PingHe Party

So on Saturday I had work in the morning, then ran quickly out to Puxi to meet up with that woman from City Weekend. Getting out of the subway I was rather lost and didn't want to be too late, so I just grabbed a cab. Once I arrived (after some trouble with elevators that only went to certain floors) I got immediately down to proof-reading. It took me about two hours to do what she said normally takes three and they pay by session and not by hour...whoo! She said she'd let me know the next time they needed me. On the way out, I paid attention to my surroundings and found a super easy way to get back to the subway. I just need to get out of the right exit from the station!

I took the subway and bus back, though thinking about it now I should have taken a cab instead. Although I made it back only 5 minutes later than I thought the party was going to start, there was apparently a warm up band. That band was led by one of my favorite students; a boy named Jackey. I was really upset to have missed it, and asked him to tell me the next time he performs.

The "party" ended up being a show. There were some absolutely adorable kids doing dances, singing songs, putting on skits. (One thing that seriously amused me was some kids singing "It's a Hard Knock Life" when these students are almost all from very well to do families.) Some high schoolers did some hip hop dancing. Some teachers sang the famous "Beijing Welcomes You" song.

The stage was huge and was setup almost overnight. One of the first performances I saw was 25 people playing piano. Twenty-five pianos! Five grands and twenty uprights. Dang.

There was a rather huge audience. I am guessing it was most of the students and teachers and probably a lot of families as well.

One rather strange performance (in my opinion) involved soldiers in uniform doing a song in a kind of sign language. It was just odd to see these men in uniform with stoic faces using sign language to a very floaty sounding song. After they were done they marched off stage, got into formation and marched away. There was even some pyrotechnics! Two fireworks were set off from the back of the audience and a shower of sparks came down from the stage and the side of the school for the final number. As promised, June was able to get me some crabs from the school. Four of them! Yum. I reheated two of them in my steamer on Saturday for dinner and will probably have the other two for lunch today. I took some video of the performances, but my last video didn't work so well on blogger. I might later upload them to youtube instead.

Tomorrow afternoon I have plans to hang out with Charlotte. Paul and Kyle, Drew people who are studying in Nanjing, should be in Shanghai starting on Wednesday. I am really looking forward to seeing people from home.

That's all for now I suppose!

Much love!