Thoughts On The 3rd Anniversary Of My Big Move To Hong Kong

I was 25 when I moved here to Hong Kong on June 5, 2005. I didn't know I was gonna stay long after my initial 18-month contract expired. Neither did I know I was going to want to stay longer or want to start building a life here. I had no idea that what I then thought as a transient gig would eventually turn out to be a kind of settling in. I had no idea where the book I was then starting to write would lead to. Had I known, I shoudn't have made excuses or feigned illness just to skip from Noordin Jumalon's Boys' Class and Ernest Malagkit's Variation Class.

I am almost 28 years old now. And I am only starting to learn how to do a freaking spagat*!

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*spagat - means "split" in German. In classical ballet, spagat is a step that is almost like a grand jete (where one leaps from one leg, extends the other leg to the front and then kicks the leg which he jumped from, to the back before he lands so that he is doing a split on air), but only a lot more challenging.

At the peak of the grand jete, the dancer swings both legs so that they switch positions (i.e., the front leg swings to the back and the back leg to the front) before he lands.


Still don't get it? Here's how it's done ---

Angel Corella in Le Corsaire, doing the spagat (0:56 & 1:01)