Putting on a show
on Tina's Journal (China), 15/Jun/2009 00:34, 34 days ago
The school term is coming to an end and the summer holidays will soon be here. On Friday evening there was a fabulous performance in the sports ground to celebrate the end of three years of college life for the grade 3 students. Each department of the college did their own performance which meant a total of 14 acts. There was a mixture of styles ranging from classical singing to Modern Street dancing mostly performed by students, however some teachers also took part, thelaoshifrom the PE department did a great Kung Fu act. I was lucky to get a front seat view offered to me by the Vice President of the college who I didn't realise speaks better English than I thought and kindly translated the presentation of each act. The stage was adorned with flowers and the two and half hour show was performed in true elaborate Chinese style, ending with a display of fire works, (see photo). The grade 3 students will finally leave in a week's time.As I am discovering the Chinese like to put on a good show! The tourist board contacted Lesley on Friday asking if 'us foreigners' could come and be filmed in aLa Huvillage about 40 minutes outside of Simao. TheLa Hupeople are one of the many ethnic nationalities in Yunnan who are gradually dying out. I agreed to go along on Saturday with Jayne, 3 volunteers who work in Simao and Ali. Lesley didn't want to participate. I didn't really know what to expect but Ali had asked for clarification before going that it would be an authentic realLa Huvillage with 'real'La Hupeople. He was told yes. However, low and behold when we got there we found it was a model, fake village made for tourists. Very beautiful I may add! Anyway, Ali was very annoyed and refused to participate as he knew about this village having visited it before and felt he had been betrayed. He left and made his own way back home. I and the others however had never visited it before so we stayed on. I was given the role of a tourist dancing in an inner circle withLa HuPeople and performed this for six different takes! I have attached a photo showing the filming in process which I took from my dancing position. By the 6thtake I was getting fed up as it was boiling hot filming in the afternoon sun. I could see it was all fake, but somehow I managed to convince myself it was all for a good cause promoting tourism in this area despite the in authenticity. I did feel a bit used though and all day I had a heavy feeling over my head knowing that I wasn't completely comfortable taking on this role. After the filming we were given a guided tour around the village which is set in a fantastic location looking down over tea hills. When we finally left we were handed some money in appreciation thanking us for our time. We decided to spend it on Pizzas, so money well spent. Never again though and I will be more cautious next time I get asked to do any filming! I resumed my Chinese lessons this week after a month's absence and was very pleased to hear from my teacher that I have made progress. I personally feel I have made very little but it's good to hear it from your teacher!!