Contact in cyberspace

In an earlier post, I said that I came across a real gem of a contemporary Cantopop singer in HOCC.

I went online to hunt for websites about her and the first website that popped up when I did a google search was this one.

I got lost on the website and decided to e-mail for help. The site's administrator was really nice and guided me quite a bit through our MSN Messaging exchanges. I told her that I couldn't believe that I had not heard of HOCC until now, and that I had gone through almost all the HOCC videos on youtube. Her reply was succinct: she was also like that when she first heard of HOCC.


I think her very kind and very patient with me because of the following, which betrays the fact that I'm behind the curve in certain things:

- I asked her how to navigate the website because I was utterly confused (it's me - the website's actually well-organised);

- I asked her how she decided on her user name (a whistle is involved);

- I asked her why the singer was known as HOCC when her name was Ho Wan See (HOCC is a nickname - pronounced as Ho - C - C);

- I had to introduce myself because I realised that I had used my name as my MSN name instead of Plain Forgiven (she then told me her real name);

- I asked her how I could save an emoticon that she had sent to me during one of her replies (the emoticon was that of a fainting dog in her reply to me after I told her that my common sense and knowledge was affected by my three very long hospital stays of one month each during my primary school years);

- I told her about the HOCC post on my blog, warned her that it was a Christian blog but told her that I would not attempt to force Christ on her (I've kept my word);

- I asked her repeatedly about what she does for a living because I couldn't really figure it out (she's a ....sorry, I can't put it up here);

- Being new to MSN Messaging, my messages to her were extremely long and she said that usually the messages were meant to be short (After that, I started breaking up my usual string of 3-4 long messages into 10 short ones);

- I told her that I may help translate the Chinese articles on the website (but after looking at the articles, I have wisely decided to contribute to the forum in other ways);


- I called her "boss" during our exchanges because it was more exciting for me to message "Hi boss!" rather than "Hi site administrator" (she found that funny);


- I asked her whether I could write about her on my blog and mention that she is the person behind the HOCC forum but I won't name her (she said, sure);


I admire people who have a passion for something. It's not easy to set up a fan forum for years and to update it regularly with news articles, photographs, music videos etc.


I haven't yet asked her why she set up the forum or when she set it up, but I'm sure I'll get to those questions soon, through short MSN messages.


Many thanks, boss. You've been a wonderful contact in cyberspace for me. :-)