End of February Update
It seems to have been awhile I must admit. A number of people have birthdays on Valentines Day so we celebrated before hand. I was too sick to go to Clare's birthday party the weekend before the 14th. I went out to
Rice Paper to celebrate Cherie's birthday. For Valentine's day I did nothing, I went to the gym with Jamie and had dinner that night with Hiroko before she went back to Japan. Hiroko's boyfriend called and he was probably surprised I was having dinner with her. I have to mention that Janice was worried that I would be spending Valentine's alone so she made the effort to invite me out to dinner with her friends.
Recently I keep getting sick. I'm actually sick right now, I was suffering from a pretty bad fever last night. I haven't been clubbing recently, I've mainly been concentrating on playing tennis with my Japanese tennis group. They've treated me quite well and have helped me improve my Japanese and my tennis skills.
Simon's girl friend Noel is visiting Hong Kong. I had lunch with her and her parents the other day. We spent the day shopping in Mong Kok. She was in heaven looking at the selection of clothes. She travelled to Beijing and she should be back now. I think everyone is back from their trips now. We always bother Hiroko to buy lots of things from Japan for us. I better treat her out to dinner.
My birthday is coming up, but I suck at planning my own birthday events. What should I do this year? I already bought a few things before Chinese New Years. I bought a new Lacoste Sport Polo, Diesel pants, black leather Converse shoes, and
the DKNY Sunglasses. Diana helped me choose out pretty much everything and I got a pretty good deal on the sunglasses.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong, Sports
This is kind of a follow-up to a previous post. It has been quite a while since I originally posted about the so called "modeling agency" New Face Group (NF Group). They must still be around which means the word hasn't been spread far enough about this is a agency. There are a lot of agencies in Hong Kong, but this one just happens to be one of the newier ones. I think it is great that people are sharing their stories. I have a few more words to share.
i) Statistics. This blog was more a general blog for people that I know, but I've received a lot of hits because of my posts on New Face Group. Since I posted in October people have used the following key words to find my site:
new face group (222 times)
chile management (12 times)
"new face group" (11 times)
new face nf group (10 times)
a.nf group (8 times)
nf group (7 times)
new face n group (6 times)
new face group model (3 times)
new face (3 times)
"new face group" hong kong (3 times)
newface group (2 times)
new face group + ivan (2 times)
new face group digit7 (2 times)
2/f, capital building, 6-10 sun wui road, causeway bay, hong kong (2 times)
nf group hk (1 time)
"nf group" (1 time)
"new face" group (1 time)
new face group agency (1 time)
new face group causeway bay (1 time)
new face group hk (1 time)
Well you get the idea. People are looking up all sorts of things about this agency.
ii) The Call.
About 2 weeks ago on a Wednesday, Ah Dee gave me a call asking me to submit photos for a job. It has been a while so I was a little surprised to hear from them again. I promptly told him I wasn't interested. Who knows what those photos will be used for. I'm also guessing that they'll try to get you in to make a
Comp Card. Anyways I told him I wasn't interested and that should be the end.
iii) Another Agent.
Today while I was shopping for a birthday gift in Causeway Bay I was stopped by another person. According to his card his name is Ivan. Possibly I saw the name "Ivan Ho" but I'm not certain about his last name. I was near Sogo just outside of the
Giordano Concepts.
He first started off saying he thinks he saw me in another advertisement. Then he asks me if I have ever modeled before. Since I'm so use to these people approaching me now and just so interested in watching how they approach the conversation I don't reply and let him do all the talking. Ivan starts going on about New Face Group and the type of jobs that they do. They apparently have me in mind to do ads for restaurants and magazines. He gives me his card and I accept it and I tell him that I'm kind of in a hurry. He asks me if I am "truly" interested. I don't respond and tell him I'm a hurry but I'll look at his card and give him a call if I decide that I am.
Now this is where the holes appear in his story.
1) On his card he is labeled as a "
Production Manager". I don't know if New Face is suppose to be an agency or a production house, but why is the production manager out on the street looking for people to join their agency? I guess they are responsible for staffing but it seems like all the people recruiting for New Face Group are "production managers".
2) AFTER giving me his card he started pressuring me to give him an answer whether or not I am serious about joining their agency. When I told them I would think about it and I might call him back, I started walking away. He quickly walked after me and TOOK his card back. Isn't that a bit strange? The people I know that work for the well known agencies in Hong Kong tend to run out of cards fast (from what I've been told). Trying to take the card back tells me this Ivan guy has something to hide.
For those interested in reading the ongoing comments from the previous post take a look
here.
I don't mind people linking to these posts from the online forums. Sorry it is completely in English but that's my mother language. If someone wants to translate the information and post it up on
UWants.com or some other Hong Kong forum feel free to do so.
Labels: Hong Kong, Scams
Keeping Active in Life
I've been a bit too settled lately. Returning from Canada and having to deal with some emotional turmoil has started me on my road to change. In a sense this maybe a blessing in disguise. I've been busy meeting up with friends and I think I just had the most interesting week so far this new year.
I've started roller blading with one of my students. Actually, the first time was by chance and afterwards my student asked me if I would roller blade with her when she has lessons. Jovial and I roller blade over at
Victoria park, usually on Mondays. I've been waiting for the twins to get better but they've been prone to illnesses and accidents recently. I keep a fairly regular workout schedule with Jamie now, but I've slimmed down as a result of working on my abdominals more. Jamie has be tackling the game
Brain Age and
Big Brain Academy on my
Nintendo NDS Lite. He finally managed to get that "A" score to beat his arch nemesis; his older brother. I've only managed a "B" so far.
My students are fun and work was a good experience but, I've been totally unmotivated to continue in this line of work. There is nothing more I can say since it really revolves around my own feelings and desires. After speaking with my boss I've moved back to a part-time position starting this week. I have to say it feels great to wake up at 11am on a Monday morning. Hopefully with the free time I'll be able to get the rest of my life in order. Plus I have more time to have lunch with my friends.
The weekend was surprisingly fun. It started of Friday night. After work Celia planned a board game night over at her place. I brought over some soft drinks for them to use as mixers and went to have dinner with Agnes, Cherie, and Jamie. We had to wait a while for the girls so I was late already going to Celia's and Diana also made her way over to Causeway Bay to meet up with Clare. She hung out with us for a bit and finally I walked her over towards Times Square and dropped her off with Clare. I headed back to Celia's place and was shocked by the amount of people. As soon as I walked in there was barely enough space around to seat everyone. Some weren't even really sitting. I met some pretty cool people that night though which made it exciting for me but I think I only remember about half. I met an Elaine and a David (which are easy names for me to remember). I met Theric's friends from Taiwan who were visiting; Rodney and his girl friend. He was really cool to talk with and absolutely a social guy. Cassy was another girl to remember. She was raised in Canada, went to school in the US for 6 years, dated a British guy for 2 years and already has the British accent. I noticed it while we were playing
Taboo. Another girl Camille also shares the award for most interesting person I met that night. She was born in
Macau which makes her Portuguese. She also did some traveling and moving around and we just voted her a partial Canadian for the night since there were mainly Americans in the room. Board game night was a success and I really didn't want to leave but with work on Saturday I couldn't follow the rest of them down to the clubs. Since I knew they were all going out again anyways I just went to see them Saturday instead.
Saturday I got off a bit early and managed to get a power nap at home before running off to the gym then going out. I honestly wasn't thinking of going to Lan Kwai Fong until Friday night. I met up with Theric and Celia at the lounge/restaurant Halo (owned by the same management as Volar) and was standing outside for a while chatting it up with the bouncer before getting inside. It was my first time seeing the place. Pretty nice inside but tiny. I met another really tall girl (5'10") Stephanie who's birthday just passed I believe. So happy birthday to her and also to her cousin who's birthday is on the same day. We hung out there for a while and then headed over to Volar. Volar was pretty packed and saw a lot of other friends there. I ran into Tiff and her group of friends. Sandra was at Pi with her girls but managed to come by afterwards. I ran into Angie as well who was there with her UK boy. Surprisingly Angie's guy is friends with Tiff's friends. Which actually scares me. I was just getting to know Angie but she has a lot of secrets in her past as well. I have a hard time finding good local friends in Hong Kong, but Angie's actions really stand out. She'll pay attention to you and remember all the little details that bother you and she'll be considerate about those things. It is hard to find friends in Hong Kong who really are considerate and aren't just being shallow friends. She's an amazing friend though getting romantically involved is another story. More than a typical Volar night a lot of models were out. I even ran into a wasted Henrique; who has a spread in this month's HIM magazine (HK edition).
Sunday I managed to wakeup for Tennis. This was really an experience. I went down to
Lam Tin to meet up with Megumi and she introduced me to her whole Japanese tennis group. The session was really cool but also difficult. Conversations were almost completely in Japanese. This really is Japanese immersion. We had a late lunch/early dinner at the
APM food court and then I went on to meet up with Diana and Jamie in
Tsim Sha Tsui. We did some shopping and had dinner in MK at the "Steak Expert". We did a mini
SAW marathon (
Saw I and
Saw II) at my place until 3am. Jamie went home but Diana was too tired so she stayed over the night. Jamie and I are suppose to see Saw III with Janice. I thought it would be a lot sicker but so far it hasn't been that bad. Its funny seeing Diana and Jamie hide their faces when they expect something to be gruesome.
This weekend coming up should be fun as well.
Labels: Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong, Sports
