What a Kid by Alvin Cheng

Joe Hisaishi “Merry Go Round of Life,” 2004.

alvincheng31 — 2025-02-22 06:00:38 UTC

Shiro Sagisu "Number One," 2008

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-09 00:30:30 UTC

Jay Chou "Chrysanthemum Terrace," 2006

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-09 00:32:27 UTC

Tatsuro Yamashita “Ride on Time,” 1980.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-09 00:36:09 UTC

Rabpit "Dream," 2013.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-09 00:55:05 UTC

Hiroshi Kitadani "We Are!" 1999.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-09 01:07:01 UTC

Wada Kouji "Butterfly," 1999

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-09 01:53:14 UTC

The meaning of my name

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-10 05:42:36 UTC

At the time of the in class writing assignment, I'd never asked the meaning of my name before, I got curious, so i asked. My English name was just something they thought was nice, nothing deeper, but my Chinese name 郑斯扬, means to blow in the winds of 郑州 a city in Henan where my ancestors come from.

Hirokazu Ando & Jun Ishikawa "Green Greens," 2011

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-10 06:05:18 UTC

Who are we

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-11 22:25:29 UTC

My father’s side all immigrated from Hong Kong, from the top, we have my grandfather who is currently 100, he had 9 children who my dad is the second oldest, and that generation had 18 children, I am the youngest.

Tatsuro Yamashita "Bokura no Natsu no Yume" 2009

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-11 23:44:06 UTC

What we do

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-11 23:56:18 UTC

Our close proximity allows us to constantly visit each other, celebrate holidays, and vacation. The holiday parties and vacations need organization, who’s coming? Who’s bringing what? Whose house are we going to? Have we booked the spots yet? And that was always the parent’s job. But now that my generation has become adults, we are the ones doing it. We are in charge of scheduling, booking, accounting, and cooking for the events.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:03:31 UTC

“Ride on Time” by Tatsuro Yamashita was apparently the first song I ever listened to. The song is about the future, how you should embrace how time moves and go with it, "ride on time", seize opportunity, don't let it push or pull you.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:07:45 UTC

Howls Moving Castle is my favorite Ghibli movie, so I chose “Merry Go Round of Life”. This was the beginning of my merry go round, hopefully like the piece, with a waltz like elegance and a beautiful piano.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:08:02 UTC

Have to represent my Chinese heritage in some way, I chose “Chrysanthemum Terrace” because my mom is the biggest Jay Chou fan and would watch everything he stared in, and I watched them with her, Curse of the Golden Flower the movie this song was written for was her favorite.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:08:16 UTC

"Dream" by Rabpit is a great instrumental piece, it was written for a rhythm game called Deemo, a lot of it's music is piano focused, at the time the game released, I was taking piano lessons with my brother and to be able to play Deemo songs was a large motivation as to why I continued lessons, "Dream" is my favorite song, and the first one you play in the game.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:08:36 UTC

KIRBYYYYY!!! "Green Greens" specifically from the Kirby's Return to Dreamland series is a track I'm heavily nostalgic for. My favorite Kirby game to date, as a kid, I sunk over 700 hours playing Return to Dreamland, fully completing the game on 2 different save files.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:09:20 UTC

"We Are!" by Hiroshi Kitadani is the first opening theme song of "One Piece", one of the most famous anime in the world, "One Piece" has and continues to be a part of my life. When I found it when I was 5 it was on episode 557, I've been watching it weekly since then and as of 3/8/2025 it's on episode 1122 and im 19 and i'm still watching it.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:10:02 UTC

"Butterfly" by Wada Kouji is the opening theme song of "Digimon Adventure", Digimon & especially this cast of characters are special to me because they grew up with me, I watched the cast when we were kids, when they were teens i was a teen and now they're adults with me as well.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:10:24 UTC

“Number One” is the theme of the main character of an anime called Bleach, a show I grew up with. It’s a song I listened to throughout my youth with my cousins and which makes sense since we were so competitive with each other.

alvincheng31 — 2025-03-12 00:10:40 UTC

"Our Summer Memories" by Tatsuro Yamashita was the ending song for a movie called "Summer Wars". The movie goes into great detail about the structure and relationships between members of a large extended family. The movie and song connected with me as i could see so many things in the movie that mirrored my own relationships with my family.