Music, fish, and braggarts

Went to the Symphony on Friday to watch Leonidas Kavakos debut with the PSO. He played Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major (pretty famous first movement) - that man is good. Of course, some credit has to go to the Strad he plays on. His notes were warm, lush, balanced; he didn't sway that much (I hate it when conceited performers swing about like a drunkard). The cadenza was well done. The hall was packed, even all the way up the gallery where we were. At the end of the piece, Kavakos got a standing ovation. Second half of the concert was all Ottorini Respighi; I'm generally not a fan of post-romantic composers but I quite enjoyed Pini di Roma. Beautiful piece.

On Saturday I did some grocery shopping at the Strip District, to stock up on rapidly declining supplies of Chinese cooking wine, sauces, and specialty teas. Thinking I might try my hand at Cantonese claypot rice soon, I went in search of salted fish. I recall it fondly in mum's cooking, but I've never seen it in its original form, which means I hadn't the foggiest clue what I was looking for. So I decided to ask a friendly clerk, in Chinese: "May I ask where the salted fish (xian yu) is?" She was an elderly woman that I presumed to be Chinese; she waved me off and mumbled something. Okay... Found another guy in an apron, asked him the same thing. "Shen me? Wo ting bu dong!" ("What? I don't understand!") There I was, wondering if we were speaking the same language. Was he hard of hearing? Soon, our private conversation turned into a rather public one with 5 other customers and 1 other clerk. "Salted fish," I tried again in English. "Bie gen wo yong ying yu!" ("Don't you use English with me!") It couldn't get any plainer than that - salted fish, fish that is salty. I just want some salty fish, dammit! Finally, afer some commotion, a woman emerged from the back of the store and took me to a row of frozen fish in vacuum packs. She smiled apologetically and said, "Xian yu!"

I told this bizarre story to my mum, about how the Chinese grocers didn't understand my Chinese even though we were talking about the same thing. I asked if I talk funny. She didn't answer, but she did warn me that salted fish is proven to be carcinogenic, so I shouldn't be eating it anyway. Great, after all that trouble...

That evening I went to an event where I ran into a few acquaintances. One of them was lugging around his camera equipment, all set to cover the show. He happened to be a Canon guy, so we talked camera for a bit. I told him that I was new to the world of SLRs, so I'm starting slow with a second-hand Drebel. He proudly flashed his top-of-the-line 1DmkII, with a fancy lens, hood, external flash, and battery grip. Behind him sat a bag with more lenses and accessories. He proceeded to give me a show-and-tell of his toys... maybe a little too much tell. "This is $10,000 worth of equipment right here!" Okay dude, you're a junior in college. Your pictures aren't all that great, and you're not even going into photography professionally. You bought these.. how? And you feel the need to tell me because..? "One piece of advice - these babies with the red line [shows me the red line on his lens] cost a fortune!" So, your lens costs a fortune. Right.

Camera Boy: "What lenses do you have?"
NK: "Currently, zero, but I'm thinking of getting a 50 f1.8 in the near future. It's a great piece of glass, but cheap."
Camera Boy: "... Oh." (looks disappointed/disinterested)

It's the photographer that makes the pictures, not the equipment, but he was too young to understand. The world isn't fair - some starving photographer out there is probably cursing him, the rich hobbyist that acquires serious equipment like toys to pick up chicks (and his ego). The conversation ended, and Camera Boy carried on with his bag of goodies and obnoxious flash umbrella (hello, overkill), prowling around for photo ops. A friend of mine, a serious photographer, just shrugged and smiled. He had a Drebel and a 50 f1.8.