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Jazzy dinner at the Amari Orchid Resort
On January 31st The Storyville Jazztet played a dinner concert at the Amari
Orchid Resort. The evening was honoured by the presence of Mayor Pairat
Suthi-thamrongsawat and General Manager Pierre-Andre Pelletier was everywhere at
once, making sure that all were taken care of.
 Mike
Hallam
The evening featured an Australian buffet by award winning guest chef Wendy
Lewis. The buffet was a point of interest for many people as Australian food is
a mystery for many people. “What is it, Kangaroo?” many people asked, jokingly.
Yes, the symbol of Australia’s flag carrier airline was on the menu. No wonder
these animals are jumpy.
Wendy explained that Kangaroo is a part of the national diet in Australia now.
She also explained, to comfort conservationists, that there are more Kangaroos
than people in Australia. So many, in fact, that the government must cull them
every year to make sure there is enough food for them and other life forms.
Wendy said that all Kangaroo found in shops were wild. She was also very
informative about the native Australian fruits and vegetables she uses in her
cooking. According to Wendy, the typical Australian meal is ‘beef and three
veggies’.
After we ate ‘home cooking’, The Storyville Quartet took the stage. The group
played a concert of music by Louis Armstrong in ‘A Tribute to Satchmo’. The
concert featured music from Armstrong’s early days of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
This was traditional ‘hot Jazz’, even though it could be very ‘cool’ too. The
traditional saxophones, clarinets and, of course, the trumpet all played
fantastic solos but the complex weaving of the instruments into a fabric of
cheeky polyphony was the great charm of this group. They obviously enjoy playing
together and communicated this to the audience.
 Lachie
Thomson
Mike Hallam is very lucky in that he can duplicate Armstrong’s extremely
gravelly voice. This is no easy thing as it can cause serious vocal damage to
those who are not able to do it correctly. It seemed to come easily to Hallam
and he gave us a gravel voice and a golden trumpet with endless high notes on
many of Armstrong’s most famous numbers.
Lachie Thomson and Trevor Rippingale on Clarinets and saxes did some great solos
and one wonderful duet in which their two clarinet lines intertwined like a
couple of chattering magpies.
Singer Beverly Sheehan recalled the ‘cool’ vocalists of the ‘hot’ era. She was
all poise and understatement. A hallmark of her style, recalling that of Ginny
Sims, was “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”
This may sound trivial, but it was nice to hear an evening of music in which all
the performers were competent musicians, played on good instruments and stayed
on pitch. It may be strange to visitors to Pattaya, but to get even this is a
rare occurrence here. It was sad that the speaker system was not up to the
performer’s standards.
More events like this one would be very welcome in Pattaya and kudos to the
organisations and businesses who contributed to its success.
Chef Wendy with Amari Chef Lehmann check-out the
Kangaroo steak.
The Storyville Jazztet with the Amari management and
Mayor Pairat pose for a photo session.
Mayor of Pattaya, Pairat Suthitham-rongsawat tries
his hand blowing the saxophone.
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Chinese New Year
A typical Chinese acrobat and dragon show which
took place in Pattaya last year.
This year, Chinese New Year will be celebrated this weekend. The
following is a brief description of what it is all about:
When Is the Chinese New Year
It may sound weird, but it is true. Except for a very few number
of people who can keep track of when the Chinese New Year should be, the
majority of the Chinese today have to rely on a typical Chinese calendar to
tell it. Therefore, you cannot talk of the Chinese New Year without
mentioning the Chinese calendar first.
A Chinese calendar consists of both the Gregorian and lunar-solar calendar
systems, with the latter dividing a year into twelve months, each of which
is in turn equally divided into thirty-nine and a half days. The
well-co-ordinated dual system calendar reflects the Chinese ingenuity.
Besides the two calendar systems, a Chinese calendar will not be complete
without the twenty-four solar terms closely related to the changes of Nature
— a very useful tool for farmers, providing information on the proper time
for planting and harvesting.
On the Chinese Calendar, you will also find terminology like Tian Gan and Di
Zhi (Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch), a peculiar Chinese way of marking
the years in a sixty-year cycle. There is also a system that marks the years
in a twelve-year cycle, naming each of them after an animal such as Rat, Ox,
Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar.
The Origin of Chinese New Year
The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring
Festival because it starts from the Beginning of Spring (the first of the
twenty-four terms in co-ordination with the changes of Nature). Its origin
is too old to be traced, although several explanations are hanging around.
All agree, however, that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese solely means
“year”, was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on
people the night before the beginning of a new year (Do not lose track here:
we are talking about the new year in terms of the Chinese calendar).
One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth that would swallow
a great many people with one bite. People were very scared. One day, an old
man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. To Nian he said, “I hear
say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts of prey
on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents?”
So, swallow it did, many of the beasts of prey on earth that also harassed
people and their domestic animals from time to time.
After that, the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned out to
be an immortal god. Now that Nian is gone and other beasts of prey are also
scared into forests, people begin to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the
old man left, he had told people to put up red paper decorations on their
windows and doors at each year’s end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked
back again, because red is the color the beast feared the most.
From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian was carried on
from generation to generation. The term “Guo Nian”, which may mean “Survive
the Nian”, becomes today “Celebrate the (New) Year” as the word “guo” in
Chinese having both the meaning of “pass-over” and “observe”. The custom of
putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian, should it
have a chance to run loose, is still around. However, people today have long
forgotten why they are doing all this, except that they feel the color and
the sound add to the excitement of the celebration.
Traditions of Chinese New Year
Even though the climax of the Chinese New Year, Nian, lasts only
two or three days including the New Year’s Eve, the New Year season extends
from the middle of the twelfth month of the previous year to the middle of
the first month of the new year. A month from the New Year, it is a good
time for business. People will pour out their money to buy presents,
decoration material, food and clothing. The transportation departments,
railroads in particular, nervously await the onslaught of swarms of
travellers who take their days off around the New Year to rush back home for
a family reunion from all parts of the country.
Days before the New Year, every family is busy giving its house a thorough
cleaning, hoping to sweep away all the ill-fortune there may have been in
the family to make way for the wishful in-coming good luck. People also give
their doors and window-panes a new paint, usually in red color. They
decorate the doors and windows with paper-cuts and couplets with the very
popular theme of “happiness”, “wealth”, “longevity” and “satisfactory
marriage with more children”. Paintings of the same theme are put up in the
house on top of the newly mounted wall paper. In the old days, various kinds
of food were tributed at the alter of ancestors.
The Eve of the New Year is very carefully observed. Supper is a feast, with
all members coming together. One of the most popular course is jiaozi,
dumplings boiled in water. “Jiaozi” in Chinese literally means “sleep
together and have sons”, a long-lost good wish for a family. After dinner,
it is time for the whole family to sit up for the night while having fun
playing cards or board games or watching TV programs dedicated to the
occasion. Every light is supposed to be kept on the whole night. At
midnight, the whole sky will be lit up by fireworks and firecrackers, which
make everywhere seem like a war zone. People’s excitement reaches its
zenith.
Very early the next morning, children greet their parents and receive their
presents in terms of cash wrapped up in red paper packages. Then, the family
starts out saying greetings from door to door, first their relatives and
then their neighbours. It is a great time for reconciliation. Old grudges
are very easily cast away during the greetings. The air is permeated with
warmth and friendliness. During and several days following New Year’s Day,
people are visiting each other, with a great deal of exchange of gifts. The
New Year atmosphere is brought to an anti-climax fifteen days later where
the Festival of Lanterns sets in. It is an occasion of lantern shows and
folk dances everywhere. One typical food is the Tang Yuan, another kind of
dumplings made of sweet rice rolled into balls and stuffed with either sweet
or spicy fillings.
The Lantern Festival marks the end of the New Year season and afterwards
life becomes a daily routine once again. Customs of observing the New Year
vary from place to place, considering that China is a big country not only
geographically, but also demographically and ethnically. Yet, the spirit
underlying the diverse celebrations of the Chinese New Year is the same: a
sincere wish of peace and happiness for the family members and friends.
Happy New Year from Pattaya Mail.
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