A fan account of visiting Barbara’s grave

Barbara's new grave in August 2018 (photo courtesy of Joy)

As some of you may know from Rob Radboud's website,  in January this year, Barbara’s old white tombstone was replaced with the new black one to accommodate her mother’s. Barbara’s old white tombstone is now buried underneath the black stone, along with her ashes and her mother’s ashes. However, I didn’t visit her grave when I was in Europe in 2018 because I didn’t have time, hence I couldn't tell the impression upon seeing Barbara's new grave.

A few weeks ago, a fan of Barbara contacted me about visiting Barbara’s grave in Cambridge. Her name is Joy, and what is very special to me about her is that she is 18 years old, yet she is a fan of Barbara Yung. Joy said that she became a fan after watching the LOCH 1982 series with her mother. Joy was in the UK recently (or perhaps still is), thus she wanted to visit Barbara’s grave in Cambridge. I gave her some tips based on my old post in 2016 and 2017. Later, she sent me an account of her visit and also some photographs; here they are below, edited slightly to secure her identity.

Joy, thank you so much for the gift.

The New Adventures of Chor Lau Heung TVB 1984 in YouTube!

OMG! I just found out that TVB uploaded the New Adventures of Chor Lau Heung 1984 in YouTube! They just uploaded the whole 40 series five days ago on 19 June! That's so great! Here's the first episode, and you can follow the whole 40 series in YouTube. It's in Cantonese, which is a delight to me, although it lacks English subtitles.

Also, Michael Miu's 60th birthday was exactly last week on 18 June 2018. Happy 60th birthday, Michael! I have been remiss in posting an article about it because of my schedule, but I do remember it that day. I haven't searched for Michael's latest photo, but he definitely didn't look like a ~60 years old man last year!

Hmmm... what a coincidence that TVB released all CLH 1984 episodes a day after Michael's 60th birthday. I take that as a divine providence, though perhaps TVB did actually time the upload to honour Michael's role (and Barbara's of course) in making this series a classic.

Have fun watching the official CLH 1984 on YouTube!

Michael Miu's birthday tomorrow (Sunday, 18 June 2017)

An oil painting of Huang Yaoshi 2017 (Michael Miu) by Cheng Zhifeng(陳志峰)

Tomorrow, well, in less than two hours in Hong Kong, will be Michael Miu's birthday. He will be 59 years old tomorrow... may he always be healthy, happy and prosperous (that goes also for his family). 

I am on another (very important) deadline next week, hence I'm not sure if I can dedicate time to make something for Michael tomorrow. But just in case, just in case I cannot, at least I want to give him an early happy birthday... and a gratitude for coming into my life so early in my childhood... and reappear again recently as Chor Lau-heung, Li Sai-man, Szeto Man-mo, Tung Pang-fei, and yes, even as Yeung Hong (Michael still gives the best Yang Kang/Yeung Hong to date, IMO). And most certainly, most recently, as Huang Yaoshi, the Peach Blossom Island Master.

In this post, I insert four paintings that have been painted by at least two painters for Michael. The first one up here is an oil painting of Huang Yaoshi (LOCH 2017) by Chen Zhifeng (陳志峰), as acknowledged by Michael in his Weibo dated 6 June 2017. This might be the info page of Chen Zhifeng. I know not the identity of the painter of the three paintings after the break. Let me know if you do know. 

Who was this lady?

Update 24 August 2017: Sally Chan has confirmed that the lady in question was indeed Barbara Yung. Sally scanned the photo from a microfilm a while ago. Thanks, Sally!

A few months ago, Cynthia sent me some photos of Michael Miu and Barbara Yung, many of them I had never seen. One of them was the photo above that I eventually used in the "In the Rain" MV.  Cynthia labelled the photo as an MB photo, hence I took it that the woman on Michael's lap was Barbara. However, I always had my doubts about the photo, because the scan quality is so low. Plus, the woman could very well be Jaime.

Then, a few days ago, a new reader Nelly contacted me and talked about some MB things, including this photo. I asked Nelly if she was sure that the woman was Barbara, and Nelly said she was certain. The woman had a smile diagnostic of Barbara. Then I asked Hannah too, and Hannah also said she thought the woman was Barbara. Since I was still in doubt, I did a simple experiment with the photo to see if the woman was Barbara... or Jaime.

If I Loved You Less

Update 18 March 2017: I've edited the info about Michael/Barbara concert in Singapore. I don't think it was in 8 April 1985, for Barbara already cut her hair by 6 April 1985. Hence, some premises for this article have been revised accordingly. I have also added some newspaper clippings here and there.

I am somewhat reluctant in writing this, but I thought I’d give it a go. The reason for my reluctance is because bringing up the past can disturb the present. But… I just have to write this.

I am new to MB (since September 2015, that’s considered still new IMO), though I’ve been a fan of Michael and Barbara separately. When in late 2015 I realised their unfulfilled potentials as a couple, I was rather devastated. Then I tried to balance myself by thinking that Michael and Barbara would, just as Michael said, just share a friendship or, again as Michael put it, brotherhood, instead of unrequited love. I even wrote it as such when I wrote a post during Barbara’s commemoration last year. That Michael and Barbara might have had a thing, but they doused it off. And that’s that. But it was just a vague guess…

Upon receiving some old photos of MB from Hannah and Cynthia last December and January, I became more certain about one thing: something did happen between Michael and Barbara in 1983-1984, and it was quite big that it almost changed MB’s relationships with their official significant others at that time. Thus, this post is about how I came to that conclusion. With all due respect to Kent Tong and Jaime Chik, particularly Jaime who has been a very amazing wife to Michael… allow me to write up my speculations here.

Barbara Yung's mother passed away

The late Mrs Liu Ming Yee by Andrew Chan, Barbara's godson, via Rob Radboud

Barbara's mother passed away last January, and I didn't know this until now. Some fan I am... Mrs Liu Ming Yee was 90 years old when she died on 17 January 2017 in Cambridge... and I was too busy with deadlines to notice this!

hung head in shame...

Back to Mrs Liu's death... Andrew Chan provided info from his Weibo that Granny Liu had been ill since she was born, and she had a stroke a few years back. Her funeral will be on 23 February 2017 (next week!) in the Cambridge City Crematorium, and her ashes will be buried next to her daughter's grave. Which means, the next time me (and Hannah) visit Barbara's grave, we will also pray for Mrs Liu...

Old photos of Michael Miu and Barbara Yung

My new favourite: MB singing (during a tour in Malaysia Singapore)

Hannah had given me a beautiful Christmas present yesterday by sending me her old collection of photos of Michael and Barbara. She also sent me photos of Barbara alone, Barbara with Kent, and Barbara with friends (including with Felix Wong, Maggie Cheung Man Yi and Andy Lau). I was very touched with the old photos of Michael and Barbara... the photos showed how close they were, how happy they were, that I can't wait till New Year to post them. Thus, my dearest readers, these are the old photos of Michael and Barbara, some of them very hard to find in the cyberspace. 

I will post other photos in due course. Thanks a lot, Hannah! Enjoy! 

United We Stand (生繡橋王) episode summary 1-6

I’ve had a mixed feeling about watching ‘United We Stand’ (Saan sau kiu wong 生繡橋王) since last year. Because, after watching it, basically that’s it. No more Michael/Barbara new series that I could watch. Not that the other ones were not good, but I do want more...

Anyway, the bad news is, I found NO English subtitle for UWS, which means that I either have to watch Cantonese raw or Mandarin raw. Thank God that Yueyuyy.com and Youku have the Cantonese version. Both sites are not perfect. Yueyuyy is sourced from Tudou and VideoGet, all episodes are listed, but some links are broken. Yueyuyy also has loads of annoying ads. Youku’s ads are less annoying, but it’s missing many important episodes.

The other option is buying the original DVD from YesAsia, which I’ve done last week. It’s expensive (USD 45), but it arrived in Australia in less than two weeks (Update 11 Nov'16: shipped on 3 Nov, arrived on 11 Nov) and the quality is very good, considering it is an 1984 production (remastered in 2015).

Since I’ve actually watched the entire Dik Ching 1986 Cantonese raw without subtitles and provided the episode summaries, I think providing summary for UWS should be doable as well. It won’t be perfect, I yearn for a sudden ability to understand Cantonese (just listening will do, no need for writing). However, until someone translates the UWS into English, this is the only English summary available on the web. At least, to my knowledge. I hope you like it. Input into the general storyline, Cantonese romanisation etc. is definitely welcomed. Click here for all UWS episode guides.

Interview with Michael re LOCH 2017

Michael Miu was interviewed on 7 October 2016 on his recent roles in the Line Walker 2 (as Cheuk Sir) and in the Legend of Condor Heroes 2017 (as Huang Yaoshi). The followings are the translated and original versions of the interview. I have based my translation for the LOCH 2017 part from Google Translator, MDBG and the Kaypang Gallery Indonesian translation (thanks, Pangchu!). I translated the third and fourth parts myself from GT and MDBG. I didn’t translate part 1 about Line Walker 2; but I hopefully will in due course.

The original article can be found after the translation. It’s really nice to read the thoughts of our beautiful and wise Michael. Enjoy! Oh, and do correct me when you find mistakes in translation and interpretation, I surely have made some...

Update 9 Oct'16: Thanks to Krabs from SPCnet for editing some of my translation!

Barbara Yung’s letters part 2: LOCH 1983

Barbara shooting her first LOCH scene with Felix Wong

Last month I promised that I’d post some letters of Barbara Yung regarding her experience with the Legend of Condor Heroes 1983. Apologies for taking so long, but I finally am able to sit down and copy her letters from Rob Radboud’s site.

Reading her letters again reminding me how beautiful she was, in and out. She was caring, loving and sensitive. The letters you’ll read below doesn’t only talk about LOCH 1983 of course, and there you’ll see how she cared for her family, in this case her mother, her uncle and Shela, her uncle’s partner (later wife). She also cared for her other friends, that they didn’t have enough money etc. I also found out that her family lived in Cambridge in 1982 (Letter 12 August 1982). Do they still live there now? For some reasons, I wonder whether they have moved out...

As for LOCH, Barbara did her audition on 13 August 1982 (Letter 12 August 1982). She had always wanted to do an ancient drama, so she was excited about her audience. However, since she had the audition for the most important role in the series, the announcement was not made until mid November (Letter 19 November 1982). She was of course very excited about it, but then she was also worried whether she’d be able to fill Michelle Yim’s shoes (Mie Shieh or Michelle Yim played as Wong Yung in LOCH 1976)(Letter 13 March 1983). 

Barbara Yung's letters part 1: Chor Lau Heung

Barbara and Michael during a CLH 1984 press conference

I've been wondering for a while how Barbara was when she was alive. I wrote in May that she might suffer depression during her last months. But what of her in the beginning and midst of her career? What of her before that? Rob Radboud said that Barbara was a gentle person who would sacrifice everything for love. I watched a small documentary with her talking, she looked lovely and lively. But is there another way of understanding her aside from those sources?

Then it occurred to me after reading some unrelated (duh) letters of Van Gogh. Letters! Jane Austen left letters that made us understand who she was, what she was like. Also Van Gogh, and other authors/artists. Nowadays we can glimpse what a person is like through their social media postings. But letters are truer, for they are not intended for public viewing. Of course, unlike reading letters of Jane Austen or Van Gogh who had passed away centuries ago, it's more of a breach of privacy to read letters of the deceased when they passed away not long ago (Barbara is in this category). But Barbara's letters are already available online from Rob's website (previously hosted at www.barbarayung.net), hence I feel okay in discussing them here.

Line Walker (TVB 2014)

A few days ago, Michael Miu posted a series of photo on his Weibo account, informing us of his new series, from TVB Hong Kong no less! He’s reprising his role as Cheuk Sir, a detective at the Hong Kong police squad, a role he had done superbly back in the well-received 2014 Line Walker. The new poster of Line Walker 2 is near the end of this article. The rest of the article is something I’ve written back in June when I watched Line Walker 1 cover-to-cover in less than a week (Cantonese version, yo!). Talking about addiction...I never got to post this commentary, but since Line Walker 2 is coming up, there's no better time than the present to post it! Apologies if it is rather incoherent; it was really a running commentary as I watched the series. 

I once said I wanna see Michael playing a modern hacker or "thief" to mirror his Chor Lau Heung. Well, we don't have Barbara now, so it won't be the same (her birthday and death commemoration are coming soon), and Michael never played that modern Chor Lau Heung before he retired in 1987. Besides, technology in 1987 wasn't that advanced yet for him to play a convincing modern CLH.

But now we have excellent IT etc. And Michael had returned to us more than a decade ago. Though he wasn't playing a hacker in Line Walker, the series gave him very sufficient screen time to display his excellence as a hacker (policemen can hack too), a detective (love it when he solved cases!!) and an efficient fighter (he knocked out several bad cops without a sweat, but he did really fight...not those annoying CGIs!). And to see him in suit is always a lovely sight...And his voice was still awesome. Almost unchanged. His voice... (to think that I won’t hear that voice in the Mandarin version of the LOCH 2017!).

Visiting Barbara's grave

Click this to read my visit to Barbara's grave in June 2017

Barbara Yung's grave, Cambridge 28 July 2016

Since I started writing posts about Michael and Barbara last year, I had wanted to visit Barbara's grave in Cambridge UK. I finally had my chance when the UK immigration finally granted me a tourist visa for a visit this July.

I went to visit Barbara's grave in Cambridge last week on Thursday (28 July). It was raining when I arrived around 2 pm at the Cambridge City Cemetery. I had with me two bouquets of roses: 10 yellow roses and 10 red, pink and white roses. I also brought a pot of small red roses, all for £10 in the Thursday Cambridge market.

Located at Lot 29, at the north corner of the Cambridge City Cemetery (diagonal from the main parking lot), Barbara's grave wasn't looking as sad as when Rob Radboud came in June 2012. Back then, a yellow rose bush was growing unattended, blocking the grave. Rob had to hack the bush with his own hands without garden scissors or a knife, for he wasn't expecting that the grave wasn't attended. This time, last Thursday, I saw "only" two bunches of flowers wrapped in plastic, half a bottle of mineral water that someone used as a vase, and growing weed. Still a mess though, which made me sad...

More photos of Michael Miu as Huang Yaoshi

Michael Miu has uploaded more photos of him as the East Heretic in his weibo. Rather than putting them in the older post, I'd put them here instead. I will also make an MV of him as Huang Yaoshi, if not this weekend, then next weekend (a very tiring week this week...), so watch this blog please...

The above is my favourite due to the saying. The right bottom corner says, "Travel somewhere new each year, and you just might find yourself along the way". On the left upper corner is Huang Yaoshi's name written in the traditional Chinese characters 黃藥師 (love it! I much prefer traditional than simplified characters due to the former's deeper meanings). Michael also wrote "If not now, when?". I think these simple sayings are very profound, it shows how much he was willing to explore by taking the role of the iconic Huang Yaoshi.

(or perhaps because he is already 58 years old now, he was concerned that he would not get the chance again in the future. Or both.)

The Rivers and Lakes stats

Update 11 July 2016: I now include the truncated calculation to examine the page view per day (down to the bottom page); the result is slightly different from the total page view analyses. Update 16 July 2016: I add the visitors' countries based only on Rivers and Lakes stats.

This post is the 100^th post of jianghu-related articles of mine, thus, I’d like to look at some statistics of the jianghu/wuxia articles that I’ve written so far. You can skip this post if you want (duh!), but it actually provides a lot of interesting information for me...

There are important notes to be made though. First, I count the 100^th post from all wuxia/jianghu posts combined from my personal blog and this Realm of Rivers and Lakes blog. If I count just the jianghu articles from this blog, this post would be the 66^th, but since I started this genre talking in my personal blog, I think it’s fair that I include the personal blog counts in this statistics. Second, I exclude my first ever wuxia post about Nicky Wu’s and Liu Tao’s Li Hou Zhu series, since it has gained a lot of momentum since it was written in 2009 (it’s now at 5,415 page-views). Plus, the current blog is focusing more on Michael Miu and Barbara Yung wuxia series, thus I think excluding Nicky Wu’s series is okay.

Huang Yaoshi, the East Heretic

Michael Miu Kiu Wai as the 2017 Huang Yaoshi

Since we have more photos of our Michael Miu as Huang Yaoshi (HYS) these days, I thought a post on Huang Yaoshi’s character is in order. I base this post on the English translation of the LOCH book, which can be found at the Wuxia Society. I also need to reiterate that I LOVE Kenneth Tsang’s portrayal as HYS in the 1983 LOCH, but since I have faith in Michael’s acting skills, I believe I will see another favourite HYS of mine next year. Photos of the rest of the Five Greats and the Old Imp are at the end of the article.

First, Huang Yaoshi is the Mandarin pinyin spelling for the real name of this character (surname Huang, "first name" Yaoshi). The Cantonese Yale romanisation is Wong Yeuk Si, the Hokkien version is Oey Yok Su. The traditional characters are 黃藥師 while the simplified characters are 黄药师.

HYS was first depicted as wearing a green robe. This depiction makes some Indonesian fans always asking why the 2017 HYS hasn’t been wearing a green robe. Well, fair point... but a man can change his wardrobe style. Plus, Jin Yong seems to like green. He dressed Yang Kang and one of the Freaks in green the first time we were introduced to them, and he also had Mu Nianci in a dark green clothing in the last chapter. Anyway, here’s the first appearance of Huang Yaoshi in Book 2 Chapter 13. 

“Bitter Enemies” - Wong Yung vs Yeung Hong LOCH 1983

"Bitter Enemies" - Wong Yung vs Yeung Hong LOCH 1983 from Icha74 on Vimeo.

A few months ago, I watched the Legend of Condor Heroes 1983 with trepidation. I love the pairing of Michael Miu and Barbara Yung, but I always watched their series where they were romantic couples. LOCH 1983 was a different story, because Michael played Yang Kang/Yeung Hong, the mortal enemy of Barbara's Huang Rong/Wong Yung. However, I recently learned that indeed during the making of LOCH 1983 that Barbara and Michael became friends, hence I now see LOCH 1983 as an important series that cemented their friendship for life. With this understanding, I have no qualm to make a movie about the mortal enmity between their LOCH characters. 

Laced with the rock beat of Line Walker's "Walker" (行者) by Justin Lo and Wilfred Lau, this MV features the mortal enmities between Wong Yung and Yeung Hong. As a classic, LOCH 1983 is always in the hearts of the 80s wuxia lovers. However, it was difficult for me to find a dedicated WY vs YH music video, hence this offering. Hope you like it. Traditional characters, Yale (I think) romanisation, and English and Indonesian translations are below the break.

Oh, and this MV is full of classical 1980s fighting skills. New wuxia lovers, watch this. This is how the fighting scenes in wuxia series should have been made! Click this category to check my other action-based MVs. For ballad/romance lovers who prefer to see Michael and Barbara romantic pairing, what about this latest CLH 1984 MV instead?

"Close To You" - an MV for Michael Miu's 58th birthday

Our darling Michael is 58 years old today (18 June 2016). Can't believe he's already 58 years old but still so young in my heart... 

To celebrate his birthday, I've made an MV above. The song is "Close to You" from the Carpenters (fell in love with the song when I watched Vicky Zhao's "So Close" years ago). The opening photo is from the Legend of Condor Heroes 2017 where Michael plays as Huang Yaoshi (Wong Yeuk See) the East Heretic. I'm so happy that Michael is playing as Huang Rong/Wong Yung's father... for we know how amazing Barbara was when she played WY back in 1982/3. I think she's very happy to know that her dear friend Michael is playing as the father of her famous character, weird as it sounds...

I'm also uploading the MV to Vimeo and Dailymotion. Hope DM isn't asking me to delete it, cos DM has been rather difficult these days. I also plan to write a piece on Huang Yaoshi for Michael's birthday, but not sure if I can post it before the weekend is over.

Meanwhile, enjoy the MV, and once again, happy birthday, Michael! We love you!

Remembering Barbara Yung (1959-1985)

For Michael/Barbara timeline, read this. Click here to read about my visit to Barbara's grave in Cambridge UK in July 2016. Click this to read about my visit to Barbara's grave in June 2017 (with Rob Radboud).

Barbara Yung. Always young, always beautiful

Today, 31 years ago, Barbara Yung Mei-ling met her death. Many fans of A-ling, as Michael Miu used to call her, speculated on what happened, why she chose to take her own life. I’ve contemplated whether I should write something about this. Eventually I thought that I should; hence this post.

I wrote this post based on two of Rob Radboud’s articles. The first one is the interview between Barbara and Liang Pui Yee 梁佩仪 on 13 May 1985. Apparently, this was the last interview Barbara gave in her life... The second source is the 8 April 2016 Sohucoverage on Barbara’s death. I read the Sohu coverage with a grain of salt, for it’s a TV show anyway, and it’s bound to have mistakes or exaggeration. Sure the article that was written by Liang Pui Yee also had some flaws, but at least it was more verbatim from the writer’s conversation with Barbara.

I will write down here what I think about Barbara’s case. But first, I’d like to present two facts. One: Barbara was an illegitimate child, hence she did not have a perfect childhood. Two: Barbara was very very young when she died. She just had her 26^th birthday exactly the week before she died.

Michael Miu as Huang Yaoshi for LOCH 2017

Click this for the characteristic of Huang Yaoshi

Michael Miu as Huang Yaoshi, the East Heretic for LOCH 2017

I might regret posting this later if this proves to be incorrect, (It is confirmed!!!) but at the moment some wuxia fans in the Indonesian Kaypang Gallery Facebook is abuzz with the news that Michael Miu has been cast as Huang Yaoshi for the Legend of Condor Heroes 2017 (thanks Wina for the news). The series will be directed by Gordon Chan Jeffrey Chiang (thanks Faira!). Huang Yaoshi or the East Heretic was the father of Huang Rong (Wong Yung), and was superbly portrayed by Kenneth Tsang in LOCH 1983. I have always loved East Heretic in LOCH 1983, and I love Kenneth's portrayal of this character. 

To see this beloved character played by the charismatic Michael Miu is like a balm for my heart... especially because tomorrow is the 31th death remembrance of Barbara Yung. Hence, my blue day has been soothed, somehow.

But let me not get ahead of myself. I will explain the news source etc after the break!