amazing party animals.

Alright. That's the end of the long post. I have got to grab my lunch before my New Year Day continues.

Happy New Year everyone and may it be a bountiful year of joy, love and happiness for all! =)