At 6 I took my camera and Chris and I walked over the the art/music block where the performance was being held, once there I was told by my students on the door that the show had been pushed back to 7 because of a problem with the audio equipment, that's the problem with China, they have great equipment but no knowledge of how to use it and the shows are always blighted by feedback, microphone problems and general bodging.
Chris was hungry so we got some XiaoLongBao and a tasty milkshake type thing from outside the school (second XiaoLongBao in one day!!) and got back in time to watch them set up.
We were given seats at the front of the show as we had donated our computers to the editing and as teachers and special guests, the students really love it when I visit them to see what they are doing out of school!
Before the show the students dragged me into the backstage area where all the cast were getting practising and doing their makeup to talk to them and take some pictures, all my students wanted to show me how different they looked in their costumes, some tradional some contempory and I took some cool pictures.
The show kicked off late and was based on 'Dreams in the Red Mansion' one of the famous 4 chinese books including Journey to the West etc which all seem to lose alot in translation, not that there was any english in the show!
There was dancing and singing and they were great, (and mostly my students) before a break and a small game. The hostess had small scrolls describing a character from the book and people had to raise their hand and guess their name to win the scrolls. Dashein guessed the first and gave the scroll to us as a gift to remember the show but a few questions in they nudged Chris into volunteering an answer (that they whispered into his ear) and so with much laughter Chris won himself his own scroll and Dashien gave me the other so we had one each.
There was more dancing and a small talking piece before another game and before I knew what was going on I had been volunteered to go first. My student York from class one stood up with me and explained that he would act out something and I would guess what it was! A little confused I got on stage to appluase and he looked at his piece of paper, playing up to the crowd I stood my ground and motioned for him to get on with it to much amusement.
There was more dancing and a small talking piece before another game and before I knew what was going on I had been volunteered to go first. My student York from class one stood up with me and explained that he would act out something and I would guess what it was! A little confused I got on stage to appluase and he looked at his piece of paper, playing up to the crowd I stood my ground and motioned for him to get on with it to much amusement.
He acted his small scene which involved walking forwards, seeing something and running away, I was confused for a minute and had no idea what they expected (with no translation of really what was going on) so just said a phrase I learnt yesterday, 'he is a crazy person' ta zhe ge feng zi. The audiance disolved into a laughter, it turns out the answer was a man seeing a butterfly and running away scared, I guess a reference to the book but god knows. They decided however that my answer was good enough and one of my students gave me her fan as a prize, bless her.
We watched the rest of the show and stayed afterwards to mingle with the cast and congratulate all my students, this turned into more pictures and then a group photo sort of formed around us and before I knew what was happening I was in the middle of a cast group photo! but it is a good photo!
After the show Susan asked if she could use our shower as they only have hot water every other day, and she was covered in blue paint! I of course agreed.
She came over with her friend echo and we chatted and laughed until late, so late that they could not get home and so asked if they could stay, not wanting them to get in trouble I agreed and whilst Chris had gone to bed already I quietly built them a bed each in the lounge out of a few sofa pieces and went to bed at around half one.
I did get up at 6am just to make sure they woke up (they didn't) and got to lessons on time without being in trouble, no wonder some of the students have started calling me shooshoo, (uncle) or even older brother! haha.
Looking the next day at the pictures, while ok, came out very noisy again, my camera really seems to suffer in low lighting, but I'm really getting my use out of it, I ended up as semi official photographer for the event! A shame the pictures didn't come out so great really.... nevermind, I will upload pictures tomorrow when I can find the time!
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