Hello lovelies! I hope you’re all had an amazing weekend! I hope that you’re somewhere warm, enjoying the fine company of your loved ones and entering The Artist competition :)

Big milestones are an important time to reflect on the past and all the people and experiences that made us who we are today. As I’m approaching my birthday soon, I often think back to the first decade of my life, which was spent growing up in Shanghai. Growing up in Shanghai was almost like being in a completely different world compared with my life in Melbourne now. Or perhaps I was just living in a different world created by the hyperactive imagination that I toted around as a youngster.

This is me colour-blocking in a Chinese forest with my amazing parents.

Sharp recently asked me to write a post to help celebrate their 100th birthday, which is coming up this year on September 15th – needless to say, they’re a little older than me, so I’m guessing they’ve got quite a bit of reminiscing to do.  Beginning as a company manufacturing a novel kind of snap belt buckle (doesn’t every good story begin with fashion?) they quickly added to their repertoire with all sorts of other interesting inventions (including the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil – which inspired their company name) before setting their sights on radios, TVs and consumer electronics.

However, I know when I think of Sharp, I think of TVs.  Although when I was growing up in China, I knew their TVs as 夏普.  I can remember being utterly dismayed watching my first kung fu TV movies on our 夏普电视 and thinking to myself “当演员好可怜啊，他们为了拍戏而死。我可永远不想当演员。”Sorry, I thought in Chinese back then too.  Translation: “It’s so sad that all these actors have to die just for the sake of making a movie.  I would never want to be an actor!”

To celebrate Sharp’s up-coming century, the centenarian corporation is supporting communities and giving all of us a chance to publish our anniversaries on the Sharp 100th birthday site. By sharing a memorable moment in your past, you have a chance to win a trip to the USA!  It’s the opportunity of a life time! To share your anniversaries, or congratulate others on theirs, simply visit the Sharp website here.

My mum and me and one of the dresses that I was obsessed about as a child. She made the hairpiece and vest for me. And to think that the sneakers-cum-frock-look is only a recent invention...

Clearly my memories of watching all those extras dying on the television battlefield had quite a bizarre effect on me.  Now I’m an extra too!  My skills include sitting in the background, walking in a straight line and pretending to be talking.  If you want me to be in your film, ad or show, have your people talk to my people. :)

So tell me, what childhood memories or people shaped who you are today?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a trip to the US to try and win.