Boogie Woogie Birthday Boy!

LaoMa had a great birthday bash this month.  We all clamored around tooting the horn about how great he is and ate cake!  Selden performed her annual birthday song.  Sadly, we only got a small clip of it but we are able to provide you with the finale.  You'll see Desiree's son, Steele, accompanying Selden with is dance moves! 

For those of you who missed it, the birthday song is posted in it's entirety below.  You can also see pictures of the celebration in the photo album here or in the carousel below as well.

We wish you many many more birthdays LaoMa (mostly because we enjoy Selden's songs so much!).

Boogie Woogie Birthday Boy of Seventy-Five
(Sung to the Andrews Sisters' 1941 hit: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B. with apologies!)

 

BOOGIE WOOGIE BIRTHDAY BOY OF 75

 

Born in Keene New Hampshire on a sunny morn
Now he's here in Bynum where it’s due to storm
He was a jarhead in Japan
And then his dream came true and he was off to Wuhan
He's been around the world
And yet he still survives
He's the Boogie Woogie birthday boy of seventy-five

Five below and eight above well golly gee
Everything seems simple when you know Taiji
Although the counts change all the time
He may be slowing down some but he can spin on a dime
And the man can talk,
Ask Gary, Dorothy, Vi
He's our Boogie Woogie birthday boy now seventy-five
 

(Trumpet Break)


And the students say
When he begins to jive,
That’s our Boogie Woogie Birthday Boy he’s seventy-five!

Ding Hongkui at 91

Yeye and LaoMa

Yeye and LaoMa

Ding Hongkui, 91 years old at this picture and reaching the end of a 60 year career of teaching at this same Snake Hill Pavilion. The foremost authority in China on Tang Pai, an almost 1400 year old Martial Art System. He never allowed himself to be called anything but Ding YeYe... Grandfather Ding... Fortune surely smiled on me to be able to study under this great man, and be called both his first Foreign Student and Closing Student. (Snake Hill Pavilion was--it is now a mah jong parlour--at the very place on Snake Hill where the 1911 Republican Revolution of Sun Yet- Sen began the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty!)