September 2, 2008

This afternoon, I went to the office for a meeting with artists signed under my company and the winners from The Disciple competition who had come to Hong Kong from Beijing. Just as I walked into my office, a nice little surprise appeared right in front of my eyes. It was baby Matthew from Rob-B-Hood who had come with his family to visit me at my office. Little Matthew is already three years old now. See how much he’s changed:

I was very happy and pleased to see them. The three young children have grown up and they are all so very cute, especially Matthew. His hair has grown quite long and when you first look at him, he looks a bit like a girl but he’s so adorable. I couldn’t resist myself; I hugged him and gave him lots of kisses.

Afterwards, I invited their whole family to my house to visit my two dogs, Jonesie and JJ, and my two cats, Ding Ding and Dong Dong. I also invited the winners from The Disciple competition and the other artists to my house as well. There was one girl who became absolutely terrified when she saw Jonesie and JJ and she immediately ran as far away as she could to avoid them. But Jonesie and JJ thought that she was playing with them and started chasing after her. They scared her so much that she started crying and she then hid inside the house and wouldn’t dare to come out. At first I didn’t know that she was afraid of dogs; maybe she was bitten by a dog before?

Ah! Today I discovered the youngest ever photographer. He might be young, but he definitely has a natural talent for taking photos. This photographer is little Matthew. After looking at the photos he took, I realized that when you look at the world from a child’s point of view, it’s actually quite different and very interesting. Have a look at these photos taken by Matthew:

Mid-Autumn Festival Party

In the evening, I arranged a banquet of ten tables and had a party with my friends and the staff from my office. Actually, it wasn't really a party; it was just a gathering with staff and friends, eating dinner together, and having a chance to see each other because I haven’t been in Hong Kong for quite a long time. I wanted to use this opportunity to celebrate an early Mid-Autumn Festival with everyone, or maybe use it to celebrate a birthday or future birthday of my staff and friends, because the way I see it is that as long as everyone is happy, every day can be Mid-Autumn Festival. Just as people who are in a relationship would say: every day is Valentine’s Day. You don’t have to wait until February 14^th to give flowers to the person you love; you can give flowers whenever you feel it’s right.

At the dinner, Baby Matthew was everybody’s sweet little honey and people were taking turns holding him and taking photos with him. Even the other little kids that some of my friends brought along wanted to play with him. It was very lively and cheerful. In the midst of all this excitement, can you guess who the busiest person was? I bet the clever readers would have already guessed the answer. It was my webmaster, Katharine, who was taking photos of the little kids, capturing their most adorable moments. She was so busy that she couldn’t get away. You take a look:

As I have always done in the past to help increase the lively atmosphere, I didn’t forget to include the part with the cash prize draw. Apart from funding the cash prize pool with the money people used to buy the raffle tickets at the banquet, my friends such as Albert Yeung also sponsored the prize pool by donating some funds for the draw. I also contributed several thousand dollars and in the end, we gathered a total cash prize pool of HKD $50,000 (USD $6,500). I know this amount of money might not seem like a lot but being able to see the overjoyed smiles on faces of the lucky winners when they come up to claim their prize makes me feel very happy for them.

Let me introduce to everyone how this simple lucky draw works. Every time we have a party, I like to include this fun game. How this works is that every person who attends the dinner can buy a raffle ticket; HKD$50 for one ticket, HKD$100 for three tickets; and this includes them in the draw for a chance to win a prize.

Afterwards, staff members told me that among all the workers in the office, the cleaning lady Yang Jie, the aunty who is responsible for cooking lunch, and the Filipino workers were the extremely lucky ones because each time a prize was drawn, they either won an individual prize or a big prize, or even a “table prize.” And because their luck was especially good, the tables that they sat at were the ones that filled up the fastest because people hoped that some of their luck could rub off on them; even if they didn’t win an individual cash prize, they could still share a bit of the soup (the prize) if the whole table won! I didn’t realize how many lucky people are in my company! Ha ha!

I like to give some bonus tickets to everyone to improve their chances of winning.

I’m always very happy no matter who wins the prizes, but I feel especially happy when the ordinary workers in my office who play a small but important part and quietly work hard at their jobs are able to win a prize. They only hold a small position and their income isn’t very high so when they win a cash prize, it could be equivalent or even more than their whole month’s salary. Not only is this a nice little surprise for them, it’s also like a reward and it gives them a bit of encouragement. This is what I am delighted to see.

Click here to read Matthew's story about Jackie.

Text and photos copyright 2008 The JC Group. All Rights Reserved.

Sept 2 (星期二)

小惊喜：

          今天下午要回公司开会，然后跟从北京来港的‘龙的传人’的得奖者和我旗下的艺人见面。我刚走进公司，就有一个小惊喜在我眼前出现了，原来《宝贝计划》的小婴儿Matthew和他的家人来到公司探望我。眼前的小Matthew已经三岁了，你们看看他的转变：

          我见到他们真的很高兴，三个小孩子都长大了，都非常可爱，特别是Matthew，他长了一头长发，看起来就像是一个小女孩，可爱得不得了，忍不住抱着他亲亲他。

          后来，我又领着他们一家人到我的家里探望我的两头狗儿Jonesie、JJ和两头猫儿叮叮和当当。 另外，‘龙的传人’的得奖者和其它艺人一起来参观我家。有一个女孩甫见到我家里的Jonesie和JJ，大感惊慌，马上想跑得远远，躲开狗儿。可是，Jonesie和JJ以为她跟牠们玩，连忙追着女孩，吓得她大哭，并躲进屋里不敢出来呢。原来她很怕狗的，难道她曾经被狗咬过？

          啊！今天我发现了一位最年轻的摄影师，虽然他年纪是小了一点儿，但是挺有摄影天份，这位年轻摄影师就是小Matthew了。突然间，我发现从小孩子的角度看世界原来是这样不相同的，很有趣，你们看看他所拍的照片：

中秋节party：

          晚上，我与公司员工和朋友一起开party，筵开十席。其实，也不是什么party，只是跟员工和朋友吃一顿饭，见见面而已。因为我很久没有在香港，也很久没有跟大家见面吃饭，所以借着这一次机会，就跟大家来一次提早预祝中秋节，或是跟一些生日或是快将生日的同事和朋友一起庆祝。因为对我来说，只要是大家开心，每天都可以是中秋节，正如大家相爱的话，天天都是情人节，不用二月十四日才送花给情人，什么时候想送都可以。

          席间，小Matthew又是众人的蜜糖儿，大家都争相抱他，和他合照，就是一些朋友带来的小朋友也跟他玩作一团，好不热闹。在这个时候，大家想想谁是最忙碌的人呢？聪明的读者肯定已经想到了，就是我的网站管理员Kath了，因为她忙于为小朋友拍照，又捕捉他们可爱的一面，忙得不可开交呢，你们看看：

          一如过往，为了增加现场气氛，当然少不了有现金抽奖的环节了。除了所有进场的人买抽奖券筹集了一些现金，我的朋友如杨受成也赞助了一些款项，我又拿了好几万元出来，最后总共筹得五万元作为抽奖现金。虽然不是很多钱，但是看到幸运儿走出来拿奖金的快乐笑脸，我也为他们高兴呢。

          让我在这里向大家介绍这个简单的抽奖游戏，每一次party，我都会有这个游戏环节的。就是每一个入场人士买抽奖劵，五十块一张，一百块三张，然后就可以抽奖了。

          后来，员工跟我说，员工当中，保洁员杨姐、负责做饭的阿姨和菲律宾工人们都是非常幸运的，每一次抽奖，他们不是抽到个人奖项，就是大奖，甚至是整张桌的‘桌奖’。由于他们的运气特别好，他们的桌子最快坐满人的，大家都希望叨他们的光，就算拿不到个人奖金，也可以分桌奖一杯羹呢！原来我公司有这样幸运的员工我也不知道呢，哈哈！

          无论如何，谁抽到奖金我都高兴，而这些平常在公司默默工作的小角色能够抽到奖，我就特别高兴，因为他们只是小职员，收入不会太高，能够抽到相等于一个月或是超过一个月薪水的奖金，不单是一个小惊喜，也给他们一点小鼓励或是奖赏，这是我乐于看到的。