I’m going to be completely honest, I was not very impressed by the performance I saw. What we went to was called a “loud rehearsal,” so the actors of the Peking Opera were singing and moving around, but there weren’t any impressive costumes or dramatic scenery. The footwork was really cool, as the Peking Opera performers are famous for extremely quick foot movements, but without the ability to truly understand the plot of see flashy outfits, most of the entertaining aspects were lost on me.
Tori, Phil, and Jordyn brought back some good memories and souvenirs though!
They were volunteered in addition to other Chinese people in the audience to go on stage and prove how good they were at this specific dance move that involves opening a door as a shy girl. It was hilarious. Apparently this is something that all Chinese people have done before or see often, but the others on stage had excellent execution while my friends struggled with the basic steps. They did get a great signed hanging poster out of the deal though! It made it worth it to get mocked unceasingly in front of hundreds of people you don’t know or understand. Later, everyone in the crowd was singing this traditional song that is in Chinese, has crazy inflections and no apparent regard for key. (But everyone sings the same off-keyness.) Each section in the audience took a turn singing it and everyone would clap for each other with the exception of our group. Instead of laughing at how terrible it was, I’m guessing they were very offended because the audience went completely silent afterward and just quietly talked amongst themselves… oops!
The rest of the day was surprisingly uneventful. On Sunday, I finished learning about 2-D systems with one degree of freedom, did my quiz and then went to old town near Yu Yuan gardens. We were aiming for the gardens, but instead ended up in this awesome shopping center. Tons of neat little shops line the streets selling anything you can think of. We learned the phrase “too expensive” or “Tai gui le” is the only offensive thing you can say while bartering. For some reason they immediately shoo you out of the shop. If you offer a ridiculously low price, and then act disingerested or even walk away, you will get chased down and sold the item for 1/10th of the asking price.
Monday delivered two incredible discoveries! Discovery number one, if you leave the lid open on the electric tea pot, it will keep the button depressed and continue to boil, finally making the room humid. (There is pretty much no such thing as central air in china. Most places are the temperature of outside with the exception of apartment and hotel rooms which have a little unit with a hose leading out the window. A unit like this does not have a humidifier like the awesome one I helped install back home over Christmas break.) Discovery number two is a huge grocery store! These are so hard to come by, that it was really fortunate. Our intercultural teamwork professor mentioned it to us. We now have access to one of the largest supermarkets I’ve ever seen, despite the fact that it is entirely underground, and a department store where normal people probably buy clothes. Outside of this store, the clothes seem to be either ridiculously expensive imported European clothes in the mall or cloth with stitching falling off.
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