RAMBLINGS - The Hong Kong Brother

Celebrity Heads

Today I went to the Australian International School in Kowloon Tong (a very nice section of Hong Kong) to observe an advanced English class of young Chinese secondary school students.

The teacher asked them to play a game called "Celebrity Heads" -- now, I know the game she meant but I always thought it was called something like "Twenty Questions" because it's very similar to what I thought "Twenty Questions" was like. But this lady called it "Celebrity Heads" -- and she acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world, as if we all should know what "Celebrity Heads" was... She kept asking them, "Let's play 'Celebrity Heads', shall we? Don't you know what 'Celebrity Heads' is? You don't know how to play 'Celebrity Heads'? You've never heard of a game called 'Celebrity Heads'?!?"... (I wanted to shout, "Stop saying the words 'Celebrity Heads'!!!!" -- but I was just observing so I didn't comment)...

Anyway, the point is that the kids had to think of some very famous person to role-play -- it had to be someone that everyone in the class would know -- and then the rest of the class had to ask questions which the student who was role-playing could only answer with a "yes" or "no" -- and then they (the others in the class) tried to guess who the "Celebrity Head" was.

The reason I'm mentioning all this is that one of the girls made a very, uh, "interesting" choice for her famous person. Here are some of the questions/answers -- see if YOU can guess who she was supposed to be:

Are you a woman?	*No.*
Are you from Hong Kong?	No.
Do you play sports?	No.
Are you a businessman?	No.
Are you from America?	No.
Are you from Canada?	No.
Are you from Japan?	No.
Are you from anywhere in Asia?	No.
Are you from Africa?	No.
Are you from Europe?	Yes.
Are you from the U.K.?	Yes.
Are you a musician?	Yes.
Do you play the guitar?	No.
Do you play the violin?	No.
Do you play the piano?	Yes.
Are you rich?	Yes.
Are you alive?	Yes.

Can you guess who the famous person was?

Scroll down for the answer....

Remember, we're looking for a famous, rich, male piano player from the U.K. who is alive -- someone famous enough that a 13-year-old girl from Hong Kong would know who they are, and expect other teenage girls in Hong Kong to know who they are.

(It's not Elton John, that was my guess since he's big here in HK).

(And it's not Paul McCartney, who I only thought of because of that footage of "Hey, Jude" where he's playing piano).

Okay, ready for the answer? (Keep scrolling)...

It's Richard Clayderman!!

That's right, this girl picked Richard Clayderman, the so-called "Prince Of Romance" (that's a quote from his website, by the way... and I'm just now wondering who the "King" of romance is... probably Tom Jones or Wayne Newton battling it out for that post, I suppose).

I remember when the girl said who she was supposed to be, the lady teaching the class looked at me like, "What?!?" -- but I was laughing so hard I couldn't respond. She told the girl, "I have no idea how you know about him, but very good!"

Anyway, I don't know, I just thought that hearing about this incident would really tell you something about the kind of music that HK people like.

This article was first posted: 18 July 2002

Here are some of the things I think about:

*Yo-Yo, Ma?*	*The Human Touch*
*If Me Is A Dog*	*I Walked A Mile With Pleasure*
*What's The Rush? (Part 1)*	*What Are Missionaries Like?*
*What's The Rush? (Part 2)--Rated "PG"*	*Is That Your Final Answer?*
*The NEW Yo-Yo's*	*A Rose By Any Other Name*
*Hair Like Osama*	*True Patriots of the P.R.O.C.?*
*Buying The Onion*	*Lip Van Winker*
*Eat Like You're Hungry*	*Celebrity Heads*
*Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow*	*Things I'm Thankful For*
*The Water Bicycles of Tin Shui Wai*	*My Biggest Fan*
*CD Firecrackers*	*Shaolin Kung Fu*
*Hot Pants*	*Junk E-mail*
*China's Next Great Leap*	*Internet Time*
*Don't Drink The Water*	*May I Touch Your Guts, Please?*
*A Death In Hong Kong*	*Love Kites*
*Introverts: UNITE!*	*Overdos (of cool)*
*The Wonders of English*	*Solo And The City*
*Writing 2004 -- #1: "The Third Eye"*	*The Politics Of Masking*
*Writing 2004 -- #2: "The Time Machine"*	*Tiananmen Mothers*
*Everything's Fake In China!!*	*What's Up, Doc?*
*BEN's TEAM -- 2004*

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