Kids rehearsing for sports day

Sports day, one of the biggest events of the year, is soon to come and pupils as well as teachers are preparing for the big day. There will be many competitions throughout the day. Pupils will compete among each other and Chinese teachers will compete against the foreign staff. We are so going to lose! The Chinese are fit, we are ... no words can describe it. 

The event will start with an opening ceremony early in the morning. There will be a parade. First the teachers and then the students. Primaries first, followed by Middle and High School. Many parents are expected to come, therefore a song will be performed. But, what would an opening ceremony be without a song?

If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy. 

Action on stage

It's sometime after lunch when I see some students walking towards the sports hall dragging their chairs behind them. Some of them are wearing costumes and there's music coming out of the sports hall. 

I am curious and follow them. Inside the sports hall there are already many students sitting on their chairs and others are waiting for instructions on where to put their chairs and sit. Events in the sports hall are very organised. The students take their chairs from their classrooms and drag them down some flights and across the field. They gather in front of the hall and wait for instructions. The first ones to enter are the primary kids, then follow the middle school students and last is high school. If the event is too big and not all students (almost one thousand) fit in, they make a double event out of it. One for primary school, takes place usually in the morning, and one for middle and high school, usually in the afternoon. 

The instructors let the students in by grades and show them the spots to place their chairs. Since events occur on a regular basis, the students know where to go. At the end of the show, the primaries are the first ones to take their chairs and leave, followed by middle and high school.

Today are the rehearsals for an upcoming show. No idea what show it will be and when it will take place, but I am happy to witness the rehearsals.

Here are two videos. Enjoy!

If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy. 

Morning exercise

Have you ever wondered why the Chinese get many medals in the Olympic Games? Like all communist countries, exercising is a daily task and routine. I posted a photo a while ago showing an old lady exercising on a machine in the park outside my house. Sports and gymnastics are something nearly every Chinese person does at least once a day. It starts at school at an early age.
School in China doesn't finish around lunchtime or in the early afternoon. Lessons here can go until 10pm. Most students live on campus and return home usually on Saturday after their morning classes.
Part of their days at school is sport. Early in the morning, sometime between 9 and 10 o'clock, the students gather outside for their morning exercises. A jukebox is placed on the ground in most cases, or the instructions and tune comes from the school's PA system. Students stand in lines with enough space between them and do the same exercises every day. There's one student in front showing the moves, and all the others follow. If you look at the videos below, you will see that they are divided by grades. The younger ones are on the left, the older on the right. Two or three instructors stand in front and keep an eye on the students and interfere if someone is lazy and the other teachers gather at the back. Some of the teachers do the exercises and some use the 20 something minutes as a break.
The first ones to go out in the field are the primary kids. When they are done, follow middle and high school. This happens because firstly 1000 students don't fit on the field and secondly because primary school follows a different timetable.
There are many more sporting activities in the afternoon. Besides the PE teachers, other teachers, like us for example, have to go out and exercise or play with them. I've got an hour a week with middle school kids and another hour with primary ones. I play volleyball with the older ones and hopscotch with the little ones. Other teachers play football or basket ball or whatever they want.
If the weather is bad, we play indoors in the sports hall. One of the many things Chinese are good at, is jump rope. They practice every morning for 5 - 10 minutes and they do it at an incredibly fast speed. And it's not only the kids who are good at it, it's the teachers too.
The Chinese teachers, use every free minute they have to either walk around the track or do any sort of sports and exercise. The foreign teachers on the other hand ....

Enjoy the videos!

If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy. 

Somebody's birthday / KTV

Saturday night and my friend G and I are invited to a girl's birthday party. It's one of G's acquaintances who's turning 25. He hasn't seen her for over five months and doesn't remember what she looks like. 

The party started early, but because G had to work (percussionist at the Guiyang Symphony Orchestra), we arrive late. G doesn't know what the place is we're supposed to go and is surprised to stand in front of a club instead of a house. The birthday girl didn't give clear instructions to G, but told the taxi driver over the phone where to take us. The driver points at a roundish flat building and we walk towards it. It says 'V' above the entrance and red carpeted stairs lead you two floors down. 

Along the stairs are many Roman Empire statues and paintings. We reach the end of the stairs and find ourselves in a small, but cosy and elegant club. 

G calls the birthday girl and a minute later she comes to the entrance to pick us up. She leads us to a seating area just in front of the stage. There's a big long table full of alcoholic beverages, surrounded by comfortable sofas and birthday decoration. There are many people seating on the sofas, and they make us some space when they see us. Typically for China and Chinese, glasses are brought and filled with beer. Then quite a few people want to toast, exchange WeChat and get photographed with us. Most of them don't speak English, some speak a few words only and the entire conversation goes either via the birthday girl who speaks really good English, or via G who speaks good Chinese. 

There's a band performing various dance and pop songs, but nobody dances. There's no dance floor in this club. This is something very Chinese. Most clubs either have no dance floor at all, or one or two small ones. People don't like to dance. They mainly sit on sofas and have their drinks. If the noise level of music permits it, they talk, if not, or run out of things to say, they play dice games. More about dice games in another post. 

When the clock strikes midnight, the band plays 'Happy birthday', candles are lit on two cakes and dancers appear on stage. Our birthday girl gets a crown, but instead of blowing out the candles, she walks around the club, answers calls and texts, hugs and kisses people while the candles reach a dangerously low level just an inch above the cake's surface. Then she decides to blow out the candles.

A few minutes later she comes to us and says: 'It's time to move!'

Everybody gets up and people start leaving. Where are we going? No idea! First we go up the stairs and gather outside the club. She says something to all the people and I hear the word 'KTV'. I'm delighted, but G is not amused. I have always wanted to go to one. G has been several times and is not a fan of KTV. We get into a taxi and arrive a few minutes later at a building that looks like an expensive hotel.

KTV stands (as I was told by some Chinese) for Karaoke TV. Karaoke is a Japanese invention and shouldn't be successful in China, because the two countries are rivals, and especially the Chinese don't like the Japanese, some even hate them. Nevertheless, karaoke is huge in China. It started in bars and on the streets and has now become a massive business. Chinese love to sing and they sing everywhere and not only when they are drunk. That's one of the reasons why karaoke is so popular here. People can feel like superstars for the duration of a song and earn some standing ovations. 

Now there are KTVs everywhere in the country. Their size and equipment varies a lot. There are some small and cheap ones, and there are some big and luxurious ones. The latter look in size and standard like five star hotels. 

The entrance and lobby is decorated with marble and expensive furniture. There's personnel at the reception that receives guests and takes them to the rooms. 

This is how it works: You book a room depending on the group of people. There are rooms in different sizes. You also book a room for the hours needed. Once you are brought to your room, you see tables, chairs or stools, sofas, etc. a TV, microphones and the actual karaoke machine. 

Waiters bring in food and drinks and you can choose the songs you want to perform on the karaoke machine. Most songs are Chinese, but there are several foreign songs. Among the foreign songs we discover, is the full set of Celine Dion, many Bon Jovi songs, a few older popular pop and rock songs and many boy groups and young and newer artists like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. 

Once you've chosen the song you like and enter it onto the system, a video clip appears on the TV screen with the lyrics at the bottom. The clip can be the original video clip, but it can also be a cheaply made karaoke version with a couple walking on a romantic beach towards the setting sun. 

We try to find a song to sing, but since G doesn't know most of the artists or songs, the birthday girl decides 'My heart will go on' by Celine Dion. So, a few minutes later, the three of us are standing on the podium with microphones in our hands, singing the bloody ballad out of Titanic. In front of us are a dozen Chinese taking photos and recording our try. Nevertheless, we have great fun and go for a second song.

V-Club

    Birthday deco

    Me, G, Birthday Girl

    Cool ladies

                      Booze

    Dancers

    Me with duck face Chinese boy

    Cinderella

    Birthday cakes

    Birthday girl gets a crown

   Oh my God! It's my birthday! Now I have to blow out the candles! But I don't want to!

    And rather play around

   And hug people

    An inch above the surface. The fire brigade is ready for action.

   And finally!

    I've made it! Err, not quite. There's a second cake.

    Cake.

    With G.

    Band playing Happy Birthday.

    V-Club

    Taxi ride to KTV

    KTV

    Singing Celine Dion.

If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy.