June 13-19, 2014
FOOTBALL FEVER JAPAN'S SAMURAI BLUE READY TO ROLL AT 2014 WORLD CUP
Contents June 13-19, 2014
❖ Sport
❖ Weekly Briefing
❖ View
Football fever
News around the region
Don't let Somaly Mam sully others' good work
Contents June 13-19, 2014
❖ Culture
❖ People
❖ Culture
❖ Lifestyle
The lost puppet theatre art
Pakistan's home boy
Cinema in Pakistan: The way ahead
So who’s afraid of prenups?
Contents June 13-19, 2014
❖ Lifestyle
❖ Travel
Datebook
Bike before take off
Treasures by the sea
Happenings around Asia
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WEEKLY BRIEFING
June 13-19, 2014
artist's impression of Japan's new national stadium with modified design. AFP
in Sri Lanka attend school without breakfast. This is about 30 per cent out of 4 million schoolchildren.
A record 87 per cent of Japanese
has been spent so far on food and fuel for search-andrecovery operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. The cost was for the Royal Malaysian Airforce, Royal Malaysian Navy, Royal Malaysian Police, Fire and Rescue Department and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. So far, no debris from the aircraft has been spotted.
October 2016, the earliest that ground-breaking for Japan's new national stadium, which is to be used for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, can take place. The reconstruction of the stadium has been plagued by budget and design issues.
Nearly 10 million students took China’s National College Entrance Examination, or gaokao, this year. The gaokao is one of China's most important exams.
US$2.2 million
About , the amount paid by Andy Chua from Singapore in an annual auction to win a private lunch with American investment magnate Warren Buffett, the world's third-richest man.
Qin Gang for China Daily
AFP
believe relations between Japan and South Korea are “bad”, a feeling shared by 86 per cent of South Koreans, the third-highest percentage in history, according to a joint survey conducted recently by The Yomiuri Shimbun and The Korea Times.
US$8.6 million
JAPAN NATIONAL SPORTS COUNCIL
1.2 million children
June 13-19, 2014
VIEW AFP
DON'T LET SOMALY MAM SULLY OTHERS' GOOD WORK She raised awareness—and millions of dollars—for a worthy cause. But should the end justify the means?
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June 13-19, 2014
Nirmal Ghosh The Straits Times Bangkok
H
undreds of journalists have met Somaly Mam, a Cambodian who has waged an unceasing campaign against the trafficking of young girls for commercial sex. I got to know her back in October 2011. Like the others, I came away impressed by the iconic crusader and her compelling story—that she herself had been sexually abused, trafficked and traumatised, that she escaped her plight, and that she now rescues others and pursues sex traffickers like some vengeful Kali-like goddess. I was in good company. Pulitzer Prize-winning Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times has been actively promoting
her work since at least 2008, and helping to turn her into an international celebrity. After all, her 2005 autobiography, "The Road Of Lost Innocence", had all the makings of a trueto-life Hollywood movie. In it, Mam—now in her mid-40s—claims she was taken from her village by a man she called "grandfather". He turned her into a slave, she wrote, and eventually sold her as a virgin to a Chinese businessman, who then forced her to marry a violent soldier when she was 14. Later in the book, she tells of being sold to a brothel in Phnom Penh, where she worked for 10 years. In 2009, Mam was one of Time magazine's "most influential people". In 2006, Glamour magazine made her Woman of the Year, and in 2007, the US State Department named her a Hero of Anti-Trafficking.
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June 13-19, 2014
Charismatic and disarmingly blunt, she took to American TV studios like the proverbial duck to water. Almost everyone was bowled over. Even a journalist of Kristof 's stature was flying her flag. He had spent so much time with her and chronicled her work, so one would assume that he had done the due diligence, right? Clearly, wrong. Last week, journalists and admirers of Mam learnt she had fabricated or embellished much of the life story that had been used to raise millions of dollars over a decade or so. What hits hardest is that many of us were unwittingly complicit in helping her sell it. The signs were there. The tale she told of her daughter having been kidnapped and raped by traffickers retaliating against her sounded outlandish. That should have raised red flags. Of the mainstream media, the Cambodia Daily was among the
sceptics. And Phnom Penh-based British journalist Simon Marks, 28, had been raising questions about Mam's integrity since 2012, when she had to apologise to the United Nations for falsely claiming that the Cambodian army had shot dead rescued girls. Marks actually visited Mam's village, where he found that none of the elders knew anything about her story of having been sold and trafficked. In a 2009 column, Kristof wrote of another girl, Long Pros, who had been kidnapped and trafficked to a brothel when she was 13. In it, he said she had been tortured there, became pregnant twice, was subjected to crude abortions and eventually lost an eye when the brothel owner beat her with a piece of metal for taking a break from work. She was rescued by a woman working for Mam. Or so the story went. Marks found a doctor who had treated the girl for a non-malignant
tumour in her eye. Medical records confirmed it. The brothel story was a fabrication. The girl had gone to Mam's foundation for vocational training. Just last year, a girl called Meas Ratha—who told a French television network in 1998 that she had been sold to a brothel and turned into a sex slave and then rescued by Mam— confessed that not only was the story made up, but also she had been coached by Mam. In a cover story in Newsweek, Marks writes: "Now in her early 30s and living a modest life on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Ratha says she reluctantly allowed herself to be depicted as a child prostitute: 'Somaly said that… if I want to help another woman, I have to do very well'. "Ratha, like Pros, was never a victim of sex trafficking; she and a sister were sent to (Somaly Mam's) AFESIP foundation… because their parents were unable to care for all seven of the children."
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June 13-19, 2014
An investigation commissioned by the Somaly Mam Foundation seems to have concurred with Marks' findings. On May 28, the foundation posted on its website that as a result of an "independent, thirdparty investigation into allegations concerning the personal history of Somaly Mam and Somana (Long Pros)... we have accepted Somaly's resignation effective immediately. In addition, we are permanently removing Pros from any affiliation with the organisation". Now, people are picking through the wreckage trying to find a lesson in it all. Writers and readers alike are assailing Kristof, demanding that he explain why he not only bought into her story but in effect joined her extended fan club, becoming a veritable public relations machine that opened the wallets of, among others, Manhattan and Hollywood celebrities. There has always been muttering among the local and international
aid communities in Phnom Penh over how Somaly Mam the screen version had become larger than Somaly Mam the woman. Many have questioned the "rescue industry" that she embodied. The point is valid. Like Myanmar under the military, once-war-torn Cambodia seems to have an irresistible appeal for the international humanitarian community. Yet, at what point does sustaining this humanitarian industry become more important than the objective itself, and more important to Westerners "rescuing" poor Third World girls than to the girls themselves? Many in Phnom Penh directly or indirectly involved with the non-governmental organisation (NGO) community are happy that the real story is finally out in the open. But many also are upset because "Somaly Mam & Co", as one person put it, made the whole antisex trafficking movement look bad.
For journalists, the story raises the issue of belief-bias— approaching a subject with a preconceived belief. If you believe someone is a saint, you don't just expect to find evidence—you will find proof. For anyone engaged in work that demands scrupulously objective investigation, there lies a professionally fatal trap. Kristof wrote on his blog: "I don't know quite what to think." But after dwelling briefly on how conflicted he probably is, he wrote a thought worth echoing: "Let's remember that this is about more than one woman." His words might have the ring of a desperate plea, but they are nevertheless true. Allowing the saga of one woman to tarnish the good work done by so many others would be a pity. Women genuinely in need of help— and in Cambodia, there are many—should not have to pay the price for Somaly Mam. ¬
June 13-19, 2014
CULTURE
THE LOST PUPPET THEATRE ART
Language barriers, declining viewers and money issue send the wooden puppet drama 'wayang potehi' to oblivion A puppet show
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June 13-19, 2014
Nedi Putra AW/THE JAKARTA POST
Nedi Putra AW The Jakarta Post Jombang, East Java
O
ne of China’s centuries-old arts is the theatre known in Indonesia as wayang potehi, the wooden puppet drama originally called Pouw Tee Hie in the Hokkien (Fujian) dialect, meaning cloth-bag or glove puppets. Each around 30 centimetres in height, the puppets have wooden heads, hands and feet and are clad in the various costumes of relevant characters.
The master with his assistant, putting the finishing touches on a puppet before a show.
Checking out the 'stage' before the show.
Believed to have originated before the 16th century in Fujian province, potehi spread along with the migration of Fujian people to regions across
the South China Sea, including to Java. With no exact historical records, this art is estimated to have been familiar to overseas Chinese descendants in the 1600s.
June 13-19, 2014
CULTURE
The narrator reading the script.
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June 13-19, 2014
Like wayang kulit, or shadow puppet shows in Java, wayang potehi is also performed with musical accompaniment, but its dalang (puppet master) has an assistant and there are only three musicians. Over time, however, potehi lost its popularity, in contrast to barongsai (lion dance) and liong (dragon dance), which are still performed today on various occasions. Nowadays, potehi in Indonesia has virtually faded into oblivion. Toni Harsono is one of the few potehi activists in the country. “Only about 12 puppet masters called sehu are left in Indonesia to my knowledge,” said Toni at Klenteng Hong San Kiong (temple) in Gudo, Jombang, East Java, recently. Toni is the grandson of a potehi sehu named Tok Su Kwie, who came from China. The
on Chinese art performances in 1967, the number of potehi players and musicians is decreasing,” he said.
Ban lifted, revival still rocky
A puppet all suited for the day's show.
temple chairman indicated that many factors had hampered the growth of the art. “Besides the New Order government’s ban
Although the ban on Chinese art was lifted by former president Abdurrahman Wahid in the period of reform, revival has been rocky. This is because by potehi standards, puppet players have to be fairly proficient in Hokkien in order to understand the episodes they are supposed to present. This regional language is also spoken at the opening of the theatre, which can be followed by Indonesian or Javanese narrations and dialogues. Potehi musicians also need to master Chinese traditional
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June 13-19, 2014
instruments such as er hu (big violin), yana (small violin), piat ko (drum), twalo and dongko (small gongs), and yang cing (hammered dulcimer). But Toni admitted that money had been the main drawback as it was difficult to rely on this art for a living. “The honorarium received by potehi artists is sometimes as low as only 500,000 rupiah (US$42.5) per show, which is shared by five people,” he noted. At malls or hotels they get bigger pay but only during the Lunar New Year holiday or other ceremonies. With the scarcity of potehi shows, the art will struggle to grow. The performances at Chinese temples can last for more than a month with long dramatic sequences, but at present only a few of the large temples organise potehi programmes on a routine basis.
“If only they made it twice or three times a year, there would be more job opportunities for potehi players,” Toni said. Toni said recent potehi developments, innovations by sehu to attract audiences, were acceptable provided they don’t deviate too much from original standards. He referred to shows given at the invitation of several Islamic educational institutes in Jombang, which were modified and suited to the local language.
Difficult life
The difficult life as a puppet master prompted his late father Tok Hong Kie, also a sehu, to forbid Toni from following in his footsteps. Toni doesn’t actually work as a sehu, although he made and played potehi in secret as a child against his father’s command. Now he is a successful jewellery
businessman, but the charm of wayang potehi fascinating him since childhood lingers on. A backer of all activities to preserve this theatre, he also provides facilities and opportunities for potehi shows as chairman of Hong San Kiong. He now has 12 sets of puppets complete with their stage or platform, accessories and musical instruments, besides another stage and a number of century-old puppets inherited from his grandfather. Made from six-year-old waru gunung wood, a set of potehi comprises around 100-160 characters. One set and the stage cost up to 50 million rupiah. His hard work to revive potehi has been rewarding. Hong San Kiong has now become a famous centre of wayang potehi in Indonesia. The puppets in the 2-hectare temple are known to be very original.
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June 13-19, 2014
“Even in China it’s now very hard to find such original characters,” said Toni, claiming to have a collection of about 3,000 puppets for potehi shows in different regions. These puppets are kept at Hong San Kiong, in his residence and in several cities like Jakarta and Yogyakarta. They are lent to sehu free of charge.
Puppet assistant checking another character.
Passing on to kins Men making puppets.
Widodo, 42, an indigenous Javanese sehu living not far from Hong San Kiong, said puppet playing had indeed become his
career path after learning the art in 1993 and making his debut in 2001. When he gets no performance orders, he helps Toni’s puppet crafting work.
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CULTURE
Characters: Various expressions on characters of potehi puppets.
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June 13-19, 2014
Widodo even expects his only child to join this profession. “At least I’m nurturing his love of this theatre,” he said. Another Javanese puppet master, Sesomo, 67, has 40 years of potehi stage experience. He is assisted by Sukarli with Slamet Kianto, Sugiono and Slamet as musicians. “We’ve performed in nearly all East Java cities and other places in Java and Bali. It’s difficult to find successors particularly from the ethnic Chinese group even though this art comes from China,” said Sesomo after his show to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Hotel Ibis Styles in Malang some time ago. According to Sesomo, the existing puppet
Dawn of potehi: Sukarli, a puppet master assistant, prepare the puppets before a show.
players were actually also related by kinship ties and they mostly used to live near the temple area. “One of my nephews is interested in potehi and I’m just providing guidance,” added the grandfather of 14. By joining Toni, Sesomo and his colleagues receive more orders and use wayang property for free, which would eat up at least 10 per cent of the fee for a show. “The sehu profession will thus hopefully attract the younger generation,” he said. Toni and his partners are now building a mini museum of potehi on a plot of 2,000 square metres nearby. ¬
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June 13-19, 2014
The men behind the show, providing the music, the voice and the action.
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June 13-19, 2014
FOOTBALL FEVER F
or one month and a day, between June 12 and July 13, the eyes of the world will be riveted on Brazil, the largest country in South America, for the 2014 edition of the World Cup, the most widely viewed sporting event on the globe.
June 13-19, 2014
Thirty-one national teams from around the world progressing through the qualifying rounds that began in June 2011 will join host team Brazil at the first World Cup competition to be held in South America since 1978. This time around, the 64 matches, culminating in the final at the Estadia do Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, will be held in a record 12 cities spanning two time zones. In this part of the world, the rivalry between Japan and South Korea is keenly watched as they are the only two Asian teams to qualify for the 2014 tournament. This is South Korea’s eighth appearance at the tournament, having first qualified in 1954. On the other hand, it is Japan's fifth, playing at FUFA for the first time in 1998.
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SAMURAI BLUE READY TO ROLL Sports Desk The Yomiuri Shimbun Rio de Janeiro
T
The Samurai Blue’s fifth venture into World Cup action starts Saturday, June 14, two days after host Brazil and Croatia kick off the event. Japan’s results in its previous appearances are divided—the team made it to the last 16 in 2002 and 2010, but struggled in the group stages in 1998 and 2006 and did not advance. Japan’s biggest issue is whether or not it can progress to the knockout stage for the second consecutive
tournament. The key to surviving group play lies not only in matching up to the strength of the opponents, but mitigating circumstances that include heat and travel distance. Japan will face Cote d’Ivoire, Greece and Colombia in the group stage. None of those teams will be easy to handle for Japan, ranked 46th in the FIFA world rankings as of June 5. Colombia is No. 8, Greece is ranked 12th and Cote d’Ivoire No. 23. Despite differences in playing style, the teams in Japan’s group have a
common thread: physical toughness. Japan’s first match against Cote d’Ivoire will be a yardstick for the Samurai Blue, who will use it to gauge their chances of reaching the knockout stage. The African team features a large number of renown players such as Didier Drogba, Yaya Toure and his brother Kolo, Didier Zokora and Gervinho, who are highly skilled and athletic. “To my regret, we’ve been placed in a group with a team that I think
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June 13-19, 2014
is the best in Africa,” Japan manager Alberto Zaccheroni said after the draw was announced in December. The match will take place in the northern city of Recife. The hot and humid climate of the city could work as an advantage for the African team, which is used to playing in such conditions. However, the African team’s weakness comes in its lack of cohesion.
Good track record against Africans The Samurai Blue will unlikely be daunted in facing Cote d’Ivoire, as they have a decent history in matchups against African teams—Japan edged Cameroon in its first meeting in the 2010 tournament, and beat Ghana in a friendly in September. Cote d’Ivoire’s key player is Yaya Toure, a Manchester City midfielder who has been named the African Player of the Year for three straight years from 2012 to 2014. He excels
on the defensive side, with his tackles and interceptions, while also being a decisive factor on offense because of his passing, dribbling and shooting. Five days later, Japan faces Greece in Natal, also a northern city. Japan is expected to dominate possession, but Greece is fully aware of the Samurai Blue’s style of play. The European team has solid defence and is confident in its ability to counterattack and use set plays, so Japan cannot let its guard down no matter how much the game starts to go in its favour. Stamina is crucial to maintain Japan’s style of play, which features speed and quick passes, so the high temperatures of the city might be a concern. Another possible key is how well Japan’s players recover from fatigue after the first match. Greece’s key player is Sokratis Papastathopoulos, a Borussia Dortmund centreback who leads the team’s tall group of defenders. In its last group match five days later, the Samurai Blue take on
Colombia, considered the favourite of Group C. Cuiaba is about 2,500 kilometres away from Natal, and is known for its sticky climate. Because Japan plays all its group matches in hot cities, Zaccheroni might be liberal with his reserves in the games, replacing starters with fresh players. That means players such as Hotaru Yamaguchi and Masato Morishige, who usually play as substitutes, might play key roles in Brazil. Colombia has dropped its ace striker Radamel Falcao from its 23-member squad, with his recovery from a knee injury taking more time than expected. However, the team does not lack talent, with James Rodriguez as the prime example. The 22-year-old Monaco midfielder is touted as the “new Valderrama”, as his deft ball handling skills and sharp passing are reminiscent of Carlos Valderrama, a star midfielder who led Colombia in the 1990s.
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Removing the rust
As they get ready for their first match, there has been some good news for Japan—the team’s two key players are regaining their form. One of the concerns of the Samurai Blue was that Keisuke Honda and Shinji Kagawa struggled at their clubs this past season.
Honda scored only two goals in 16 Italian league and cup matches after joining AC Milan from CSKA Moscow in January. Kagawa ended the 2013-14 season at Manchester United scoreless, his first such experience since becoming a pro. Kagawa shone in a pre-World Cup match against Costa Rica
on June 2, scoring a goal and creating many scoring chances. He also scored in the next warmup against Zambia last Friday. In the Zambia game, Honda ended his scoring drought with the national team with a pair of goals. He had been scoreless with the Samurai Blue since a friendly against Belgium in November.
Trivia
Head Coach
The team is known as Samurai Blue. The mascots are "Karappe" and "Karara", two Yatagarasu wearing the Japan national football team uniform. The mascots were designed by Japanese manga artist Susumu Matsushita.
Alberto Zaccheroni, 61
PHOTOS BY THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN
All about Samurai Blue
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June 13-19, 2014
Goalkeepers
Eiji Kawashima (#1), 31 Standard Liege
Shuichi Gonda (#23), 25 FC Tokyo
Shusaku Nishikawa (#12), 28 Urawa Reds
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Defenders
Yasuyuki Konno (#15), 31 Gamba Osaka
Masahiko Inoha (#19), 29 Jubilo Iwata
Yuto Nagatomo (#5), 28 Inter Milan
Masato Morishige (#6), 27 FC Tokyo
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Defenders
Atsuto Uchida (#2), 26 Schalke
Maya Yoshida (#22), 26 Southampton
Hiroki Sakai (#21), 24 Hannover
Gotoku Sakai (#3), 23 Stuttgart
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Midfielders
Yasuhito Endo (#7), 34 Gamba Osaka
Makoto Hasebe (#17), 30 Nuremberg
Toshihiro Aoyama (#14), 28 Sanfrecce Hiroshima
Hotaru Yamaguchi (#16), 24 Cerezo Osaka
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Forwards
Yoshito Okubo (#13), 32 Kawasaki Frontale
Shinji Okazaki (#9), 28 Mainz 05
Keisuke Honda (#4), 28 AC Milan
Shinji Kagawa (#10), 25 Manchester United
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Forwards
Hiroshi Kiyotake (#8), 25 Nuremberg
Yoichiro Kakitani (#11), 24 Cerezo Osaka
Manabu Saito (#20), 24 Yokohama F Marinos
Yuya Osako (#18), 24 1860 Munich
June 13-19, 2014
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JAPAN'S BEST HOPE Keisuke Honda puts the best foot forward for the Samurai Blue team in World Cup 2014
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The Japan News Clearwater, Florida
K
eisuke Honda showed his steely streak of ambition at an early age. As a sixth grader at TorikaiKita Primary School in Settsu, Osaka Prefecture, he expressed his future dreams in a graduation album with an essay that boldly began: “I want to, no, I will become the world’s No. 1 football player when I grow up.” While that still remains to be achieved, Honda has already reached some of the goals he spelled out in the essay. For example, he wrote, “I will join (Italy’s) Serie A in Europe...and wear the No. 10 uniform,” both of which were realised this year when he joined AC Milan and wore that number. He also wrote that he will play “at the World Cup”, which he did in 2010 in South Africa and will do again this month in Brazil. And how did he conclude the essay? “I want to face Brazil in the final, and beat Brazil 2-1.”
A shot at redemption
After his rather unsuccessful debut at AC Milan, the 27-year-old forward is determined to use the bitter experience of his first season at AC Milan as a springboard to success at the 2014 World Cup. “Nobody is guaranteed of playing in the next World Cup. For myself, I’ve been working to make this World Cup a turning point,” Honda said in his first meeting with reporters since he joined his Samurai Blue teammates in training in May. “I’m going in with a feeling that ‘There is no next chance.’” Honda was speaking at the Japan national team’s training camp in Clearwater, Florida, where it is making its final preparations before leaving for Brazil. In January, Honda left Russian club CSKA Moscow to join the prestigious AC Milan. Showing its high expectations for Honda, the Italian club prepared the No. 10 uniform for him, which
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had been previously worn by such team legends as Ruud Gullit. However, Honda faced an uphill battle in Italy. He could not settle into a full-time starting role, and scored just two goals in 16 league and cup matches as the team finished a disappointing eighth in Serie A. He was often used as a right midfielder instead of in the central attacking position that he prefers. Honda could not meet the expectations in last week's warmup match against Costa Rica in nearby Tampa. Although he had the assist on Japan’s first goal by Yasuhito Endo, he failed to take advantage of several scoring chances himself and did not score in the 3-1 win. The fact that the Samurai Blue’s two key players—Honda and Manchester United attacker Shinji Kagawa—were out of favour at their clubs cast a dark shadow over the team’s prospects in Brazil. Kagawa ended the season scoreless for the first time in his pro career.
On May 18, Milan finished its season against Sassuolo, but Honda was left on the bench for the entire match. “I’ve been struggling in everything,” Honda said after the game. However, Honda said he is determined not to waste his experience in Italy. “The experience of playing in the right will be utilised (in Brazil), and the disappointment of being unable to put on a satisfying performance will be utilised, too. I’m going to learn from everything I went through,” Honda said before leaving Italy for Japan.
Keeping the mood light
In Clearwater, Honda is trying to create a relaxed atmosphere for the team ahead of going to Brazil. “I’ve been psyching myself up over these four years (since the previous World Cup), but
probably I’m most relaxed now.” Honda said he wants to replicate the mood he felt during the 2010 World Cup. “When all of the national team members gather in one room, you can feel from the atmosphere that every player is confident.” Honda said he felt that before Japan’s opening match in South Africa against Cameroon. Japan won the game 1-0 to begin a successful drive into the Round of 16. The atmosphere will be created when leading players of the team continuously make natural efforts, Honda said. “There’re only a few chances to encounter the atmosphere in a lifetime, so I want to pursue it,” he said. Honda said he is looking forward to experiencing his second World Cup. “I’m waiting to experience my true strength, which I can’t imagine now, coming out in a situation in which there’s no way to escape,” he said. ¬
June 13-19, 2014
PAKISTAN'S HOME BOY Home boy Ali Zafar is set to star in his first Pakistani movie after making a name for himself in Bollywood Maliha Rehman Dawn Lahore
H
e can play up the glamour at the Lux Style Awards, dancing and singing to his hit songs and he can smoulder on a magazine cover where he decides to bare all, literally. He’s the classical gayak (singer) who
PEOPLE
mesmerised us in previous seasons of Coke Studio and the desperate, lovelorn comic hero in Bollywood. Ali Zafar, at present, has the confidence, the ease and certainly the six pack abs of a superstar. In India, he’s been managing to climb the hitherto insurmountablefor-Pakistanis heights to stardom and holding his own in cutthroat Bollywood. His fledgling Indian acting career boasts names like David Dhawan and Yash Raj Films and though all his movies haven’t been hits, he’s certainly become a known name amongst audiences beyond the border. And of course, we love him in Pakistan—we know all his songs and like them or not, we always do watch all his movies. Also, his face is currently dotted on billboards
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June 13-19, 2014
everywhere since Ali’s now the rage with the country’s corporate sector. “He’s the only celebrity to have widespread appeal among all age-groups, all over the country,” says Asima Haq, marketing director at Unilever
Pakistan while explaining Ali’s latest association with Lipton tea. Ali delivers, also. He’ll practise for days just to get a complicated dance routine right. And when asked to sing and dance for an advertisement, he offers to
compose the music and lyrics as well. “I don’t want to trust anybody else with it,” he laughs. Does he feel that he’s endorsing far too many brands, all in one go? “I agree to a project if it appeals to me. If different brands want me to be in their campaigns, it’s their choice. I just make sure I give it my best shot.” This perfectionism, perfectly blended by doses of humility, defines Ali Zafar. He’s just about friends with everybody and diplomacy comes to him naturally. A case in point is when actor Shaan openly criticised local artistes who ‘sold out’ to India at the recent ARY Film Awards. With Ali, the only Pakistani to have significantly succeeded in Bollywood, sitting right there in the audience, the diatribe seemed to be pinpointed particularly towards him. His reply was confident and clearcut without being offensive.
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June 13-19, 2014
“Patriotism, to me, does not mean confining myself to my country. It means proving my mettle to the world and showing them what we can do,” he reasserts. Had he prepared his speech beforehand, in anticipation of such a verbal assault? “No, I never prepare my speeches. This is how I feel and I had no inhibitions in stating it clearly.”
Always Pakistani
Justifiably, Ali Zafar can hardly be accused of having switched loyalties to India. He may have been focusing on building his Bollywood acting career but who wouldn’t, considering the opportunities, professionalism and profits to be gained from working in the Indian film industry? Still, Ali’s consistently shuttling back to the motherland, for the occasional awards ceremony or ad campaign or just because he wants to spend time with his four-year-old son. “I deliberately haven’t shifted base to India,” he explains. “I may be
there for long durations but I am always living in a hotel. My family lives in Pakistan and I rush back to see them even if there is a twoday break in my work schedule.” His schedule veers back home by the end of this year, when he’s all set to begin working on his first Pakistani film. “It’s going to be directed by Ahsan Rahim,” explains Ali. “We’re hoping to take on new actors and musicians.” Ali will, of course, be acting in the movie but as a first, he will also be producing and writing the script. For anyone else, it may seem like far too much to handle but Ali Zafar’s quite a pro at multitasking. He’s sung playback for almost every movie he’s starred in—who can forget Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’s ebullient Madhubala or the kooky Ullu da Patha from his debut Tere bin Laden? He also composed the lilting soundtrack for his London, Paris, New York that may not have stormed the box office but certainly made waves
with its melodious music. If Ali Zafar now intends to become actorscriptwriter-producer extraordinaire then there’s a pretty good chance that he’ll be able to nail it. “The planning is still in its initial stages but we have finalised the general concept of the movie,” he reveals. “I believe that Pakistan has tremendous talent and I want to provide a platform for it with this movie.”
‘Kill’ing ‘Dil’s in Bollywood
And while Ali’s faith in Pakistani talent is heartening, one wonders if his tryst into Pakistani cinema is a strategic career move? There’s no denying that Bollywood is fiercely competitive with its constant surge of new entrants including groomedand-glossed star-sons. Is Ali’s Bollywood career flailing, leading him back to the domestic turf? “I am still being offered movies in Bollywood but this doesn’t mean that I can’t also work in
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Pakistan,” he replies. “A role has to interest me, regardless of where the movie is going to be shot. I am going to organise my schedule so that I can set aside time for shooting in Pakistan after which I could revert to India if a movie offer there interests me.” In the meantime, Ali’s hoping for a blockbuster with his upcoming Kill Dil. Slated for a November release, the Yash Raj Films’ production features him shedding his soft, sweet romantic avatar to become the latest assassin on the block. His hair’s longer, he has a French beard and those well-toned six pack abs are certainly going to help in shoving away adversaries in the movie. Also starring in the movie are Ranveer Singh—the other assassin—Parineeti Chopra and Govinda as the villain. “I had always wanted to act and dance with Govinda and I got the chance in Kill Dil,” says Ali. “Once we would be done
with shooting on location, we’d all sit around a bonfire at night, sing songs and dance. It was great fun. I also performed the longest, most complicated dance routine of my life in the movie. It was a five-and-a-half minute long dance number choreographed by Ganesh Acharya and I practised for days before I got it right. There were 300 dancers accompanying Ranveer, Parineeti and me in the song.” Beyond the apparent bonhomie, was there any competitive tension between him and Ranveer Singh? “No, there wasn’t. A film takes months to create and if co-stars don’t get along, it makes the entire process very painful for everybody involved. I am very competitive in the sense that I give my best to my role but I also want to enjoy myself in the meantime. I am not an insecure person and luckily, the co-stars I have encountered so far—Imran Khan in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and now, Ranveer Singh —have been very level-headed.
“My favourite memories from the making of Kill Dil will always be the hours Ranveer and I spent on our motorbikes. As assassins, we had plenty of scenes where we rode motorbikes and we’d practise riding them in our free time. By the time shooting ended, I would have happily driven my bike from Mumbai to Lahore!” Does he feel threatened by the next Pakistani hero vying for Bollywood stardom, Fawad Khan? “I wish him all the best,” says Ali. And you can tell that he truly means it. For it doesn’t matter to him what anybody else does while he focuses on paving his way to new heights. Ali may stumble with a flop or two and the competition may be growing, but his hard work and genuine talent continues to keep him at bay. He’s gracefully walked the precarious balance between India and Pakistan thus far—may he waltz and groove further! ¬
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CINEMA IN PAKISTAN THE WAY AHEAD The revival of the Pakistan film industry involves embracing the Indian audience, among other ways
ENTERTAINMENT
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Mazhar Zaidi Dawn Lahore
C
inema and filmmaking in Pakistan did make a wonderful comeback in the year 2013. While the release of around seven Pakistani films
throughout the country gave a much-needed push to aspiring local filmmakers, it also produced a hypersentimental wave about the rise of Pakistan cinema, which masked the realities on the ground. The current year holds more promise for Pakistani cinema as more than two dozen productions are reportedly on the floor. So exactly where does Pakistani cinema stand and where is it heading to?
Welcome the ugly
Multiplex cinema originally suffered in Pakistan not solely because of ‘bad films’, it collapsed because it stopped making business sense to the most important player in the chain of film business —the exhibitor.
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And it sprung back exactly when it started making money for the cinema owners, i.e. since 2006 with the easing of governmental control on the import of Indian content, and to some extent censorship policies. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the current attention that Pakistani cinema enjoys owes a lot to both Hollywood and Bollywood. It is the content from these two giant film industries which made way for the re-opening of old cinemas and the construction of new ones. While this import of ‘new and shiny’ products brought the class of cinemagoers who had stopped going anywhere near a theatre since 1980s back to cinema halls, it also caused much destruction in its wake. There is no harm in being romantic for a bit and lamenting how the new and ugly multiplex killed the charming single screen cinemas of years gone by. But then it is this multiplex, however
unattractive to some, which got the footfalls back to the theatre halls and got us all thinking of making films again. While everywhere else in the world the arrival of multiplex changed the experience of watching cinema, in a country like Pakistan it has also been influencing the content itself. Higher ticket pricing structures and geographical location of new screens in urban centres automatically determine what kind of films can possibly be supported by the audience. So, the new cinema of Pakistan has to cater to a new cinema audience.
Embrace thy neighbour
For an audience which is relatively more critical and has the ability to constantly compare local content with the foreign films they watch, it is essential that films produced locally should have a
global appeal. It is critical also because given the current state of screens in Pakistan, no film can make business sense unless its varied revenue streams, other than home release, are exploited. There are roughly 66 screens in the country out of which mostly 40 are capable of generating revenue. The good news is that many more screens are under construction but the bad news is that till the time when we have at least 80 to 100 screens, no film can make profit unless of course if someone tries to change the colour of their money or has institutional support and doesn’t care about making profit from a production. The theatrical release in the country of production is only one of the many revenue streams of a film. Cinema audiences from Toronto to Sydney are keen to see the rest of the world on the big screen. This doesn’t in
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any way imply that filmmakers have to make compromises on creativity; that’s a lame excuse. Any good filmmaker has the ability to tell a local story in its true context in ways that it can appeal to audiences everywhere. For the sake of argument if we forget the international audience, why not look eastward? After all, we are only a few kilometres away from one of the world’s largest cinema-going audience and have no language or cultural barriers as such, unless of course you believe that the people of Amritsar speak Swahili and the population of Delhi has never seen a shalwar kameez in its entire life. While there may be some truth to the argument of some Pakistani industries that they face the curse of non-tariff barriers in India-Pakistan trade, most claims about Pakistan’s film industry not being able to make it to the Indian market
are based on mere assumptions and half-hearted efforts. We know for a fact that at least one of the two Pakistani films released in India during the last 10 years has done really well. Wouldn’t that be a rate of 50 per cent success by simple calculation? Shouldn’t Pakistani producers and filmmakers be gearing up to exploit such a huge opportunity literally lying next door? Apart from theatrical release in different territories, there are many other possible revenue streams of a film—namely music rights, satellite, direct to home, video on demand, pay TV, iTunes, Netflix, airborne rights, etc. In order to exploit all these possibilities, a person from production needs to keep the overall bigger picture in mind and that person usually is the producer. And yes, a producer is not the person with a big suitcase full of money. Instead,
he is the person who has to look over the whole project, from script development to production to post-production to planning the festival circuit run to the actual release and subsequently exploiting auxiliary rights which can be equally profitable in some cases.
Film is not TV
So a critical audience and stiff competition from global content and a desire to export your cultural product beyond the borders obviously demands rigorous planning and execution. The first challenge is the script which takes up a paramount importance in these conditions. Like all other departments in a film crew, we have a shortage of film scriptwriters. No doubt some of last year’s releases showed a lot of promise but we still have a long way to go. A note of caution
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here is necessary: film is not TV. Audiences consume TV in very different ways. It’s free, it’s inside the comfort of a home, and in most cases it almost works as an interlude between various domestic chores. It’s technically and sensually an altogether different experience. Cinema, on the other hand, is a social activity, you make an appointment to view something mostly with friends and family, it’s visually and audibly a much richer and demanding experience and above all, you pay for it. So yes, while TV can help evolve some content for cinema, it will have to be very non-TV to make it to the big screen.
Who will carry the lights? The lack of resources is not only limited to developing content for films. It permeates all other areas of film production.
Primarily because Pakistan has suffered what can only be described as a complete disconnect from its tradition of cinema production in the most brutal of ways. While Pakistani cinema was in almost complete hibernation in the 1990s, things changed quite drastically on the surface. Not only did the mode of film production undergo substantial changes, with the introduction of digital cinema the methods of delivery have also seen revolutionary alterations. So we have the desire and the passion to make cinema, we have new theatre halls to exhibit our labour of love but do we have the human resource to produce that work of art that we so want to cherish? The establishment of various film schools in major urban centres during the last few years has trained an enthusiastic lot of filmmakers. But in the absence of a fully functioning film industry,
which could employ the trained human resource and thus develop a symbiotic relationship, these institutions are yet to exploit their own true potential. For a fully functioning film industry—still a distant goal— we not only need film directors but also some of the other most crucial members of a film crew such as assistant directors, unit production managers, gaffers, directors of photography, to name a few. Unlike some other art forms, film is a completely collaborative venture. Simply put, good directors can’t make good films unless they have excellent first assistant directors or meticulous location managers. Film schools need to produce those too. We simply do not want to end up with hundreds of film directors and no sound designer or continuity script supervisor or no one to carry the lights. ¬
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S ’ O H W SO F O D I A R AF ? S P U N E PR
em t s o t s m e e s e c n e c i t e r e Th r e h t a r ’ s o n ipi l i F e h t m o r f ng i t a i c o s s a , re u t l u c e v i t a v s e i t i conser r b e l e c ign e r o f h t i w s m e prenup e s s p u n e pr e l p i t l u m e whos es c r o v i d e l p i t ul m e g a s e r p to
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Sara Isabelle Pacia Philippine Daily Inquirer Manila
M
ention the word “prenup”, and most Filipinos will react with unease. The “prenuptial agreement”, a legal contract between future spouses on how their assets will be divided during their marriage, often pulls up the issue of trust, a deal-breaker that most romantic couples would rather not think about this early in their union. In fact, when Sunday Inquirer Magazine attempted to get married and engaged couples to talk about their prenup, all of them refused. When SIM asked singles or dating individuals if they would ever consider a prenup when they get married, an overwhelming majority said no, never.
The reticence seems to stem from the Filipinos’ rather conservative culture. Most Filipinos associate prenups with foreign celebrities like Kim Kardashian and billionaires like Donald Trump, whose multiple prenups seem to presage multiple divorces. The prenup is thus seen as a hedge against future heartbreak and financial loss should one’s partner prove more mercenary than true.
Knee-jerk reaction
Locally, it goes against the grain of love-ever-after that most couples still believe in. Anticipating anything but long-term marital bliss goes against a culture deeply rooted in family and religion. Hazel Naredo-Ruiz, a lawyer who specialises in family law, says the negative reaction to prenups is “a knee-jerk reaction”
deeply rooted in trust issues. In Ruiz’s experience, one of the first questions usually raised by a surprised or offended partner is: “Why, don’t you trust me?” Suggesting or bringing up the subject is automatically labeled as mistrust. Filipino families are so tight-knit that any hint of doubt on the integrity or character of the prospective partner gets the future in-laws hurt, as if the family or clan reputation has been tainted. “When Filipinos get married, [you’re expected to] accept everything about the person, including the family,” Ruiz says. But according to Ruiz, many negative assumptions about prenups are often based on misinformation. Prenups, or the lack of one, should not be used as a measure of love or proof of pure intention, she adds. Another lawyer, Juor Buted, who specialises in corporate law, stresses that couples should not be
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afraid of legal prenups because in essence, these agreements cover only material wealth and assets, and cannot dictate other aspects of a marriage. This is perhaps one of the most common misconceptions about prenups, he says, as prenups in other countries often include clauses on alimonies, cheating spouses and divorce. In the United States, for example, Buted cites the case of golf legend Tiger Woods and his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, who received a hefty sum on their separation because their prenup stated such should Woods be found guilty of extramarital affairs. Sometimes, too, the amount the estranged partner receives is based on the number of years that they have stayed together. But since the Philippine Constitution does not permit divorce, prenups done here
deal only with the couple’s material possessions, also known as “property relations”. “Prenups really involve only material things. Essentially, it’s your properties and nothing else,” Buted stresses. “ A prenup focuses on how the properties of each of the parties will be treated: those they presently own and those they will acquire during the marriage, and how are they going to be divided after the marriage.”
Legal bases The legal bases for prenups, also referred to as marriage settlements, can be found in the 1987 Family Code of the Philippines, which also details the laws on marriage. In fact, Buted points out, “the first order of the Family Code is how the property relations of the spouses should be governed”. According to Article 74 of the Family Code, property relations
between husband and wife shall be governed in the following order: 1) by marriage settlements executed before the marriage, 2) by the provisions of the Family Code, and 3) by local custom. The Family Code offers three regimes that can govern property relations: absolute community of property, which rules that whatever one party owned before a marriage now also belongs to the other; conjugal partnership of gains, in which assets owned before a marriage remain separately owned by each party, but any interest, tax or earnings from those assets are owned by both spouses, and complete separation of property, in which all assets remain separate during and after a marriage. “[A prenup] takes precedence over the Family Code unless it is void,” Buted says, adding that in any prenup, the couple can choose any of the three regimes stated in the Family Code.
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If there is no marriage settlement, absolute community of property will automatically govern a couple’s property relations.
No set format
Prenups don’t have to be written in a set format, nor should it have set clauses on what should be included, Ruiz says. “It can be as specific and detailed as the couple wants, and can include such details as how to apportion salaries or wages during the marriage, or commissions from their jobs. It can be very specific or as general as a complete separation of property.” “You have to be as exhaustive and as detailed as possible, although nothing prevents you from making it very general as long as the couple entered into it knowingly,
voluntarily and freely,” Ruiz adds. Contrary to popular belief, the lawyer explains, prenups are not done out of mistrust between future spouses. Based on cases she has handled, the most common reason for drawing one is the protection of the assets of children born before a marriage, whether illegitimate or from a previous marriage. While there are inheritance laws that can also protect them, prenups can be drawn to make sure that certain funds are used only for their education, or that no matter what happens, these children are ensured specific assets due them. Another common reason is to protect family businesses and keep them intact or within the family. Other reasons include protecting a spouse from inheriting the debts of his or her partner, usually because of an age disparity between spouses.
On a more personal note, Ruiz said prenups could essentially “eliminate doubts and fears that a person is marrying you just for your money” in a situation when there is a financial gap between future spouses.
Sometimes, romantic
Looking at it another way, a prenup can even be viewed as romantic, as the less wealthy partner is willing to forego the money aspect just to prove his or her love. But should a couple want legal separation in the future, prenups also speed up the process. “It’s easier… because all the questions on property relations are settled. The only question that remains is whether your marriage will be voided. That’s the only question that has to be settled by the court,” says Ruiz. As for other conditional clauses before a marriage is allowed
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especially in cases where one partner’s family is against the future spouse, Buted says these are not allowed. Prenups are meant only to supplement the future spouses’ property relations. Like any other contract that binds two parties, it is similar to contracts of sales and lease. “[A prenup] is a contract within another contract— the marriage contract.” To be considered valid, a prenup need only be in writing and done before the marriage. “Anything added or details included after the marriage will need a court order for it to take effect,” the lawyer said. Like any other contract, a prenup need three prerequisites. One, there must be consent between future spouses who are both “sound of mind,” meaning they are capable of entering into an agreement
willingly. Two, there must be objects, or properties and other assets that will be included in the contract’s scope. And three, there must be a consideration that dictates the context of the agreement; in the case of a prenup, the consideration is the marriage itself. Once a prenup is filed with the local civil registry— the same registry where the marriage contract is filed—and the Register of Deeds—where the couple’s properties are documented—the concerned parties are bound to obey it.
Voiding the prenup
The only time a prenup can be voided after it had been signed is if, after the marriage, it is found to be contrary to either “[constitutional] law, morals, public policy, public order or customs,” says Buted.
Despite its natural parameters, why are Filipinos still afraid of the prenup, or harbour reservations about it? Aside from culture, other factors make the idea of a prenup daunting to most Filipinos. Most couples who have one would rather not talk about it and that’s understandable, says Buted, because the details of any marriage are a private matter between the parties involved. Then when it comes to prenups, there is an added layer of sensitivity because it involves property relations that, Ruiz points out, is “one of the most contentious issues” in a marriage or a family dispute. In fact, families are actually one of the biggest influences behind couples who opt for a prenup, especially if the family of one partner has a lot of assets. “The family plays a big, big role in pushing for prenups. Ordinarily,
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the parties involved… are so blinded by love and so romantic (they think nothing of property relations.) Love is blind, they say,” Buted says. “[So] it’s usually the children from a previous marriage or the mother or the brother or the sister or whoever, who pushes the parties concerned.” Although prenups seem more common among the moneyed class, Ruiz says the middle class should be encouraged to draw up one themselves. “Even average-income families can have a prenup. It’s just as pressing and important. Why? Because you have limited assets. There is a more urgent need to protect whatever little you have,” she adds. “It’s not just for the rich. It’s not just for the famous. It’s not just for celebrities. It’s also for common folk like us,” she says, citing her own decision to push for one before she married her businessman husband a few years ago.
There are now more men and women like her, who no longer “enter marriage with rose-colored glasses”, no matter their financial status. “I was very open to the realities of life, and even my husband was, too. But that doesn’t mean that I love him any less,” Ruiz says.
Culture, values
Despite their openness to the idea and mature discussions about a prenup, however, Ruiz says they eventually did not push through with the plan. As in most cases, it all came down to Filipino culture and values. But thanks to Internet technology and more exposure to information, there is now a growing awareness about one’s financial future that is resulting in more prenups, Buted says. Or, at the very least, more openness to the idea of having one.
“It’s a changing culture. Filipinos now are getting more modern. They’re more informed because of social media and they have a lot of access to technology and information. And (finances) they now realise are a part of reality,” he says. “It’s a changing mindset,” he added. “The changing idea of what marriage is includes the possibility that one day, a couple may decide to end the union for good. “At this point, we do not really know how your relationship will fare in 10 or 15 years’ time. So you’d like to anticipate or make provisions for how properties will be treated when that contingency comes,” according to Buted . Ruiz agrees with Buted. “I don’t want to sound trite, but one of the most constant in this world, aside from debt and taxes, is change. So somehow, feelings and emotions can change after a couple of years, just as circumstances can.”
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The “debacle", in Ruiz’s words, from the messy and drawn-out annulment between talk show host Kris Aquino and basketball star James Yap in 2010 is one popular example of such change. But more than the couple’s sudden change of feelings for each other, the case also had an impact as it highlighted the property rights of Aquino’s son Josh who was born from a previous relationship. “Although her ex-husband (Yap) is an accomplished athlete himself, she obviously had more assets. What could possibly have been apportioned for [Josh] might have been affected by a prenup,” Ruiz says. After that annulment, more people have become curious about prenups. “More and more people are now asking (lawyers) like us how to do it, how to go about it,” she says. “So we try to guide them. We
explain to both parties that it’s not about the trust, that [prenups are] actually very, very convenient for both parties.” That was exactly how Elsa, 31, and her fiance felt, when they agreed that prenups are separate from trust issues between spouses. The engaged couple who is due to marry in February next year, says there is nothing remotely taboo about prenups, even if they eventually decided not to draw up one. Elsa, a banker and her fiance, a lawyer and an entrepreneur, saw the prenup as “more of a precaution”, as both of them come from families with established businesses. But when their families said a prenup wasn’t necessary, the couple acquiesced. It was no big deal, the couple said, “so why bother?” It all boiled down to what Elsa and her fiancé wanted, as well as their situation. “It probably depends on the situation, your lifestyle,
what your family says,” she adds. Ruiz, who had prepared close to a hundred prenups, says a lot of couples who draw up the agreement think like Elsa. “The more mature [and older] ones are pretty much OK with it. They’re more open to it.” One couple, she adds, signed a prenup upon the man’s suggestion but lived “as if there was no prenup”; another man offered it to his wealthier significant other to prove that he was not after her and her family’s money. In Ruiz’s own marriage, her choice was to have one although her husband disagreed. Buted, on the other hand, says that given the opportunity now to get a prenup with his wife of 26 years, he’d still choose otherwise. In the end, getting a prenup remains a very personal choice, and something that, given enough time and information, could become an issue worth mulling among couples. ¬
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Is that prenup valid? A prenuptial agreement is like any other legal contract and does not need to follow any specific format. But as a contract, a prenup must be in writing; verbal agreements cannot be accepted. A prenup should also contain these general details: • A heading indicating that the contract is a prenuptial agreement • The full names of the parties involved • Date of writing and signing, which must be before the wedding • Country, to make sure that the prenup complies with Philippine laws • A clause indicating that the involved parties willingly entered into the agreement and have fully understood its contents • A clause indicating that there are no other prenups or existing contracts between the future spouses • A full disclosure agreement • A severability clause
• An arbitration or mediation clause They may also contain the following clauses: • Statement of assets to be included in the contract, as not all of the future spouses’ assets need to be governed by the prenup • How the future spouses’ stated assets will be divided once they’re married, whether by conjugal partnership of gains, complete separation of assets or other more detailed conditions • What-if situations and subsequent actions regarding stated assets should the spouse dies suddenly or if one party has a child born out of wedlock In short, a prenup can be as simple or as detailed as the prospective spouses want it to be, depending on their assets and conditions. But no matter its length or wording, a prenup is binding as long as it is in writing and signed willingly by both parties.
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LIFESTYLE Photo by Jilson Seckler Tiu
LOVE IN THE TIME OF INSTAGRAM Technology and the Filipinos’ love for romance are fueling a boom in the prenumptial industry—with Jason Magbanua as the king of videos
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Ruel S. De Vera Philippine Daily Inquirer Manila
I
t was the video that got everyone talking. Running less than three minutes and uploaded on Vimeo on Nov 26, 2010, the controversial clip turned Jason Magbanua into the bad boy of prenuptial videos. The video featured then engaged couple Maggie Wilson and businessman Victor Consunji making out in several settings: indoors, in a sports car and finally, underwater, to the dream-like tune of Portishead’s “Glory Box”. Released just weeks before the couple’s wedding, it definitely had an impact on the romance-oriented Pinoy. Wrote the Inquirer: “The video, shot by wedding videographer Jason Magbanua, is the raciest prenup video we’ve ever seen. It shows VJ and former Bb. Pilipinas
Maggie Wilson and real estate scion Victor Consunji in various states of undress, in bed, in the pool, in the car, kissing, touching, taking more clothes off. Hot? Sexy? Wild? Tacky? Inappropriate? Practically pornographic? We’re still deciding.” It is still widely considered the hottest pre-wedding video ever. When asked by television reporters for comment back then, Magbanua declined. Today, he looks back at the controversy from a more philosophical perspective: “It was amazing and funny at the same time because it wasn’t your typical pre-wedding shoot. It touched a lot of different people’s nerves. My take on it is: ‘Wow, the Philippines is still conservative after all),”’ the 39-year-old Magbanua explains. He goes on to clarify the back story behind the video: It was the couple’s idea to do scenes that steamy, with the initial meeting done in the presence of the bride’s parents.
“It was a celebration of their bodies at their peak, although Maggie and Vic still look hot now,” says the videographer who says he didn’t usually shoot this sort of fare. In fact, he was initially uncomfortable about it that he had eschewed a full crew and settled on just himself and another camera operator. He has changed his mind since then: “It was great. I didn’t really realise that, wow, so many hits on YouTube, so much drama about it." He adds: “It is what is what it is. If it was the (couple’s) intention to be sensational, well and good, that goal was achieved.” Serendipitously, the Wilson-Consunji video made Magbanua a hot conversation topic while he was already the country’s most soughtafter wedding videographer. It wasn’t anything he planned, says Jason Roderick Osete Magbanua who first fell in love with video work, while an
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Jason preparing to shoot
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Jilson Seckler Tiu
HAVE LOVE, WILL TRAVEL: Lihan has done prenup and wedding videos all over the world, AND HOPES TO FILL HER COMING WORLD TOUR WITH MORE SHOOTS
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economics major at the Ateneo de Manila University, when he held a video camera for the first time in his life. He loved doing camera work so much that he shifted to communication, graduating in 1995. But back then, he didn’t see himself working professionally in video. “I’m not really a forward thinking person,” he admits. “I really didn’t know what I was going to do, except that I was going to make the most of learning and learn whatever I can.” Initially, he wanted to teach, so he moved to Lucena City where he taught at Sacred Heart College for five years. His students on video production would often ask him to shoot their older siblings’ weddings, and he said, “Yes, why not?” It was extra income for him, he says, plus he liked what he did. “I was able to apply techniques I saw in the movies and taught in the classroom. I thought I can
make them better. I can use better music, different shots, a variety of angles. I can make the product more appealing, more cinematic.” As his clientele in Quezon province grew, he found himself hopping on a bus to shoot weddings in Villa Escudero or in Manila. He was shooting so many weddings he was missing classes. “So I reached a crossroads,” Magbanua recalls. Did he want to have a steady paycheck or did he want to take the risk and start his own business? In 2000, Magbanua decamped to a studio apartment in Manila and threw himself into his fledgling wedding video business. The one-man operation saw him doing 10 weddings a year, and charging 15,000 pesos (US$343) for each wedding. “I got lucky with my initial clientele because they had a good profile,” he says. “They knew a lot of people who were also getting married.”
His first celebrity wedding, he recounts, was that of former actor Monsour del Rosario. After that, his name became associated with those of class-A wedding planners. “Everything skyrocketed in 2006 when I did Claudine Barretto’s wedding,” he says. He has since done almost all the big celebrity weddings, including for actress Judy Ann Santos and host Ryan Agoncillo in 2009. He also did the wedding video for the popular love team of Maya and Sir Chief from the TV series, Be Careful With My Heart. When you get hired for fictional weddings, you know you’ve arrived. Success has meant bigger, better video toys and appurtenances for this videographer. Magbanua’s studio is located in a townhouse in Palm Village, Makati, that has its own mini-theatre for viewing videos and a conference room for meeting prospective clients.
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He now runs a 25-man operation although he still personally shoots each of the 80 weddings he does in a year, although he has imposed on himself the implacable rule of doing only one wedding a day. How times have changed indeed: From 15,000 pesos, his basic wedding package now costs 150,000 pesos, or 10 times what he used to charge when he was starting out. Despite the hefty cost, he routinely turns down clients because he is always fully booked. And that’s just for weddings. The pre-wedding videos are a different matter altogether. The love child of the business presentation and the home video, pre-wedding videos were originally known by the generic tag “audio-visual presentation”, or AVP, that were shot by wedding videographers almost as an afterthought in the days or weeks leading to the wedding
so that guests at the reception had something to view while tucking into their meal. Then everything changed, thanks to computer technology. “My career is parallel to the development of the Internet,” says Magbanua. “Even when I still couldn’t post videos online, I already had e-mail and that helped generate word of mouth.” One of the transformative technologies is the same-day edit, which allowed wedding videographers and photographers alike to show wedding guests the video and photos they shot of the wedding during the reception, with sometimes just an hour or two between them. The Internet Age also allowed videographers and photographers to post and upload their work online, something very useful for couples who want to announce their engagements and reinforce the save-thedate announcement in style.
Magbanua’s first pre-wedding videos were quite traditional. But as he got used to shooting this genre, he got better and more ambitious. “To be honest, it’s additional income for me, as well as another form of artistic expression outside of the wedding,” he says. “You can’t control the wedding—it’s an event by the numbers. This is one way to show we can do other stuff.” While the wedding itself tends to be a collaborative experience for the couple with their parents, the pre-wedding video is purely the turf of the bride and groom: They make all the decisions themselves. During those early days, recalls Magbanua, the clients wanted the pre-wedding video as a throw-in, an extra or a free service courtesy of the photographer hired to do the wedding shots. “Utang ng loob (a goodwill gesture from the photographer),” he recalls. “Then soon you realise, wow, this is more difficult to do than the actual
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wedding! It was tough because people would demand things of us that we wouldn’t do for weddings, complete with concepts, styling, production design, and location. This has to be treated differently because it has evolved.” So Magbanua began charging for it. “It’s different because it’s not just a matter of shooting, but has dynamics of its own.” He has a very popular Vimeo micro-site where he posts all his pre-wedding and wedding vids and they aren’t cheap. The prewedding videos can be just a few minutes long, but Magbanua charges a minimum of 75,000 pesos for a single video. He has shot an estimated 250 prewedding videos in places such as San Francisco, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong and Singapore, and almost all the romantic destinations in the Philippines. Among the hundreds of prewedding videos he’s done, there is a 2009 fully-scripted work he’ll
never forget. “I think that was my favourite because I was pushed to show what I could do. It was like I did a short film for that couple. It was not as viral as the other videos but it holds a special place in my heart. I think I can only do one of that in a year. It was taxing but it really showed in narrative form that the couple was meant for each other, and that the girl changed the guy’s life when they met.” Magbanua may enjoy the shoot, but he also hates being micro-managed by his subjects. In fact, it takes a lot out of him to control the urge to snap back at the couple, “This is why you hired me; let me do my job.” Still, those difficult videos will be shot and delivered. “But because I don’t consider them my work anymore, they will never be posted on the Net.” The most common local venue is definitely Tagaytay, he says. If the clients are busy, the Ninoy Aquino Parks & Wildlife and
the La Mesa Eco-Park are close by. He has shot in beaches like Boracay and Bohol, and he loves shooting in these locations. “From the point of view of the filmmaker, you can do a lot. Inherently, there is beauty. You have sunsets and you have sand. It’s already romantic by itself,” he explains. It wasn’t all about the videos, of course. Photographs used to be the definitive way of preserving wedding memories, until the images began to move. Wedding photographers are considered an essential part of wedding planning—especially if you want a good one. As the market for prewedding pictorials grew, the talent rose to match it. Certainly Jamie Lihan also has an unusual story in terms of her becoming a wedding photographer. Jamie Anne Chua Lihan is a savant with numbers and can
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remember a remarkable string of numbers with accuracy. For example, she can recite the numbers of her contacts on the phone. “Just in case I need to call someone if my phone dies,” the 32-year-old Lihan says. She excelled in math and chess in high school, graduated from the Ateneo de Manila in 2003 with a degree in Management Engineering, and earned her MBA on a scholarship in 2007. The skill with numbers is also useful when she teaches business statistics and applied mathematics at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. “I enjoy making things simpler for students but I hate speaking in front of people,” she admits. Lihan discovered photography shortly after graduation. A painting teacher in Ateneo recommended that she take a photography workshop at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, something she discovered she really enjoyed.
Although she had been working in real estate by then, she decided to go for broke and became an apprentice photographer at Imagine Nation Photography, the studio of wedding photography titan John Mateos Ong. Now a Master Photographer at Imagine Nation, Lihan does some 60 weddings a year. She began doing pre-wedding pictorials as soon as she joined the studio. “There was a demand even then, but things were simpler, there was no stylist,” she recalls. “I think by 2011, shoots began to get more complicated. It became an extra, an option that we could give and one couple usually got because it’s fashionable.” The challenge in pre-wedding pictorials is simple: “You’re supposed to capture their (love) story in one take. I think that’s challenging,” says Lihan. Additionally, the pre-wedding photographer has to get the prospective bride and groom
to relax, and to act as if the photographer isn’t there. “I think pre-wedding photos are more relaxed. The couple can take its time. They’ll have beautiful photos of themselves, unlike during the wedding when things can get hectic. Here, there’s no stress. Also, if the couple doesn’t have many photos of themselves, this would be the perfect time to catch up on that.” Lihan’s rates start at 75,000 pesos for the wedding itself, and 15,000 pesos for the pre-wedding pictorials. She savours shooting outside the country, and has done pre-wedding pictorials in Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, England and Japan, among other countries. She remembers fondly a 2012 shoot in Scotland, “Everywhere you looked, you could shoot it.” There was a street she didn’t even get to the end of because she found so many places to shoot. “No permits required,” she adds. Locally, she shoots a lot at the Ronac Art Centre in San Juan, the
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Greenery Bulacan and Intramuros in Manila. “They each have a different feel,” she explains. The pre-wedding shoots have their own challenges. If it’s outdoors and it rains, that can be a problem, Lihan explains. “But if it’s indoors, there should be something different. If there’s none, then it’s also hard.” Her pet peeve, she says, is how, during weddings, some couples don’t want to be photographed. “If they didn’t want us to shoot them, why are we here? For the portraits, you need a variety of shots, but you get some clients who, after just two shots, would say, ‘OK, we’re done!’” Like Magbanua, Lihan also recognises the importance of the Internet in her work. “Some guests may not be able to come to the wedding so they can just view the event via Internet. We had an American couple who got married in Siargao, but their families couldn’t attend so the photos were just sent online.”
There are perks to the job as well: “I have my own schedule. I don’t have to work five days a week, eight hours a day. I can do what I want. I can travel.” That’s what led to Lihan’s “world tour”. She is set to travel to seven countries this year and advertised on the Internet for wedding assignments while she’s there. “I just happened to have a lot of travel scheduled this year, and thought of filling them up with shoots,” she explains. She dreams of eventually getting to shoot in Africa. In the meantime, there are more weddings and pre-weddings to shoot, more numbers to crunch and a career to burnish. A necessary sacrifice for Jason Magbanua are his weekends. Since most weddings are scheduled on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, he knows his weekends are basically shot. He considers his Mondays his days off, and spends two days a week meeting
booked or prospective clients. Otherwise, he stays home to play “NBA 2K” on the PlayStation 4, root for his beloved Houston Rockets or hang out with his kids: Jakob, 13, Lukas, 9, and Elise, 4. Things have been different since the Wilson-Consunji video. “That’s hard to beat, and it’s an outlier because except for that one, what I shoot is usually general patronage,” he says. Another of his videos has been a smash, “Biyahe ni Drew at Iya”, the pre-wedding video for Drew Arellano and Iya Villania. Set to the beat of The Black Keys’ “Have Love Will Travel”, the video shows the couple dancing, horsing around and going on a road trip. “The response to their video is really nice, but I’ve done videos for non-celebrities and when I look at the Internet hits, I can see that they’re appreciated as well.” Magbanua says the demand for pre-wedding videos is pushing him and his contemporaries to
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push the boundaries. He is, for example, a big fan of Instagram. “I love Instagram,” he says enthusiastically. “Before, it has to be a song that’s two-anda-half to three minutes. Now 15 seconds is enough. You say what you can say in that span of time and it still works.” He sees pre-wedding videos getting even more complicated. “I guess it’s because the couple is paying a premium. They can say, I’ve seen this, I’ve seen that, show me something different.” Costs are bound to soar as well. The most expensive prewedding video Magbanua has ever done costs a whopping 225,000 pesos because it was a fully-scripted spectacle. The cost has not deterred couples any, it seems. In fact, Magbanua’s shooting sked is so full he started a second wedding video business called For You Are Mine, which operates out of
his Makati studio as well and is handled by manager Therese Yee. If Magbanua is already booked on your chosen date, he would then recommend his second team. “We’re turning down so much business it’s better if those jobs still go to us,” he says. For You Are Mine is now doing some 50 weddings a year. The wedding landscape is changing fast, Magbanua notes, adding that some things still amaze him. “I’ve done one samesex wedding. Right now, I have three lesbian weddings on my calendar. I’m amazed that these same-sex couples are coming out and getting hitched, despite the difficulties they encounter because some venues don’t want them and some planners turn them down. That’s kind of sad for me because I’m very open to this kind of thing. The bottom line is, they’re professing their love in front of
family and friends regardless of their sexual orientation. “But we’re in the Philippines. It’s going to take forever for samesex marriage to find acceptance here. But these are necessary baby steps, so kudos to these people for moving it forward.” Filipinos love weddings, after all, and Jason Magbanua still catches himself being in awe of what he has experienced. “I just really feel that Filipinos value weddings so much that they’re willing to spend a lot. Of course, I never advocate that couples go into debt just for a wedding… but here there’s no divorce and it’s very difficult to get an annulment. So they want to make it right, and cost is not that important. That’s why the wedding business is booming. Personally, how a couple fits together is what’s important. Our role is just to make sure they start their married life together with a bang.” ¬
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LIFESTYLE TRAVEL
BIKE BEFORE TAKE OFF
The green path at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi international airport is a hit with cyclists
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Kitchana Lersakvanitchakul The Nation Bangkok
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aysayers will no doubt mumble about security risks or even damage to the floodplain but the folks who run Airports of Thailand (AOT) are confident that the new bike lane at Suvarnabhumi Airport is doing much more good than harm. “It is the first of its kind in the world,” says Noppakao Dejudom, AOT’s creative director. “It’s also part of our [corporate social responsibility] CSR programme, a strategy on which we, like other organisations, are judged and it can only
help improve our image. News of the bike lane, which opened on March 23, quickly made the rounds of social networks and within days had become a popular
place for pedalling action. “I think we can say it’s a success,” says Noppakao, pointing to records that show that some 1,400 cyclists regularly use the lane in the morning,
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700 in the evening and more than 2,000 turning up on Saturdays and Sundays. Costing 28.5 million baht (US$871,000), the 23.5-kilometre two-lane track was developed by the Life Cycling Club on
an old access road bordering an irrigation canal. The green all-weather slip-resistant track is paved with rubberised asphalt concrete. Australian technology standards were used as the benchmark.
“One reason we built the bike lane was to do away with the all-too-frequent accidents involving cars and cyclists on Suvarnabhumi Road 3, which runs beside the runway,� Noppakao says.
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Squadron Leader Sita Divari, AOT chairman and independent director, didn’t want to ban cyclists from the road, as he was well aware of the health benefits of biking, so decided to offer them a safe alternative. “Because the lane is situated inside closed territory, we deal with potential security risks by having all cyclists exchange their ID cards for AOT badges, which are printed with an emergency number. Arrival and departure times are also recorded,” says Noppakao. Signs showing the cyclist’s progress are posted every 250 metres along the entire length of the 23.5km track, which is one way so once you are on it there is no turning back—you are committed until the end. Coconut palms provide shade and the lane is lined by the irrigation canal on the right and an earth embankment on the left. “The green colour helps cyclists to see the road at twilight. We
plan to add lamp posts the whole length of the track so cyclists can ride at night,” says Noppakao. “Of course, there are a certain number of rules. For example, you must ride on the left side and give a hand signal before going to the right side. Helmets are compulsory and cyclists must be sure they are able to cover the distance without a problem.” Mobile toilets are provided at the starting point after the checkpoint and during peak times, there were vendors offering snacks and drinks. The AOT has cracked down on this casual commerce and set up an official snack stall at the checkpoint. Postings on social media include a picture of a cobra in honour of the former name of this area—Nong Ngoo Hao—cobra swamp. “We can’t deny that there are cobras in the area but cyclists should be safe as long as they
stay on their bikes. We strongly advise against sitting on the grass. If you want to relax, do so in the concrete area,” says Noppakao, adding that the AOT is ready to provide first aid in case of bike spills or even snakebites. “We at AOT are always worried about geese being sucked into a plane’s engines. And while people do fish in the canal, this is strictly not allowed. Cycling can help protect the birds while preventing unlawful fishing.” The AOT is not stopping its CSR efforts with the bike lane. Noppakao, who is also a chairman of the AOT Cycling Club, points out the adjacent clubhouse under construction, with the full backing of AOT director Rawiwan Netrakhawesna. Located on 30 rai in in Lat Krabang’s Rajathewa area, the clubhouse will offer
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home-theatre viewings, ballroom dancing, spa treatments and dining. A fulsal pitch as well as facilities for canoeing and kayaking surround the club. “But mainly, we will focus on cycling,” says Noppakao. We will have a school that teaches bike repairs. After construction
is completed, there will also be a new entrance to the bike lane. Cyclists will be able to come with their families and those who don’t ride can relax in the clubhouse. We also have bicycle parking and showers and we are aiming to keep the prices as low as possible so everyone can benefit.”
“We hope too that our initiative will serve as a model for other countries in Asean,” he concludes. ¬ The Green Bike Lane is open daily from 6am to 5:30pm.
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TRAVEL
BY THE SEA
Facing the Pacific Ocean, Taitung embraces its natural beauty, from beaches and lakes to mountains and parks
TAITUNG TOURISM BUREAU
TREASURES
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Li Xueying The Straits Times Taitung
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s cars whiz by before us and with the roar of the Pacific Ocean at our backs, one of the most powerful men in Taiwan's aboriginal Puyuma tribe is being scolded.
I do not understand the language but the gist is clear. He, the stupid man, clucks a remonstrating woman as she gesticulates at his head, has left back home the most critical item for the ceremony.
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I look around. Everyone— young, old, men, women— is wearing a beautiful crown of colourful flowers on his or her head. The man, a former headsman of the Kasavakan village— childhood home of Taiwan pop star A-mei—shrugs sheepishly as he shepherds me across the road to where a raucous outdoor feast of chicken, beer and local rice liqueur is starting. It is tomb-sweeping day to remember the ancestors who first landed on Taiwan "a few thousand years ago", way before the Han Chinese did, says headman Haku Dumaradas, 73. And the idea behind the flower crown is a simple one: In paying respects to one's forefathers, one must look one's best. And what better way than to display nature's gifts on one's head? Indeed, the entire county of Taitung is not shy about
flaunting its string of natural gems—ocean, mountains, beaches, lakes and parks. Located on Taiwan's southeastern coast and a five-hour train ride from Taipei, Taitung is known as Taiwan's "back garden". The county is among the farthest from the busy cities in the north and is on the side of the island that faces the blank blue expense of the Pacific Ocean, as opposed to the bustling west coast near mainland China where immigrants land. Left relatively alone, the 3,515 sq km county is less developed than other parts of Taiwan and is sparsely populated. Buildings are rickety but charmingly painted the cobalt blue of chemistry experiments, while a public bus lackadaisically trundles along every hour or so. Visitors drive or cycle along the coast on bicycles with the Taiwanese flag fluttering behind.
There is no factory, industrial park or skyscraper in this part of Taiwan. Instead, pebbled beaches stretch on endlessly, set against mountains. The aboriginal people, who comprise one-third of the local 230,000-strong population, carry on with their traditions, from old trades such as fishing and farming to a matrilineal lineage system where husbands take their wives' names and daughters inherit the family property. At the Pisilian village of the Amis tribe where we stayed one night, Fosay Sapiat, 57, is washing corals—"doing as told" by his wife Amoy Sapiat, 57, the village's administrator. He laughs as he says: "We, men, don't have any property. The women take care of things while the men run about." Asked for his original last name, he turns to his wife. Sapiat furrows her brows. She does not remember either.
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Still, change is on the way. Some younger women take their husbands' names now due to the influence of the Han Chinese, says Sapiat. Following some lawsuits, property by and large is fairly divided among all offspring. The villages have been
shrinking as young people seek job opportunities outside the county, in cities such as Kaohsiung or Taipei. Tribe leader Lai Yai, 67, frets about how the number of households under his charge has dwindled from its peak of 1,000 plus to 400 today. Half the
population is either old people or children. This is why he favours building more factories or hotels to "bring back our young". A high-speed rail train from the capital Taipei to Taitung will be ready this month, cutting the journey to 31/2 hours, swooshing visitors more speedily here. But for now, the county remains uncrowded. Visit its most famous spot, a little islet called the Sanxiantai (Three Immortals Platforms, so called for its three giant boulders), and it is almost empty. Joined to the main island by a bridge in the undulating shape of a sea dragon, it protrudes from the eastern coast, marking Taiwan's farthest point out into the Pacific Ocean and a spot to view beautiful sunrises. The summer months of June to August are the best times to see the orange fireball rise in a cloudless sky over the ocean.
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My travel companion Pearl and I walk around it—it takes an hour or so along a proper trail—and bump into a fisherman. It turns out that there is an unmarked route that the local anglers use, which will take us to the easternmost point of the islet. He leads us, a styrofoam ice box slung across his back and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, past warning signs of "Do Not Enter", clambering over rocks and wading into seawater.
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And it is beautiful when we get to the end. There is something to be said for perching on a headland, looking out at the Pacific Ocean and knowing that nothing blocks one's view—all the way to the American continent about 10,000km away. On the rocks, a clutch of fishermen dip their lines into the sea. We have bigger "fish" to fry. We set off for the nearby Chenggong port, where a boat takes us out for a spot of whale-watching. Favoured by the gods of ocean life, Taiwan's waters off its east coast teem with fish, sharks, dolphins and whales. This is because its seabed bottoms out abruptly, plunging 4km just 50km offshore, while the Kuroshio or Black Tide, a warm north-flowing current, transports migratory fish that the mammals feed on. Nine species of whales, including the killer whale and the sperm whale, have been spotted, says Jin Ling Hao, a company that offers
the two-hour trip. Our captain, Chen Kun-lung, 60, weathered brown from sun and sea salt, offers this philosophical reply when asked how often the whales can be sighted: "You can wish all you want, but it depends on luck." The Lady is not with us then; we do not spot any whales. The best time to go is June to August when waves are smaller. Instead, during our trip in March, we are treated to a school of Risso's dolphin, known by the mottled patterns on their backs. The rich sea life also means that Taiwan has one of the largest fishing industries in the world, employing about 300,000 people and accounting for 10 per cent of the tuna caught worldwide. Here, in Taitung, the local social life revolves not around pubs or clubs, but the daily fish auction. Bundles of fish are placed on the ground with scraps of paper scrawled with the starting price. An auctioneer, trailed by interested
buyers, mutters and negotiates the prices, as he moves along the line. A housewife gleefully snares an iridescent parrot fish, dumping it casually into her scooter basket. The 4.7kg fish will be for her family's dinner that night, she says. From the ocean, we head inland towards the mountains. We do not have enough time to hike. There are trails for those inclined but, instead, we decide to check out a famous local tourist spot: a tree by a rice field where Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro sat, sipped tea and contemplated the beauty of life in an Eva Air commercial. "I see paradise," he says, as he looks out at the jade-green fields. The formerly obscure rural township has since exploded on the radar of Takeshi fan-girls and the lane—hitherto prosaically named Brown Boulevard—has since been nicknamed Takeshi Avenue. The swoonworthy celebrity, alas, was not there when we visited. But paradise? Yes. ¬
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DATEBOOK
ÂŹ Manila Sam Tsui and Kurt Hugo Schneider Live in Manila American YouTube celebrities Sam Tsui and Kurt Hugo Schneider will be in Manila this month for a two-night performance, organised by MGM Global Entertainment Productions and Starmedia Entertainment. Sam Tsui, who rose to fame on YouTube, is best known for covering songs by popular artists like Adele, Britney Spears and Bruno Mars, as well as for his original songs, medleys and mashups. Kurt Huge is an editor, musician, singer and songwriter, whose primary medium is YouTube music videos. MGM Global Entertainment Productions and Starmedia Entertainment are
When : June 25 and 26, 8pm Where: Function Room 5, SMX Convention Centre Pasay City Tickets: ticketworld.com.ph/ samtsuikurthugoschneider
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¬ Seoul Lady Gaga: AIA Real Life Now Festival Now 2014 in Seoul American pop singer and songwriter Lady Gaga performs in Seoul as part of the YG Family & Lady Gaga-AIA Real Life Now Festival 2014, that will also feature the YG Family. The singer, who is also a record producer, has won for herself several Grammy and MTV Video Music Awards, among others. The concert is sponsored by AIA Korea and to be presented by Live Nation Korea and YG Entertainment.
When : August 16, 2pm Where : Jamsil Sports Complex Stadium 10 Jamsil-dong Songpa-gu Seoul, Seoul Teugbyeolsi
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ÂŹ HCM City Hardcore United: Massive Rock Fest One of the most anticipated rock fests of summer, Hardcore United, is happening in Ho Chi Minh City. It will feature a line-up of 11 bands that include Cat Pylon, W.A.A.H, Loser Of Generation, Morning Waits and December. Party-goers will also have a chance to pick up unique items at the flea market stalls, food and drink vendors in the area.
When: June 21, starting at 4 pm Where: @3A Station 3 Ton Duc Thang, D1, HCMC Enquiries: hardcoreunited.info@gmail.com
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¬ Shanghai Shanghai International Film Festival The Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), founded in 1993, is China’s only non-specialised competitive international film festival accredited by International Federation of Film Producers. SIFF devotes itself to building up an international platform with four main programmes including Competition, SIFF Mart, SIFFORUM, and International Film Panorama. Its aim is to promote the development of China’s film industry and enhance cooperation with the rest of the world.
When: June 14-22 Info: http://www.siff.com/
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¬ Shanghai CNBLUE Can't Stop in Shanghai South Korean rock band CNBLUE takes their latest tour, Can’t Stop, to Shanghai. The tour is coined from their 5th mini album "Can’t Stop", released in February. Known for their high-energy performance, CNBLUE is undoubtedly one of the most prominent band in Korea’s music industry. Comprised of lead vocalist and guitarist Jung Yong Hwa, lead guitarist and vocalist Lee Jong Hyun, bassist Lee Jung Shin and drummer Kang Min Hyuk, they debuted in 2010 with the EP "Bluetory". Since then, they have won countless music awards on South Korea’s music chart shows.
When: June 15, 7:30pm Where: Shanghai Indoor Stadium Tickets: http://shop.newstargroup.com.cn/
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