Hobbies and General Interests

• Music is what I enjoy the most. I especially love Shostakovich's music among my favorite composers/compositions, and enjoy attending concerts and listening to recordings.

• Other things that I enjoy doing include:
  • Traveling to different places to see/experience different scenery/people/culture. I love many of the natural wonders in Canada and US, as well as lively cities and historical sites in Europe and my native China.

  • Reading Chinese classics (prose in literary Chinese, poetry, etc.), history (eastern/western/religious/cultural/etc.), fictions (especially 19th century Russian/French/English realism/romanticism), kids books because of my daughters Christine and Lizzie, and other things (and music books, of course). Oh, yes, it's hard for me to start a day without reading a newspaper (but not USA Today!) first. I used to subscribe to Stereo Review, Motor Trends, and the like, but I only regularly read/browse these days New Yorker and National Geographic.

  • Movies of all kinds, including
    • serious dramas such as Little Big Man and Crime and Misdemeanor,
    • light and not-so-light comedies such as Dr. Strangelove, Purple Rose of Cairo, and Sweet and Low Down,
    • foreign films such as Les Enfant de Paradise, Farewell My Concubine, and Ran,
    • musicals such as Percival (Eric Rohmer) and West Side Story,
    • kids movies such as Beauty&Beast, Lilo&Stitch, and Shrek,
    • horrors such as Psycho and Misery,
    • mysteries such as Rear Window and Silence of the Lamb,
    • and, entertaining blockbusters such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park,

  • Dining: I enjoy many different types of food, love the selection/diversity of restaurants in Toronto.

  • Sports & recreation: I love hiking/camping in mountains and woods. Unfortunately, we don't have mountains around Dallas. I tried fishing a couple of times, but didn't catch anything, so lost interest in it. I like playing some card/board/computer games. I love watching football and soccer (every 4 years at world cup time!), and baseball too. Also tried to watch hockey when I was in Toronto, but the bleeding-month/missing-teeth turned me cold.