Author: stlplace

Categories
Stocks

You shall seek the truth

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(Below was written on 01-08-2008)

and the truth will make you free. That’s the word adopted from the sign at the main building of UT-Austin.

In investing, I felt my understanding of a stock is sometimes like a blind man’s view of elephant. The main reason, is not because I am not insider. I know many great investors (hint: the old guy at Omaha) have developed their own ways to find and value good stocks, which I do NOT have. So what will I do? I will seek the truth through:

1) Academic study: through CFA program
2) Participate in the market, learn from practice and own mistakes
3) Learn from others’ success and mistakes

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http://www.mitbbs.com/article/Stock/27936951_4.html (this link no longer exists because the website is gone a few years ago)


很多人喜欢等picks.更多人喜欢千辛万苦的找2 baggers, 3 baggers, 10 baggers.

其实这都不是最重要的. 资金管理和风险控制比什么都重要.

环顾一下, 能够经过很多个牛市熊市生存下来的大牛, 而且越来越富的, 选股不一定第
一. 但是资金管理和交易风险控制肯定是第一.

选股选得再好, 不懂资金管理和风险控制,到最后还是得衰败. 因为没有人能够一直都
对..就算是70%都对也没用. 碰巧那30%是all in 加margin的话, 不被wipe out就很幸
运了.

一举翻好几倍的, 每个牛市都不会少. 但是每一次牛市结束, 生存下来, 继续靠炒股增
加财富的是少之又少.

Categories
Fun Fun Video Saint Louis

昨天圣马20/21英里处的供水站

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油管短视频：YouTube Shorts

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Say bye to Robinhood Gold, for now

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Today I decided to pull the plug on Robonhood Gold. I joined the Gold last year to take advantage of the 3% match of Roth IRA, which is $240 for $8,000 worth of IRA. But in last few years, I am increasingly tired of their gimmicky, including but not limited to the expansion to Cryptos (remember they did the countdown around the new year, and give away Dogecoin and bitcoin), and now I started to appreciate what Charlie Munger said about them (a casino).

Full disclosure: I participated in one of the countdown and received 18.67 units of Dogecoin, worth $3.40 today, down $2.55 from the day I received it (I think it was 12/31/2024). Personally I am with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger re: cryptos, and I think they are poos.

I will probably pull out my money when there is no fees associated with the withdrawal. Also note I am a very early customer of Robinhood back in year 2015 when they were brand new, and I do appreciate their zero transaction fee revolution to the brokerage industry. But it seems now they are the bad guys: which is not uncommon – somewhat reminds me of this blog post, and this video: I recall Mearsheimer commented the youth will be corrupted when they rose to the power.

Tariff impact in the USA

(The Guardian) From peppercorns to plastic forks: US businesses that rely on Chinese products reel from Trump tariffs

Categories
Politics

America’s drug problem

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Or drug pandemic. Now I am a strong believer of “ultimately it’s an America’s own problem”. Not Mexico’s problem, not China’s problem, not Colombia’s problem, neither Afghanistan’s problem either.

George Yeo on China’s Century of Humiliation : I first saw this one from RedNote.

I understand no US president will ever admit this fact. But fact is fact. The demand of drugs in the USA created all the supply in Mexico, drug cartel and so on. If you lived in the US for a while, you will understand the drug problem is wide spread, because the drugs are widely available. In addition to the fentanyl which is in the news a lot in recent years. The opioid crisis in the USA is a epidemic in last 26 years. And personally I think this is more than a medical problem or medicine problem, it’s rather a society problem. Think about this: if someone tries to smuggle those kinds of drugs in Singapore or in China, he or she will likely be prosecuted and possibly punished quite harshly. In the USA, not only people get away from those kinds of crazy stuff, the new laws are passed to make the lighter drugs (I don’t know a better word other than lighter), such as marijuana. I just could not grasp why law makers would go that direction. I do understand some views or rationale of the libertarians.

If you never been to the USA, I think the Netflix series Ozark is a good intro of US drug problems.

PS: 华人会被投入集中营吗？ (2025-04-22 07:34:09) I found some of the comments to be interesting too, one example is shown below.

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见道2025-04-23 03:31:16回复悄悄话做为少数族裔的华人尤其是第一代移民，不要幻想什么融入，你永远是非我族类的人除非混血3代以上再谈融入，这是生物本性决定的，不要怪别人。所以，所有为少数族裔争取利益（即使是表面文章）的政党，团体或人物，华裔移民应当支持或鼓励，至少不能支持如MAGA之类的政党，团体或人物，因为其本质是反移民及白人至上的。当危机或战争来临时，以国家需要（政治的或经济的）牺牲少数族裔太可能发生了！

======

I recall back in Nov 2016, when DT was elected (over HRC), I did have this fear. Of course, now the fear is even more intense considering the recent development.

Blame others is always easier

But it doesn’t fix the problem. I wrote below on 01-31-2025

This is also a problem of “blame others instead of self-examine or self-reflect”. In a way it’s similar to the victim mentality. Both are not helpful. Here is another example of victim mentality: which was mostly made to get voters or get voter turnout in political campaign. It (anti-Christian bias in the USA) doesn’t have many teeth. Quote here: Critics see the task force initiative as unnecessary and pandering to Trump’s base. But some Christian supporters said it is overdue, claiming the Biden administration had discriminated against them through actions and inactions.

I don’t know how long this web page will exist – both are US government web pages: but it seems the new admin is purging a lot of web pages in the government websites.

(CDC) Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2003–2023

Products – Data Briefs – Number 522 – December 2024

(NIH) Drug Overdose Deaths: Facts and Figures

Drug Overdose Deaths: Facts and Figures | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Btw, the American drug problem is a symptom of the society’s problems: it’s definitely not only on Mexico’s Cartel or the supply of raw material from China. If the Americans don’t take Fentanyl, the drug trade from Mexico will be cut in half. But it’s much easier to blame on others, and the new president started to apply additional tariffs because of this.

Categories
Life Music

你曾是少年

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第一次听这首歌，是因为我最近开始听Ayen阿昕的歌。S.H.E【你曾是少年】吉他彈唱 Acoustic guitar cover 畢業季｜Ayen何璟昕: btw, 我同意Ayen阿昕唱完歌后说的那一段鼓励毕业生的话。很多年之前，我应该还是大学低年级，有一次系里让我们全年级去一个大的阶梯教室开会，有一个日本留学生（研究生）给我们讲话：他用中文写了两个字，初衷 (Original Intention)。他说的也是类似的意思：就是提醒我们不要忘记出发前，我们最初的想法。

这里有official video – S.H.E [ 你曾是少年 Wings of my words ] Official Music Video (｢少年班｣電影主題曲).

KKBox 有歌词。以下摘抄几句：

或許再過上幾年 你也有張虛偽的臉
難道我們 是為了這樣 才來到這世上
這問題來不及想
每一天一年 總是匆匆忙忙

你我來自湖北四川廣西寧夏河南山東貴州雲南的小鎮鄉村
曾經發誓 要做了不起的人
卻在北京上海廣州深圳某天夜半忽然醒來 站在寂寞的陽臺
只想從這無邊的寂寞中逃出來

======

At the same time, somewhat related topic, please read this one as you see fit – 人到中老年少折腾

PS:

I came across this video 20岁和30岁的我：跨越10年的合唱《给十年后的我》 (Douyin, Bilibii) and think it has similar meaning.

Categories
iPhone app Music

Playlist

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Music playlist is quite common nowadays. For me personally I was a bit late to the party. I did use playlist on my iPhone Apple Music app, and on my YT: both desktop and iPhone. But recently since I started to participate the group exercise class at the J, I realized playlist and music in general is a big deal. I believe the Yoga teachers at the J has a playlist too.

An example or case study

清新女声何璟昕：薄荷糖般的味道甜入我心 (QQ Music QQ音乐 ) Note: you will likely need to log in to see the content. For me I use my WeChat login (SSO) for many China-based website/apps. You can read more about Ayen 何璟昕 here

I created a few Playlists for Ayen 何璟昕 on YT and YT Music – this one specially for original songs – Ayen阿昕原创+新歌. Note I have the premium subscription for YT and it allows me to listen to the YT Music in the background, in addition to some other features such as skipping ads in a video.

And I just noticed she has some playlists on YT too: this one is for 翻唱 cover – Ayen cover 何璟昕的翻唱

She did quite a bit of 翻唱 (cover, or acoustic cover) in last few years. I like them all. Some of songs are new to me because I left mainland China in summer/fall 1997. Below a “mixes” of 翻唱 cover songs I listened on 04-08-2025 early morning – “Mixes are playlists YouTube makes for you” per YT. I think the link above may expire after certain time. Btw, I think “mixes” or the YT generated list is a good way to explore what’s out there, because YT will recommend new songs. So in other words, this kind of playlist has some discovery functions. Update 04-20-2025 Btw, I realized this is a dynamic list. Update 04-28-2025: I started to appreciate the computers (and the AI) may have an edge or advantage to create playlist, based on the listening history. The recommendation algorithm may be similar to the social media posts suggestion.

【Mr. 森林】Acoustic guitar cover | Ayen 何璟昕 (Oct 16, 2020, this is YT upload date, same below) Hint: this one has about one minute of funny behind the scenes 花絮/彩蛋 videos in the end – made me realize that it’s not easy to learn a new song and so on. Obviously, it depends on the song itself too. Also, I think many people would appreciate some of the light hearted carefree nature in the behind the scenes 花絮/彩蛋 too.

梅艷芳 – 似是故人來 Acoustic guitar cover 吉他弹唱 粵語翻唱+旗袍 | Ayen 何璟昕

千千闕歌 | 吉他彈唱 cover 陳慧嫻/張國榮 經典粵語歌 | Ayen 何璟昕 (Apr 17, 2020)

Eason 陳奕迅 – Shall we talk 女生版 Acoustic cover (Jan 21, 2022) I didn’t pay attention to Eason 陳奕迅 to be honest, and only till very recently I read his Wikipedia page.

陳奕迅 – 苦瓜 粵語吉他彈唱女生版（完整版）| Ayen 何璟昕

鄭秀文 | 終身美麗 Cover 吉他彈唱 何璟昕 (Feb 15, 2019)

一人有一個夢想 – 黎瑞恩 (Mar 30, 2021)

陳奕迅 Eason – 最佳損友 Acoustic cover (Aug 28, 2021)

謝安琪【喜帖街】Kay Tse 鋼琴+吉他彈唱 這是一首關於懷舊的粵語歌 | cover by Ayen 何璟昕 (Mar 22, 2020; make sure watch till the end 🙂

衛蘭歌曲串燒！低半度/驗傷/就算世界無童話/街燈晚餐 新歌老歌 吉他彈唱cover | Ayen 何璟昕 (Mar 1, 2020) This is a new experiment of singing 4 songs together (one after another) – 《低半度》《驗傷》《就算世界無童話》《街燈晚餐》

王菲/李健 – 傳奇 Acoustic cover｜吉他彈唱｜Ayen何璟昕 (Sept 30, 2022)

盛夏的果實 – 莫文蔚 Acoustic cover｜吉他彈唱｜Ayen何璟昕 (Aug 12, 2022)

你的眼神 国粤双语版 cover蔡琴/卫兰/林志美 Acoustic cover｜吉他弹唱｜Ayen何璟昕 (Sept 9, 2020)

周傑倫《回到過去》女生版宿舍版吉他彈唱 | Ayen 何璟昕 (Sept 25, 2020)

一场游戏一场梦 – 王杰 Cover 吉他弹唱 – 电影《风中有朵雨做的云》插曲 何璟昕 (Apr 7, 2019)

粵語民謠「四季歌」女生版 Acoustic cover 生活需要一些安靜🍃｜粵語歌吉他彈唱｜Ayen何璟昕 (Jul 22, 2024) My comment: one of my favorites, I like this simple folk song 🙂

阿郎戀曲（許冠傑）Cover 吉他彈唱 何璟昕 (Jul 16, 2017)

一生何求 陈百强 (Feb 26, 2021)

Other playlists I plan to create

Some of my older readers may know I have an iPod Nano 7th generation. Right now I just sync all my iTunes songs that I like from Mac to the iPod. Thinking creating playlist next (from Mac, then sync to the iPod Nano).

Usage of playlist

I think there are at least two use cases for me. One is the background music during work. Another one is background music for sleep. I used to listen to the radio (more specifically NPR or over the night it’s more likely BBC World News), but listening to news has its downside, because sometimes the news can be depressing, and other times news would keep me awake. I prefer some calming music over news. A secondary factor is using iPod nano as radio drains battery more quickly.

More on YT Playlist

I found playlist is integrated with YouTube Studio (I create YT video there too). I have 203 playlists: I think I need to clean up some. Also the link above is only available to me (because I am the owner of my YT Studio account).

PS:

Google search “can people make money from curating music playlist”

Search Labs | AI Overview

Yes, people can make money curating music playlists. Platforms like Playlist Push and others offer curators payment for reviewing music and maintaining active playlists. Pay varies, with some curators earning $1.50 to $15 per song reviewed, depending on their playlist’s listenership.

Btw, I just noticed two of my YT Music playlists have more than 1,000 views.

Ayen阿昕翻唱

and

Ayen阿昕原创+新歌

Categories
Career

Monday is not my favorite day

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Originally written on Feb 15, 2005 (this a bit more than 20 years ago 🙂

Monday is not my favorite day. When I first started to working (on Oct. 2000), I was still taking 2 evening classes in my university. And one class (Computer Graphics using Java) was hold on Monday evening. At that time I was fairly new to programming, and I usually spent the whole weekend on the homework and then went to work on Monday.

Monday morning was our team (group) meeting, my boss is a good guy, but he is a bit abusive, and he always tried to pick on someone or some projects on his Monday staff meeting. When I first started, I happened to be on a project he paid a lot attention because it was a new product and had tight release schedule everything. So that’s another reason I hated Monday. I remember one morning he said another developer (Mr. M. in his 50s) and I wrote some shxx code and Mr. M. argued that we were not writing shxx code.

These days things are better because I no longer take Monday evening classes (when I took classes in community college later on, I tried to avoid Monday evening classes). So I did have my regular weekend. And I no longer have the Monday morning group meeting. I left the group, my former boss actually left the company (I missed him actually because under he bad temper he has a good heart and cares his people. Much better than some guys who smiles at you but stabs you in the back when chances arise (my Computer Graphics professor, he gave me the only “C” I have in my 3 years’ course work at Rolla). But I still don’t like Monday in particular because my brain does not work well that day, and now I have one on one with my current boss. He is a decent guy, but he also asks tough questions (he knows the stuff).

Continue reading “Monday is not my favorite day”
Categories
gadgets

AirPods: revisited

Reading Time: 2 minutes

AirPods 3 about to die now?

It seems like it, as I noticed it started to drop connections a few times last few days (need to observe more to make sure). I recall my old 1st Gen AirPods does this a lot when it was near the end of its life. AirPods usually has 2 to 3 years of useful life, per refurb.me

I ordered it via Chase Ultimate Rewards on Nov 12, 2022. I spent15,643 Points (that’s $156.43 if we assume 100 points for 1 dollar, and this is after tax).

Assume I started using it right away, which was very likely, as I recall I got a bit tired of my then AirPods Pro gen 1. So basically, I already got 2.5 years of usage out of it.

AirPods I have owned personally

1st Generation AirPods (died and recycled at Apple store West County) – I probably bought it in year 2018. I was stunned by its seamless switching between iPhone and MacBook. I bought it after seeing a friend wearing it and he said it’s good. He didn’t lie 🙂 || I bought a similar one for my wife on Feb 16, 2020, at Amazon. Why are hers still working? Note I worn this thing quite a bit when I was working for the Mastercard, because a lot of times I don’t want to be disturbed (I sit at a corner cubicle), both for legit disturbance (people walking by or talking), or I just want peace. Later on I realized this is a hack I can deploy more because if I put on AirPods (even without listening to anything), sometimes people will assume I was on a call or listening to something, so that they won’t bother me.

1st Generation AirPods Pro: purchased Nov 25, 2020, on Amazon. Died and trying to sell the case on eBay now). Update 04-13-2025: sold the case on eBay.

2nd Generation AirPods Pro (current in use): bought at Costco U City store in year 2024.

AirPods 3 (seems about to die): as I said above, I bought it from the Chase Ultimate Rewards Apple store. || Update 04-10-2025: not sure about the “about to die” part, but it sometimes would act weird, basically the sound would be like the cassette player ran out of battery when I listened to a song on iPhone (YT Music). I used AirPods 3 for pairing with Windows Laptop too – while the integration between AirPods and Windows is not as smooth as the Mac, now I realized it has one advantage too. Let me explain, AirPods will switch between Mac and iPhone automatically, so for example, I was listening to music on iPhone, and I sit before the Mac Mini (my desktop), and open a browser and it has some video or audio playing, the AirPods would automatically switch – which was not my intension. This won’t happen (the automatic switching) between iPhone and Windows.

AirPods 4 (my 15-year-old has it): bought from Amazon on Dec 5, 2024.

Last but not least: please make sure turn on “Find My” for your AirPods: if you haven’t done so yet.

PS:

The AirPods are mostly made in Vietnam now. Apple may or may not raise the price of AirPods due to the new tariff (46%).

Categories
advice and tips Career finance Life Tips

Don’t work too hard, work smart

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My generation (so called Gen X in the USA, people born between from 1965 to 1980) was usually told to “work hard” when we grew up – I found this is true both in the China and in the USA. I think in addition to parents, quite a few teachers emphasized this too – for me personally my middle school teacher 周国夫老师 emphasized it quite a bit.

But over the years I realized this is not necessarily true or the best way to handle work. I recall my project lead at Unigraphics Solutions (UGS Corp.) said once on this topic:

Don’t just work hard, work smarter too. The latter is probably more important.

By that time, I was already over 30 years old.

About 20 years ago I recall my golf instructor (or should I call him coach? He is a pro btw) said: hold the club about 70% tight, don’t hold it 100% tight.

Maybe we should apply the same logic to school, study and work too? And investing in equities (stocks) and bonds as well?

My Zhenhai middle school exp: with all the craziness going on, we had some fun time such as the ad-hoc co-ed basketball – I remember it was during my math teacher and counselor Zhou Guofu 周国夫 老师 🙂

Btw, I recall my best teacher – Chen Bing (高一数学老师). I think he made me to appreciate the beauty of math 数学之美，and encouraged me to learn as much as practical, and participate the math competition. Again we don’t just work hard on it – because math competitions have problems outside of the normal textbooks. The most important here is be passionate about harder math problems – “working harder” won’t do much about it, btw.

“We don’t know if we will die from overworking but why take chance” – probably said by Ronald Reagan (per Charlie Munger or Warren Buffett). Update: it seems Edgar Bergen talked about this first – “Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” — Edgar Bergen (source: reddit).

Last but not least, probably one of the hardest working place I worked

It seems that place is quite transactional(people mostly work for money). But I did gain some experience on production support and operation. Also communicate as precisely as possible. Once again: work smarter is more relevant there. In fact I worked pretty hard, and I was still laid off in early 2019 – and I knew the main reason of layoff – the managers didn’t like me 🙁

Btw, I don’t believe in pleasing everyone helps one’s job security, or pleasing every manager one has. At the same time, that place has a tradition of laying off about 5 to 10% people every year (usually at the beginning of a calendar year). And in early 2019 I was somewhat caught off guard, probably because I was getting somewhat complacent. But that’s okay, as I explained in the “layoffs” blog post: one door closes and another door will open. Also it gives me a new opportunity at a new place. So there is that.

Categories
Music

Cantonese song and lyrics writer

Reading Time: 5 minutes

When I was in college in Wuhan (1989 to 1993), some of the most popular songs were in Cantonese, and were sung by Hong Kong based singers. This was because at the time, the mainland just opened up, and culture wise it was way behind both Hong Kong and Taiwan, thus the Mandarin pop were mostly from Taiwan, and the Cantonese pop were mostly from Hong Kong. They in turn “borrowed” some popular song or music from Japan, which is even more advanced.

Fast forward 30 years, it seems to me the Cantonese pop declined a bit because the old generation singers in HK, who are mostly in their 60s, have mostly retired. One thing I noticed recently, there are some new singers and song writers that are based both in mainland or in HK, and they are continuing this important tradition of writing Cantonese songs.

I listed some of them below. Will update as I came across them more. Note the link in Douyin.com is not easily accessible outside of China. I will try to find some other sources in that case.

*FireLand火土 (ins; YT; my YT Playlist here)

He (or she) is the author of 【粵語】想見你想見你想見你｜火土填詞 x AYAN何璟昕｜想見你劇集主題曲

From Instagram it seems he is from HK.

*陳鈺海 (Douyin page, 抖音）

*Mr. Chen doesn’t have a social media account or something like that, at least I found it yet. He maybe the most prolific 粤语填词人。I consider him to be the best among the young folks too.

He is the author of 《時間不等你》. This seems to be one of Ayen Ho a.k.a. 何璟昕‘s grownup song, if I may.

放手以后 

I also think 放手以后 Letting Go is a bit similar. I talked about 放手以后 right below this. More on Mr Chen: quote Carlos (who is 陈钰海’s teacher) ‘s instagram

…… 第二站到了荔枝乡茂名，数年前在网上开始教学生填词，三年间陈钰海名字已经在国内填词界名无人不识，有80多首原创作品上市(果然青出于蓝)，…… (roughly translated into English: my student Chen Yu hai has made tremendous progress being a Cantonese lyrics writer in last 3 years)

Btw, this is the short clip for 放手以后 on Douyin, and it’s available on the WeChat too.

Other songs

Also, 粵語填詞，《不讓我的眼淚陪我過夜》，學生陳鈺海讓齊秦金曲粵語重現

【粤语版】李荣浩 – 乌梅子酱｜小清新吉他弹唱版

希望你被这个世界爱着 国粤双语版 粤语词@陈钰海～菜鸟填词 (Blibili). 何璟昕的微信公众号(Ayen何璟昕)上也有这个短视频。YT Shorts by Ayen 希望你被这个世界爱着 国粤双语版.

One thing a bit unfortunate is Mr. Chen doesn’t have a YT Channel. Note for me personally it’s much easier to get to YT as I am in the USA, and it’s harder to get to Douyin etc. Also, I noticed quite a few people mostly posted on Douyin. I can understand to some extent, thinking it’s likely their main audience is based in mainland China.

Also noticed the composer for the song 時間不等你》is 石羽函 (baidu; apple music), and Mr. Shi is quite talented musician, singer and song writer.

*Carlos 卡洛斯 (FB, Instagram, YouTube)

(YT) 放手以后 by 卡洛斯偕同填词学生陈钰海，及网红何璟昕于内地发表的第一首原创作品，在内地各大平台同时发佈，香港暂时未有得听 (Carlos’ Instagram). Note Carlos is also the composer for the song. Also note the song is available on YT now.

*心之洛 (google search here; my YT Playlist here)

@lokslyrics on YouTube and Bilibili (note he has much more stuff on Bilibili)

He (or she) wrote the 【哪吒2】片尾曲《在故事的最終》粵語版｜港風填詞翻唱｜唱哭每個成長的孩子 Acoustic cover｜Ayen何璟昕 || Noticed the word “故鄉阡陌” and it reminds me of my childhood hometown and the village, the village school, and the 阡陌 I walked from my home to the village school, and so on. The word 阡陌 /qiānmò/ is no longer commonly used in modern Chinese (mandarin) anymore.

阡和陌分别指田间南北方向和东西方向的小路。泛指田间纵横交错的小路。
 「躬耕农田，出入 阡陌」

Here is another beautiful song written by him (it appears 心之洛 is a gentleman – from his YT Channel – I saw 他/他的) 【粤语版】若把你（cover Kirsty刘瑾睿）温柔粤语版【AyenX心之洛】Acoustic cover 吉他弹唱 and sung by one and only Ayen 何璟昕 🙂

《爱如火》温柔粤语版cover｜Ayen何璟昕 X 心之洛｜粤语歌吉他弹唱

超絕粵語填詞！張韶涵《麻瓜》粵語版

Also, update 05-08-2025, I just created a playlist for his songs on YT.

*Jericho Liang Bilibili Douyin

He (or she) wrote Cantonese lyrics for 粤语版【世界赠予我的】王菲｜Ayen何璟昕, plus a few other songs Ayen sung (I will add more as I saw them).

*Ayen Ho 何璟昕 (links to Wikipedia)

You may notice that I already wrote a blog post about her. One thing keep in mind is she is multi-talented, and she can do song writing (both compose and lyrics), as well as sing and producing videos. She manages all her social media and music platform on her own: as explained here 一個人就是一個團隊？/揭秘：我平時是如何一個人製作視頻的！

Last but not least, I noticed she does write for intro of a song on YT (e.g., again using 時間不等你【粵語新歌】as an example and graphic design too. Here is what (I assume) 陳鈺海 and Ayen 何璟昕 wrote (YT video here). Beautiful, isn’t it? I googled “芻狗” because I don’t know the word 🙂

時間不仁，以萬物為芻狗……

在這個喧囂的世界里，時間如同流水般匆匆流逝，轉眼間，我們已經來到了一個又一個的時刻。曾經總以為時間很多很多，後來才明白，時間無情地帶走著我們的一切，無論是青春的容顏，還是歲月的滄桑。因此，我們應該學會珍惜時間，珍惜愛，因為時間不會等待任何人。

時間 不會在等你
不會在倒退
有天醒覺 掛念著誰

曾經總以為時間很多很多，後來才明白，時間無時無刻都在帶走你的一切……所以，請珍惜時間，珍惜愛。

如還幸有愛 請你及時
別要 等一天追悔

......

She wrote quite a few songs, most of them are from young girls’ perspective: I would say girls between 16 and middle 20s of age. Her song is uplifting for the most part, but added a bit sad elements (looking back), and sometimes I felt they are curing, probably both due to her folksy music 民谣 and her unique voice, as well as Cantonese dialect. I am going to give some examples below:

Uplifting: 原創粵語歌曲 何璟昕 Ayen【如果今天天气正好 Nice day, Blossom age, without you】 Official HD MV

Curing: 何璟昕 Ayen《月光 Moonlight 》官方高畫質 Official HD MV || 摘抄一段歌词，when did I last hear the word 徜徉 in real world? I don’t remember.

月光 愈光 鋪在海上
摻雜回憶 並肩徜徉
再沒有哪天 似這個晚上
你共我 看月色 純真的漂亮

徜徉/chángyáng/动词

悠闲自在地行走。 「徜徉于山水之间」

Beautiful, isn’t it?

More on the Beauty of Cantonese language 粤语之美 古汉语之美

您真的聽懂《Shall We Talk》嗎？解讀林夕愛的哲學，聽歌學閱讀理解，現場鋼琴彈奏，20200302（中文字幕）(YT)

Quote a bit of the lyrics of Shall We Talk below.

明月光為何又照地堂?
寧願在公園躲藏 不想喝湯
任由目光留在漫畫一角
為何望母親一眼就如罰留堂?

As explained in the video above, this has a lot of culture stuff behind it. Keep in mind the lyricist: 林夕 is one of the best Cantonese lyricists in HK and in the world. Also Eason 陳奕迅 – Shall we talk 女生版 Acoustic cover (YT video).

And 最後的茱麗葉-容祖兒 愛後餘生-謝霆鋒 小日子-容祖兒 ShallWeTalk-陳奕迅 英皇金曲 medley cover by 許靖韻 Angela Hui feat 洪卓立 Ken Hung (about 10 mins mark): I personally like this video quite a bit as the lady (girl) next to許靖韻 Angela Hui tried to comfort her when Angela was getting emotional towards the end of this song. And the gentleman next to Angela 洪卓立 Ken Hung finished the song for Angela too. Such a caring and sweet team.

Another example: 遙遠的她. And just quote one sentence below:

遙遠的她 彷彿借風聲跟我話

And the YT video is here – 張學友 – 遙遠的她 女生版 Acoustic guitar cover. The lyrics of the song was written by famous author 香港粤语填词人潘源良。Quote Wikipedia:

潘源良（英语：Calvin Poon Yuen Leung，1958年11月8日—），香港填词人、电影编剧及导演、足球评述员、书法家，有“浪子词人”之称

Reference:

Cantopop at Wikipedia

粤语 (Cantonese) at Wikipedia

I don’t see an “粤语填词” in Wikipedia. In fact I don’t know how to translate it into English either. Thinking about how I do that, as well as potentially creating such as an entry on Wikipedia. (Update) I saw 歌迷问：为什么说用粤语填词，比普通话填词难太多? at Zhihu.com. Also I did see 填词 at Wikipedia.

PS:

Not directly related to this, the other day I talked to my 15-year-old about the English song I listened when I was in college in Wuhan, and how much I paid for Whitney Houston tape then about CNY 15 Yuan. And I told her it’s similar to the cost of nice meal nowadays. Then I was a jobless college kid, 15 Yuan was something. I recall my dad used to give me about 100 Yuan a month in the school year 1992 to 1993, for a month worth of food etc.

I also recall, when I was listening to all those beautiful Cantonese songs, for that matter the mandarin pop songs written by Jonathan Lee (李钟盛), suddenly I realized that in a way, if we use the software engineers as analogy, the singer is a front end engineer, and the composer, lyrics writer and so on are back end engineer. We know in software world it’s hard to find true full stack engineers, but in the music world, Ayen is one because she pretty much does everything herself.

PS 2 (05-24-2025) I came across this wikipedia page on Cantopop, and I contributed a little as I saw fit. I am not fully convinced that “进入21世纪，粤语歌曲影响力渐减…” though.