TOKYO, Japan - Working for CNN, I have covered mine disasters, civil unrest, hurricanes and war. But until today, I had never done a story on grunting.

Our assignment stemmed from Wimbledon’s crackdown on grunting and yelling in tennis. We were tasked to find out the philosophy behind similar exclamations in the martial arts.

So, we tracked down a likely spot, a karate dojo run by the coach of Japan’s National Karate Team. Masao Kagawa was more than happy to explain about what is known in Japan as kiai (pronounced key-eye) - the yell, grunt or exhalation used to complement a kick or punch.

“There are many kinds of Kiai,” he said. “Kiai can be used first to give yourself energy.  Secondly, it can intimidate your competitor. Third, it can be used to show your skill.”

In order to better explain, he had me put on a robe and taught me the basics. Mind you, I was not one of those kids who took karate. I had never had any instruction at all, and it was pretty obvious.

He would probably deny it, but our teacher was struggling to stifle a grin as he watched me try to imitate the other students.

But I took heart in something else Kagawa told me.

“Kiai is not about pretense,” he said. “It can be silent, when rather than yelling loudly you utter within your mind.”

“Utter within your mind” eh?  That sounds like something Wimbledon officials might want to explore.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Blowing a vuvuzela takes a bit of instruction –- you have to purse your lips together and blow a raspberry into the plastic trumpet.

Robyn Curnow tries out a vuvuzela at Brazil vs. Italy.

The noise that comes out can startle you after your first toot, it sounds like an elephant trumpeting or a foghorn. Soon it become addictive, though, and you have to limit your vuvuzela usage if you don’t want to lose friends, family or your hearing.

I first tried to blow a vuvuzela two weeks ago, at the start of the Confederations Cup which has been held in South Africa ahead of next year’s World Cup. I failed miserably. I blew and I blew and nothing happened, just a few insipid little parps. But at the Brazil vs. Italy game, I got the hang of the vuvuzela and quickly joined the crowd in a jaunty one-note tune. Baaaah! Baaah! Baaah!

It is a sound so irritating and so obnoxious that it’s best to stick with the maxim “if you can’t beat ‘em, join em.” Not blowing a vuvuzela at a South African football game not only makes you feel a bit left out but it also makes you resent the noise everyone else it making.

I can understand why some footballers and fans hate the sound. In stadiums and even watching on television, the constant buzz of the vuvuzelas can be distracting. But with the World Cup one year ahead, everyone just better get used to the inevitable din of the vuvuzelas.

Complaining about the noise they make won’t make a difference –- mostly because no one will be able to hear you above the incessant ringing in their ears.

NEW DELHI, India - It was a concert backed to the hilt by Indian politicians otherwise opposed to "Western culture."

It was Michael Jackson's first and only show in India in its commercial capital of Mumbai.

Jackson performing in Mumbai.

Amid a row about tax concessions the pop icon landed in the home of Bollywood cinema on October 30, 1996.

It was around 9 a.m. local time and some 10,000 fans had crowded outside the airport, recalled Sabbas Joseph, director of Wizcraft, the company that organized the concert.

Bollywood actor Sonali Bendre, clad in a saree, gave a traditional Indian welcome to him, as a group of artists danced to drumbeats.

The excitement was such that most airport staff abandoned their posts to have a glimpse of the “King of Pop” as he walked out to the cheers of the thousands assembled at the main entrance, Joseph recalled.

He addressed them with the Hindu greeting of "Namaste" from a makeshift podium, before he got into his open-top car and traveled along a route lined with thousands more fans.

Among them were Mumbai's slum kids and the singer would often jump out to cuddle them, Joseph said.

Jackson spent the evening of his first day in India meeting the who's who of Mumbai - from Bollywood stars to captains of industry and politicians - at a banquet.

On his second day he met the slum children again.

This time at poolside in his hotel for a photo shoot that Joseph remembers was for a calendar the entertainer was making in honor of the children of the world.

Jackson also sought blessings from Mother Teresa as he spoke with her on phone, his show organizer said.

But all these activities didn't exhaust him for his big night in Mumbai.

On November 1, 1996, he chose to drive down to the concert venue. No matter, if it meant spending an hour on the congested roads of Mumbai.

Around 20,000 fans packed the stadium as the singer made a spectacular appearance on stage - a touchdown from a specially-designed rocket capsule.

"It was incredible," recalled Joseph. Thousands chanted his name while some fans even fainted. The two-hour show created history in India's entertainment world. Revenues for the sold-out concert were staggering - $1 million.

But organizers say the money is still with the court where a petition was filed against the then state government for exempting the show from entertainment tax.

"Michael Jackson had come to India ahead of India's time," remarked Joseph. "India was a different country 13 years ago."

LONDON, England – The call came at 10:30 p.m. Thankfully (for our editor), a bunch of us were chatting in a bar nearby work. We rushed back to the newsroom, the whispered rumour snapping at our heels as we raced through the backstreets of Soho. “Is it true? Is it true?”

Yep, it was true. We hit the news desk as Michael Jackson was confirmed dead.

The team got on the phones and the social networks for immediate reactions. Did they know at Glastonbury? Did they know on Twitter?

I headed out to the central London streets. At Oxford Circus underground station, the workmen were nonplussed. “Didn’t like his music.” “He was a pedophile,” they told me.

On London’s Regent Street, fans were kinder. While Samuel told me it was a stunt - “I heard he got bankrupt and all that so I thought he’d done a Tupac [Shakur].”  His girlfriend, Amber, said, “I was so upset it was unbelievable. I had tears in my eyes.”

Outside the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, the home of “Thriller Live,” Jackson fan Asmara told me the American singer’s music had meant a lot to her family. “Our parents listened to it, our parents’ parents and us, so it’s a tragedy,” she said.

Heading toward Leicester Square, London’s late-night hub, we met Jenny, a Jackson fan from Houston, Texas, and her friend, Julie, from Michigan. Jenny was keen to defend Jackson against the allegations that had slurred his career. “I think he had a horrible life and people wanted to twist it around. I think Michael Jackson’s innocent.”

Julie told me, “Michael Jackson was a great person … he was the ‘80s. It’s sad that he’s gone. He’ll be missed.”

Then my cameraman’s ears pricked up: Someone was playing “Billie Jean” nearby. We headed to Lisle Street, where Luis Carlos Ameida and friends were playing Jackson tunes from their car, in tribute to the fallen star. Luis had tickets to see Jackson at his sold-out run at the O2 stadium in London. Sending his condolences to Jackson’s family, he told us how much he’d been looking forward to seeing the pop superstar in the flesh.

“That would be the first time I ever met Michael Jackson, you know. I was going to scream,” he said. “But he will always be in our hearts. Every music he played. It will be remembered by us.”

HONG KONG, China – There are two things that are sure to happen when the economy tanks.

One is the unraveling of financial scams, a la Bernie Madoff and the alleged wrongdoings of Texas billionaire Robert Allen Stanford. Ponzie schemes depend on a steady flow of cash - and new victims - to create the illusion of steady returns. When the economy turns down, the faucet runs dry and shenanigans come to light.

More worrying is the rise of crimes akin to this weekend’s headline in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper: “Conmen target HK’s richest in gold scam.” The story details how suspicious brokers are offering “enormous quantities of gold sourced from the Thai royalty” but first demanding access to bank accounts.

In a downturn, everyone - even the very wealthy - grow more susceptible to schemes that dangle gold and other quick riches. In this scheme, dubious brokers are using fake Web sites and emails that mimic reputable dealers to dupe victims.

Cyber crime is one industry that has skyrocketed since the economy has collapsed. As I wrote in a recent story, incidents of malicious software and Internet scams are fed by people’s need to believe schemes that seem too good to be true.

So we believe that Thai royalty is unloading cheap gold. We hand over bank details based on plaintive emails from Nigerian businessmen and the promise of big cash for a small upfront fee. We click through sites touting “earn thousands from home,” but the only thing we “earn” is spyware that we have unwittingly downloaded into our computer.

Criminals are betting on our suspension of disbelief. And they are banking on it, too.

SEOUL, South Korea – Judging from the media, South Koreans are not only happy about their team qualifying for the finals of the 2010 World Cup –- but they are also ecstatic about the North making it in, too.

“South and North Korean Brothers Make It Into the Finals,” said one South Korean newspaper headline read by locals on the subway.

The Joongang Daily has a front page picture of the star players from each of the teams with this headline: “The Two Men Go Together to the World Cup.”

“Will the two teams score goals of reconciliation?” the newspaper wrote in a headline for another story on the matches.

Another national daily, which said a joint cheering squad should be formed, wrote: “South and North Korea to Go Together to the Finals for the First Time in 44 Years.”

In fact next year's tournament in South Africa will be the first time both Koreas have played at the same World Cup. South Korea made their tournament debut in 1954 and have qualified for every World Cup since 1986, reaching the semifinals on home soil in 2002. North Korea's sole appearance in the World Cup was in 1966 in England where they reached the quarterfinals.

The teams’ achievements also topped the main news programs of South Korean TV stations.

While this may seem strange to the outside world, it is not if you consider the fact that in South Korea there are two mutually exclusive North Koreas.

One is the belligerent North Korea, which is seemingly bent on becoming a nuclear state and is led by secretive leader Kim Jong-Il.

The other is the North Korea that was severed by the South through a war that many people here feel was not of Koreans making. It is the idea of North Korea as the lost and impoverished brother that has gone astray.

North Korea is still the home for the brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters of tens of thousands of South Koreans.

Family members that these South Koreans never get to see, never get to hear from, except for a few isolated “family reunions.”

So while the rest of the world may see a rogue state, South Korea sees a country filled with "brothers" that need to be embraced.

Brothers that were "helped" when South Korea's star player Park Ji-Sung fired in the equalizing goal against Iran.

If the South Koreans had lost, North Korea's chances of making it to the World Cup would have gone up in smoke.

So while in almost no other place and instance, can South and North Koreans go hand in hand, it seems at the World Cup finals in South Africa, they will be able to play, brother alongside brother.

And that is worth celebrating.

ATLANTA, Georgia – As it turned out, it was no idle threat. They had warned it was on the cards and now the stark reality of a Formula One breakaway faction has arrived.

Eight of the sport’s major teams (Formula One Teams Association or FOTA) have potentially thrown the glamorous world of F1 into chaos by making good on their intention to set up a rival championship for 2010.

It follows months of talks and frustrations after they failed to resolve their dispute with motor sport's governing body over financial constraints. Quite simply, the Formula One Teams' Association announced they would not compromise on the quality of the series by signing up unconditionally for the 2010 F1 season following the release of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile’s (FIA) radical new plans for cost-cutting.

All of this follows FIA president Max Mosley’s insistence on introducing a voluntary $60 million budget cap for teams to curtail what has been called a "financial arms race" in the sport.

The teams in question are championship leader Brawn GP, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso. With the two remaining outfits, Force India and Williams, staying put as it were.

The crux appears to have been a four-hour meeting on Thursday ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The timing of this is certainly significant, but the big question is to what extent is it all really surprising?

This whole chain of events has had a degree of inevitability about it for a number of weeks now and in my mind, there was little doubt those who wanted to go it alone would do just that.

The FIA now has a huge choice to make. Does it back down or does it maintain its stance? This story is just really getting going and there are sure to be many more twists and turns along the way … but as it stands right now there is a very really possibility that next season could start with not one, but two, Formula One competitions running side by side.

PARIS, France – I met up with affable Airbus flight test engineer Fernando Alonso a few minutes before our scheduled 15-minute interview in the cockpit of the first A380 to fly.

Jim Boulden takes to the flight deck.

Alonso has worked on the development of nearly all the airplanes produced by the 40-year-old aerospace giant.

He proudly recalls that he was the engineer on the first A380 flight back in 2005. He also reminded me not to touch any buttons without asking first.

During our all too brief conversation he explained the benefits of fly-by-wire technology first introduced by Airbus in the 1980s and now used in all new planes.

When the pilot or auto pilot wants the plane to bank or descend or whatever, in the older planes he or she would actually manipulate the wings or tail through levers and pulleys.

Now the computer does all that by interpreting the actions of the pilot or auto pilot.

With the crash of Air France 447 on June 1 (an Airbus A330) still a mystery the possible actions of the pilot in response to any potential systems failures is a hot topic.

Alonso explained to me that fly-by-wire works by interpreting the data the computer receives on speed, weight, fuel consumption etc. So, the computer would then give back certain duties to the pilots if there were computer or systems failures.

I asked him what - as an engineer - his gut instincts are about what brought down the Air France plane.

He said not knowing was the worst part of this tragedy for an engineer as the industry can learn so much about safety and can make changes accordingly.

But he is confident lessons will be learnt from Flight 447.

HONG KONG, China - The H1N1 virus hits home - figuratively.

With her preschool classes cancelled, Mandy Yuen's daughter enjoys a day at Disneyland.

This time in the form of an unexpected forced vacation for all kids in Hong Kong under the age of 12. The kids are ecstatic. The parents ... not so much. On Thursday parents were told all nursery, kindergarten and primary schools are closed for at least two weeks. The reason: 12 students at St. Paul Convent School in Causeway Bay district came down with confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus.

"Help!!!"

That was the collective cry from parents all over Hong Kong as more than 500,000 children found themselves with free time. The school year normally doesn't end until July, and suddenly here is a two-week hole to fill. On Monday I decided to hit the streets to find out how parents are getting along. My crew and I headed to the street markets in Quarry Bay at lunchtime. We found mothers towing their kids behind, as they shopped for fresh vegetables.

Ann Chan was wearing a face mask (very common in polluted Hong Kong) as she picked through a bin of yams. Her 6-year-old young daughter Nivia stood next to her in a pink dress and pigtails, also wearing a mask. When asked about the school closure, Amy Chan said, "Yes, it's inconvenient. I have to use all my time to take care of her and have her tag along whenever I go out."

Daughter Nivia said sweetly through her mask, " I feel really happy, I can stay home and play. I'm going to do some drawings." We talked to a few parents who said they had taken time off from work to take care of their kids.

Then we headed to Hong Kong Disneyland. In a brilliant PR but debatable public safety move, Disneyland jumped on the school closures as a business opportunity. Immediately after the closures were announced, Hong Kong Disneyland offered a promotion targeting the children of the affected schools. For 250 Hong Kong dollars ($32 US), kids can come to Disneyland as many times as they want for the month of June. The children need to show their school ID, proving they attend one of the closed schools, and parents pay the regular entrance fee. Disneyland was heavily criticized by the Hong Kong government which charged that the promotion defeats the purpose of the school closures. The whole point was to discourage big gatherings of children to prevent possible contamination.

Disneyland responded with this statement:

"Hong Kong Disneyland is a family destination and it is up to parents to decide the best time for their children to visit the Park. The safety and security of our Guests and Cast Members is our top priority and we will continue to uphold stringent hygiene levels throughout the Resort, including the addition of extra-thorough and frequent cleaning and the sterilization of our facilities."

On a Monday afternoon, we found a good amount of Hong Kong parents with their energetic kids. Most parents said they were not too worried about the crowds because Disneyland's layout has more open space than the city. One mom said, "I think Disneyland is quite a good place to go compared to just staying in the shopping malls where the air is always trapped inside. Here it's more open and spacious." Nonetheless, many parents made sure their little Mickey Mouse fans were wearing face masks even in the stifling humidity.

The kids are breezing through this two-week homework assignment.

Let's see what grade the parents get!

Watch my story of children tagging along with their parents due to the closure or schools.

SEOUL, South Korea – The man who answered my call sounded extremely dazed. "I didn't believe it when they first told me," said 40-year-old Bae Seok-bum. "I thought they were pulling my leg." But when Bae logged onto the Internet, he found his face plastered on South Korean Web sites as the third son and the heir apparent to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Bae Seok-bum says this picture is of him, not North Korea's heir apparent.

"I have no idea how this got on TV Asahi," he said. "I took this photo last summer when we went on a trip. And I posted it on my Internet cafe so that others could see what I was doing," he said.

This is not the first time Bae, who is South Korean, got noticed for his resemblance to Kim Jong Il. "I heard that many, many times," he sheepishly admitted. But this is the first time things have gotten so out of hand.

"I'm getting so many phone calls that I can't do anything else." Even when I was talking to Bae, his cell phone kept beeping, letting him know there were many calls waiting.

Such a case of mistaken identity is not surprising when you have a regime that is so shrouded in mystery. The only photo the outside world has seen of North Korea's heir apparent, who is now 26, is a school photo taken when he was thought to be 11 at most. So when TV Asahi said it had pictures of Kim Jong Un as an adult, everyone took notice.

Even me. I was just twittering away that the resemblance between father and son was uncanny when I first heard of the possible hoax. And so, the outside world is back to trying to find out whatever they can about the mysterious Kim Jong Un. I have even heard of some using imaging technology to try to figure out what he would look like today.

Well, if you ask me, I would think those images could look a lot like Bae Seok-bum. Who, by the way, has finally turned off his cell phone.