Blog post on Hong Kong adventure

July 7, 2012
by admin
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I was so excited to get the invitation to be a guest adjudicator and clinician at the 2012 Hong Kong Youth Marching Band Competition. This event was sanctioned by WAMSBE, World Association I had never been to HK before, and was excited to see what the marching arts activities were like in that area of the world.

The biggest challenge of the trip came in my attempt to get there. I documented much of it on my Facebook page, as it seemed to be a good way for me to vent without losing it! In a nutshell, here is how it all went down:
We took off from San Francisco and were part way to Hong Kong when a passenger because critically ill. So we turned around and flew part way back, and landed in Alaska. They took the passenger off for medical attention. At this point, the pilot told us that the crew had ‘timed out’ and so we would have to stay there for the night. After a while, he came back on and said there were not enough hotel rooms for the 747 passengers, and so we would fly back to San Francisco where they would put us up for the night.

After we flew back to San Francisco, we landed and waited. At that point we were told that there were not enough hotel rooms (in SF? Really??) but that we were welcome to take the blankets off of the plane and use them. We would fly out in the morning. Luckily, I live close to SFO and I took a taxi home for about 3 or 4 hours in my bed.

The following morning, I arrived and we were all at our gate when we were told that we would be delayed because we did not have a crew that could fly us. When that was resolved, we were delayed because there was confusion in getting permission to fly over Russian airspace due to the fact we had the same flight number as the flight scheduled to go to Hong Kong that day. We were scheduled for the day before. Long story short, we ended up leaving AFTER that flight. I ended up arriving about a day late for Hong Kong, but it didn’t matter as I had a one day buffer in my schedule anyway.

I finally arrived! I was picked up at the airport and taken to Harbour Plaza Resort City, Tin Shui Wai. This was the hotel where some of the band participants were staying as well.
I met up with my fellow judges: Jimmy Wong (WAMSBE event supervisor), Al Dicroce (USA), Arvid Anthun (Norway), and Steve Ulicny (Japan). In addition, my friend Tony Tangkittrongcharoen from Thailand was there as a VIP guest, and Au Yeung Alex was there as well. We had all finally arrived!
The first event I attended was the drum battle. I was not one of the judges for this, so I was able to sit and enjoy! The performances were great! The basic set up is that two different drumlines will face each other. Each has half of the space with a line down the middle. One line will perform while the other watches (and tries to look intimidating). Then they switch. Repeat. Two judges will talk to each other and come to an agreement on the winner. Each ensemble sends a representative to the center of the field. The judge holds the hand of each, and on the announcer’s cue, the judge raises the hand of the representative from the winning team. The two ensembles shake hands and the show moves on to the next two. There is a bracket system to determine the final winner of the contest. It is an exciting event!

Next up was the marching band competition. We first judged all of the bands as they did a parade around the field. Following that was a marching band competition with field shows that are similar to what we would expect here in the United States. It was a great show !
That night was a HUGE banquet and party which took place at a restaurant. Every single band and all of their members attended this dinner. Some of them were still in their band uniforms! It was so great to walk around and talk to the kids and young adults. The directors were kind as well. We toasted the groups from each area, as well as the groups from different countries.

The day following the show, several of the judges went to an elementary school facility, and held clinics for the any of the bands wishing to attend. For the most part, the attendees were members of the bands. There are simply not a lot of ‘staff’ people for these groups. It was a wonderful way to meet all of the kids and young adults.

In addition to the band seminar, I held a Pyware clinic to teach the software. This was co-sponsored by Pyware and Bremen, a Japanese distributer of Pyware. There were approximately ten people there. With the smaller class size, I was able to provide more individual attention.

I really enjoyed my first trip to Hong Kong. It is an amazing city, and I was truly grateful for the opportunity to meet all of the kids and the staffs of these groups. I hope have this opportunity again in the future!