Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Fair Ladies' Christmas Party

A week before Christmas, all the foreign teachers were invited to watch or take part in the Fair Ladies' Club Christmas party. It was "Christmas" in the sense that they had a bedraggled tree decorated with balloons(!), and it was a "party" in the sense that it was a performance.

One act followed another with dizzying variety. There were girls in high boots gyrating to Chinese pop songs, a couple guys trying to do a comedy routine, several vocal solos and duets, some ethnic dancing, the scariest nunchuck performance you have ever seen, and more.

You will have to watch my videos when I come home if you want to fully appreciate the evening. However, enjoy looking at the pictures and reading the highlights below, which don't correspond exactly with the pictures.

1) The foreign teachers were escorted to sit in the very front row, and were cordially introduced at the beginning. This made sense for the ones who were performing (my teammates, for example), but not for those of us who were just the audience.

2) When someone is singing, members of the audience can run up during the song and give them something (e.g. flowers), which they then have to awkwardly hold during the rest of the song. Since balloons were in abundance, most of the singers received a balloon halfway through their performance. When my teammate was singing, a student ran up and draped a scarf around her neck. Hm.

3) I loved the traditional dancing! It was more beautiful and a lot classier than the suggestive hip hop routines that some of the others were doing.

4) When the nunchucks guys came out, we sat in fear for our lives. They were twirling those things around, switching hands, and lunging forward just feet away from our noses. They had skills.

5) The Russian teacher dressed as the skinniest Father Christmas ever and taught a group of students the chicken dance on stage.

6) A couple girls tried to move the Christmas tree to center stage during their duet. It began leaning at an alarming angle and almost fell over. It lost some of its balloon coating.

7) At the end of the evening, they gave the foreign teachers chicken sandwiches to thank us for coming.

1 comment:

  1. Alison! You didn't play your oboe?? That's a missed opportunity right there...

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