After considerable amount of thinking, I want to share my dance experiences with you, from the perspective of a man. I’ve been dancing for many years …. well, that’s if you consider shaking and wobbling your leg and feets as if you have the fits. Salsa is something I picked up casually … a few years ago with my partner. Learning salsa is not as easy as it seems although some people find no difficulties doing this through video clips and watching people dance.

Life Is So Unfair.

Then again, this is life. Some can do it, some don’t. Some score .. and again, some fail. Nevetheless, I’ve always wished for salsa to be documented down in writings. The name of the moves … how to dance gracefully … how to hold a girl … like a man…

It’s like … I wished I had this book ….

Here’s my story …

Three years ago I met a Promotions Executive from BMG Records. She was bubbly, had an infectious smile and had more energy than James Brown on steroids…. que Ms Jeamie Lee. At that time I was working for a free press magazine in the city. Usual publishing story … long term goals, short term plans. Jeamie was the client and I was the sales and marketing geezer convincing her that this month’s edition of the magazine was hot of the press and in the shops. This however could not be further from the truth. The stark reality was that the company had barely enough money to print their own name cards let alone a 100 page, full colour, glossy magazine. During my time at the magazine I was often asked how we could afford to print such a glossy magazine when it was distributed for free. It was simple – we couldn’t! For those of you who know Jeamie will know she has a face that you just can’t lie too. And to cut a long story short, we told her about the dilemma, she stop advertising, I left and the magazine closed.

Now to the salsa … during this upheaval Jeamie asked whether I liked dancing. Sure I do, I remarked. Naturally, I was thinking of my John Travolta, hip shaking, ass-moving dare devil moves on the hot dance floors of KL. When I was informed this type of dancing was Latin American Salsa grooving I gave one of those unconvincing “sounds interesting” remarks.

We’ve all given that fake, semi muted grunt sound when someone suggests something that sounds as appealing as having your teeth removed with a spoon! Yet I was convinced to give it a shot. I went home that evening and told the old ball and chain (my girlfriend) and my two friends (Jacques & Zai) that I knew someone who teaches salsa and what do they reckon. It was a big yes, and the following week we headed over for our first lesson at SalsaJay. At that time I don’t think it had a name and went by ‘Jeamie’s-mums-place-the-studio-in-old-town’!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:- No-one told me that coordination and sequencing was involved! On the hot dance floors of KL I was in my element flipping my arms and legs like a deranged baboon to disco tunes from a bygone era.

Why … ?

Because we were all doing it and we all looked cool! Here…in the studio…I had to remember the names of moves and then put these moves into a coherent sequence. And to make matters worse I had to count at the same time and miss out the numbers 4 & 8!

Madness!

One year later, sadly I could no longer make the classes. A 2 ½ slash 3 year hiatus set–in and it wasn’t until I logged onto to MSN that Jeamie convinced me to come back. So I did, just before last Christmas. And it hit me straight away what I missed about the lessons. It wasn’t only the challenge, and trust me, it’s a challenge, but it was the camaraderie, the fellowship and the friendship. SalsaJay creates this aura, it’s hard to explain but it makes you want to come back. Something tells me with Jeamie at the helm supported by Tamie on admin, Tim pumping the marketing machine, Michael the BlogMaster and the rest actively recruiting Jayers, SalsaJay has a long and prosperous future ahead. But a special shout out must go to Mr Fai who moves like James Brown on that dance floor, makes me green with envy and supports Jeamie relentlessly week in, week out!

So to future Jayers, I have come to realise that I will never be the Michael Flattery of the Salsa world with my two left feet and two left arms but I will keep trying until either I have no friends left or I turn up to class and they have moved elsewhere!!

Thank you for having me.

Anyway, back to my story… this came to mind after SalsaJay’s outing to Cigar Divan @ Eastin. In anticipation of another great night of dancing and some great non-stop salsa music… when I reach the place with Stephanie, the place is packed and well, a tad too bright.. but that’s not what this post is all about.

As I walk to the back of the club, I brush past some dancers at the edge of the dance floor and unluckily get stomped by a long, sharp heel down on my foot. And I’m not sure whether they are beginners or selfish dancers who are so busy still concentrating on their steps that they don’t even bat an eyelash or say sorry.

Some of you may say, how can a dancer know the difference? Well, you take a crowded room full of experienced dancers and compare it to a room full of inexperienced dancers; and let me tell you how many times you were bumped into or stepped on. I can guarantee you it will be less than 10% or not at all because they usually are considerate about their floor space or stop their partner before they bump or step on another dancer.

But that was not the end of the night’s dance…

Imagine the inexplicable feeling of dancing with a partner who’s clothes are soaked to their skin; and actually do moves that make your hands brush against their sweaty clothes!

Or how about a sweaty two-kiss hello we all love to do but to have their sweaty cheeks bathe your own in sweat!

Dancers, please remember some basic etiquette rules as alot of the salsa venues seem to lack proper air conditioning:

1. Bring a change of clothes if you know you regularly sweat on the dance floor.

2. Don’t actually kiss when you’re sweaty… and let the dancer know that’s why you’re not really giving the proper hello or goodbye.

3. If a dancer insists on dancing with you, you can warn them that your clothes are soaked right through; therefore they have the chance to refuse.

And always, always watch out for your partner to ensure they don’t bump or step on someone else on the dance floor. And if you do, please remember to apologize.

If you didn’t even notice, guaranteed, you need to pay more attention to your dance space and not just on your partner and your moves.

PS. Maybe we should do like the JPJ and come up with some Defensive Dancing to cater to all this things.

“We Partied till the Crack of Dawn! Every. Single. Night.”.

And guess what … there’s no one to call your mobile phone … asking you to get home because it’s too late !!!!!!

All of this and more, right smack in the heart of a lust tropical forest where the sun shines at the deep blue sea …. where bosses can’t find you, emails don’t arrive and traffic jams are unheard of.

This year marks the second year of the Malaysian International Salsa Festival. For those of you who attended the Malaysian International Salsa Festival 2006, I am sure the memories are still fresh. You will be able to “re-live” those exciting moments this year. As for those first timers, believe me you are not going to want to miss any of this. Being that this is THE ULTIMATE AND MOST AFFORDABLE SALSA HOLIDAY available, there’s absolutely no sleeping till Sunday. Oh and whatever happens at the Malaysian Salsa Festival, stays at the Malaysian Salsa Festival.

And now a little about our holiday destination, the Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Damai Laut.

Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Damai Laut is a very private hotel with 300 well appointed guestrooms overlooking the Straits of Malacca and Pangkor Island. It is located on a 425 acres of natural rainforest and surrounded by lush tropical rainforest, wetlands and offers beautifully landscaped gardens and large open spaces with breathtaking sea view for guests who want to relax and enjoy a wonderful retreat to nature.

All rooms are either overlooking the serene blue sea or lush tropical forest. Each of the rooms are spacious and comes with a hint of unobtrusive elegance. The decor is of traditional Malaysian design to show our desire to make your stay as comfortable as home.

Anyway, enough about that, at 1am (Monday), weary from my drive back from Ipoh… I was browsing through The Sunday Star and came across this article in the Face-2-Face section, page 6, about Zhang Zhen Hong. True stuff, ain’t no April Fools stuff, full page spread.

The article is titled Living the stuff of his dreams. If you’ve missed the article or didn’t have the Sunday Star, you can read the article here.

The Star also featured video of Zhang Zhen Hong‘s interview with Jo Teh. Here’s the trailer.

The full length of the video can be found at http://zhangzhenhong.blogspot.com

I must write and thank all the salsa jayers for the flower. For all your
information, the flower that I received is pinky Lily….

Oh my God!!! It was so beautiful; I like it so much…..

It was so surprised to me because my birthday had passed, I think that I would not be received any gift from anyone…. it’s totally out of my expectation …I have no idea that your all will arranged somebody to deliver the flower to my office….

I don’t know how to describe my expression & feeling on that time…..

Happy? Excited? Shocked? Warmest? Touched?… Really a big thank you to u all …

Muachsssssssssss…………

I love you all & you all are the best!!!

I think a simple thank you would not be enough to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you who have contributed and showed your support during my EP launch.

Thank you so much for coming, buying my CD and showing your morale support. I really appreciate it. Now I understand why people say ‘don`t count the years but count the memories…….’.

You have all given me a beautiful memory which can last a life time. Please imagine myself in front of you, with my hands holding yours and with my head bowed, thanking you again.

Love,
Zhen Hong

It’s finally the weekend that I’ve been looking forward to all week. I know it’s nothing new, we all look forward to the weekends … but this weekend was extra special! So special that I woke up extra early to get prepared … I checked the batteries on my digital camera and making sure I have enough memory space for my photo shots later.

24th March 2007 … is Zhang Zhen Hong’s EP launch day. For your information, Zhang Zhen Hong is the latest upcoming star … in the arena of chinese music. You can find out more about him from Wikipedia or better still, visit his blogsite at http://zhangzhenhong.blogspot.com.

The launch was to be held at Halo Cafe in Sunway Pyramid at 11:00am and I was already running late. Checked my watch .. geez … it’s already 10:30am, I jumped into my car and stepped on it. Arriving at Sunway Pyramid, there were queues at the entrance as usual … what luck! Good thing there’s jockey parking … so I parked my car and quickly rushed into Halo Cafe. I looked around .. there’s a few people around, mostly friends who came to help … and the makeup artist just got in as well.

I signed on the guest book as request and proceeded to look for Zhang Zhen Hong. I finally located him after making some inquiries, apparently is in the makeup room. I knocked and opened the door, and there he was .. sitting there while the makeup artist, very skillfully ‘did’ him up. I asked for permission and ran a few shots of him having his face done. I have to agree, I like him better when he is smiling. But then again … I am not exactly in the position to compare, I mean … he’s Zhang Zhen Hong … for goodness sake!

After finishing my shots on him, I left the room and headed towards the press area. Most of the seats were already taken so I decided to stand while waiting for the event to begin. While waiting, I paid attention to the background music … they were already playing his song … it was Beautiful Lady. I got his CD a while ago and I’ve ran through all his numbers. There’s 5 songs in it … and my favourite ones were Beautiful Lady, Ni Shi Wo Wei Yi (You’re My Only One) and of course Shou Hou (Waiting). As much as I would love to sing along to his songs, I must admit I am a banana (I don’t know about elsewhere but in Malaysia and Singapore, a chinese who can speak, read or write in mandarin is termed as a “Banana”). Well .. there’s always Hanyi PinYin (romanized chinese).

Finally the MC walked up the stage to introduce Zhen Hong (hmm … I am now on second name basis with him huh …?). Yeap, the event has begun ….

After some brief introduction, Zhang Zhen Hong made his appearance on stage to further introduce himself. And he followed on by belting out his first number, Beautiful Lady which is quite a crowd favorite. This is judging from the reaction of the audience … especially the ladies. They just seemed so mesmerized by his song … (or was it his looks?) ….

As he was completing Beautiful Lady … suddenly 2 beautiful ladies ran up the stage and stood next to him. If it weren’t for the similar dress-ups (which I believe are their costumes) I would’ve thought they were his fans. Anyway, Ni Shi Wo Wei Yi (You’re My Only One) was playing on the speakers …. and Zhen Hong awed the audience with a superb dance performance.

I do believe the ambiance within Halo Cafe suddenly became a little warmer after the performance, possibly because of Zhen Hong’s ‘hot’ moves. I am sure the ladies in the house are already in love with him …. (gosh I wanna be singer too …)

This is the part where I need to summarize the whole event as I am already taking up a little too much writing space. I could go on and on .. since the story I was about to tell is not even halfway through, but you’d probably be snoring by then. So I am deciding to let the photos tell the stories … Anyway, following on to the story, there were press conferences, appearance of Regine Tai and finally Zhen Hong belted his other numbers and that was it ….

And I shall sign off here for now. Until my next album launch (as if la …)…

What more … if it’s a dance-themed birthday party !! Yeap, I attended one recently … and I absolutely want to thank Lin and Roslim for inviting us to her party (I hope she likes our presents …). By the way, Lin Hamid is the “super-lady” who brought Salsa Festivals to our home ground and made it affordable. Without her, I would still be looking through brochures of Hong Kong or Australia Salsa Festival …. At least now, I have MALAYSIAN SALSA FESTIVAL 2007 … to look forward to …

The party was held on a Wednesday night, 21st March 2007 at The Lodge, KL. The Lodge was previously a small hotel, now converted into a restaurant … an Italian restaurant. It’s located right opposite Wisma Genting, and behind Aero Bar. The Lodge consist of an indoor restaurant cum bar and another section serving patrons in a open-air concept, next to a swimming pool.

The party starts at 8pm and that’s what the invitation SMS says. But as usual, we got there late…! Of course, we have good reasons to be late … dance classes ended late, around 9:30pm. We got to The Lodge quite late, slightly past 10pm. And good thing the party was still very much alive. One thing that delighted me the most was to hear salsa music being played, the moment I stepped out of my car. My first thoughts were….

“Cool … there’s dancing !”.

I mean, it’s mid-week and I totally feel the need to wind down. The bosses were always at our necks looking for some certain numbers. If you’re in sales, you’d know what I meant. Anyway, getting back to Lin’s story … yeah … after all, this IS her birthday story (sorry Lin, got a little carried away as usual). As I entered the restaurant … the first person I noticed was James Salsakaki Quah. And why not .. he is with his usual red shirt and red face, you can never miss him! Despite his “redness” .. he was still very much sober …very much his usual self. Another glance around the dance floor, the frequent bunch… they were all there. But of course, why not? After all, it is Lin Hamid’s birthday, right…

I spotted Lin right at the back so I carefully swerved and swayed my way through the dancing crowd with Lin’s present in my hand. I finally handed over her the present, followed by the usual “muak-muaks” and then proceeded to start the chow-downs. And guess what, most of us agree that the food was really good! You should see Fasilito …and Jeamie … stuffing themselves …

After satisfying the tummy, we moved on nearer to the dance floor. Bachata music were being played and of course … some folks were already glued together doing their Bachata thingy. And deejay Xavier was spinning for the night. Bravo … Xavier, for spinning some really good music that night! We rested a little more and slowly but eventually, we started moving onto the dance floor … first for warm ups and then to “burn the floor”.

I would say, it’s pretty cool to be able to do some dancing during the mid-week period where work tension is at it’s peak. I can’t say that for all, but to me … dancing really helps … you may have burdens in your mind, on your back … but once you’re on the dance floor executing your next death-drop or tornado spin … the mind is somewhat taken over. Nothing else matters … just your dance partner and occasionally the “high heels” of the person dancing next to you ….

We left around midnight since we needed to start early the next day, unlike some folks who has the luxury of sleeping in (… yes Fasilito, I am talking about you…!). Overall, the party was fun, the food was good … the guests are nice …

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THE PARTY

Lin & Roslim, you guys organized a helluva great party ! Then again, you guys always do, Don’t Cha?

I just happened to click on the Malaysian Salsa Festival 2007 website and guess what! SalsaJay’s little logo is patched right in there, in the Affiliates section. Just right next to the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba and Trinidad Group of Companies …

This came as a surprise, since I only casually wrote to them … asking if we (SalsaJay) could support them in any way. I received a prompt reply stating that we are welcome to help promote their site. And here we are ….