Hong Kong Heritage Museum

I woke up feeling absolutely terrible — really bad, like my body was refusing to cooperate. I forced myself out of bed, took a shower, and headed out the door. I got some food at a bakery on the way to the metro station, but it wasn't very good, which didn't help. I took a long train ride to the Heritage Museum to learn more about Hokien history.

The museum was pretty good! It was mostly untainted by the blight that took over the Museum of 'History' and had multiple interesting exhibits. There was a nice one about Bruce Lee and his impact, one about Buddhist art, one about Cantonese Opera, Hong Kong Pop Culture, and another on local comics.

The exhibits were great, but my low energy was holding me back. On top of that, I realized I had made a fatal planning mistake: I hadn’t packed my MAMA ticket for day two. I had planned to go to the show without stopping at the hotel again, but now I had to spend an extra hour commuting back and forth. Feeling gnawed by fatigue, I left a little earlier than planned and decided I needed some food. I got some expensive pizza in a local mall, and when even that didn’t cheer me up, I knew something was wrong.

So instead of wallowing in my misery and continuing my day up north, I went back to my hotel for a nap and some laundry.

Resting Up

Going back to my hotel was a great idea in the end!

I found a more convenient way to get to the concert venue for this evening.
I found a Mixue, a local chain that sells Sweet Teas, that I wanted to try.
I found a breakfast diner around the corner that looks promising.
I did some laundry, as I was running out of underwear.
I studied some Chinese with an app, because the signs were confusing me.
I recovered a lot of energy during my nap.
I met some nice ladies offering me a massage!

With clean clothes and a nap, I felt re-energized and ready to listen to some more Korean Popular Music!

On my way to the stadium, I got some more Sweet Tea, and I already noticed some characters I could read — cool!

MAMA - Day 2

I got to the stadium on time, grabbed some food and water, and took my seat with 10 minutes to spare.

The second day was quite similar to the first, even my seating was in the same area. The performances and the artists took turns again, but this time I wasn't that interested. The lineup was less appealing to me. I only had Cortis, Izna, Stray Kids, and Aespa to look forward to, so I focused more on the logistics of the show.

Light Sticks

Every seat had a lightstick in it. When turned on, it could flash different colors. It was really cool to see it all in action. But I kept wondering how it worked:

Can it detect the other lightsticks around it and figure out where it is? No, that would be too inaccurate and difficult to program.
Can it connect with the central control panel and figure out a protocol of what should be where? No, that would be too much communication with everyone in attendance.
Do the lightsticks have an ID, and does the ID have to match the seat? That would mean loading it manually on the hardware, and all the lightsticks have to be placed on the correct seats (which is prone to human error).

I even went as far as moving around to see if my pattern would change based on my location.

I eventually found the answer. On the bag that had the lightstick, there was a specific code with my area and seat number. So it has to be option 3. This might also be the simplest solution to do this, but it’s also the one that takes the most work.

My favorite performances

Again, if you want to watch all the performances, they are on their YouTube: All Performances.

But my favorite performances were these:

ZEROBASEONE - Doctor! Doctor! + ICONIK

This stage was so cool! They tried to honor Hong Kong with the Noir theme and the small streets. I liked the music more than I expected.

AESPA - Dirty Work + Rich Man

Their releases weren't my favorite this year, but they still know how to perform on a stage. Winter coming down with a guitar gave me a nosebleed.

G-DRAGON - Heartbreaker

The 'Main Event' of tonight. There were so many VIPs in the crowd, it seemed like half the people were just there for G-DRAGON.

A Worthy Tribute

After G-DRAGON's performance, a large chunk of the audience stood up and left the venue, missing the last and most prestigious part of this 'award show' — handing out the award for 'Artist of the Year.'

To hand out this award, they brought in Chow Yun Fat, a Hong Kong actor known for his roles in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.'

When he entered the stage, he immediately put everyone left in the stadium at ease. He asked everyone to rise and hold a minute of silence for the victims, and all the lights went dark. After two days of vapid, media-trained condolences, this one felt genuine. He tapped right into the heart of what the locals were feeling. After the lights came back on, he cracked some jokes and announced the winner.

It was G-DRAGON — not my pick, to say the least. Not wanting to get stuck in traffic again, I didn’t stay for their entire speech and left the venue early.

I went back to the hotel and felt pretty good about how the day went. The nap worked great, and I had more energy during the concert. I treated myself to some Döner and another milk tea. I felt like I spun this day around pretty effectively!

Final thoughts

Attending MAMA live was pretty cool. Being there with all these other fans, seeing all these different acts perform their best songs of the year, the logistics, the lightsticks — it was a spectacle.

But the awards of this 'award' show felt… vanity-driven, to say it politely. Awards with names like:

Global Trend Song: Awarded to 'Revel Heart' by IVE because AESPA won all the other female prizes
Inspiring Achievement: Awarded to SUPER JUNIOR for showing up
Music Visionary of the Year: Awarded to KPop Demon Hunters, because they had to give it an award somehow
Favorite Asian Artist: Awarded to JO1 — a Japanese group, because Korean isn’t Asian?

And worst of all, the Breakthrough Artist award went to AllDayProject. It used to be two awards, for 'Rookie of the Year' for both genders. But AllDayProject is a coed group, and one of the members happens to be the heiress of a billion-dollar supermarket chain, so they changed it. Everyone expected that they would win this award after the change was announced.

These awards, along with the fact the artists knew they would win as soon as they were put on stage, but still acted surprised, really popped the bubble for me.Most of the prizes, except for the four daesangs, are just there so they have time to set up the next stage.

After all this, the thing that stuck with me the most was the feeling of: Maybe I am getting too old for this.