After our spectacular Thanksgiving dinner at the Jockey Club, not too much occured down in Hong Kong. Most of us simply just wanted to make the most of our short relaxation time down there and the comforts that we temporarily had at our disposal (including normal showers, cheese, and extraordinarily pleasant weather that didn't require long underwear to endure).
A few of us though did head downtown to see if there was anything we needed (or wanted) to bring back to our respective posts in northeast or southeast China.
The bulk of this shopping trip thus consisted of a group of us milling around a supermarket and catching fleeting glimpses of old edible friends from a time long ago.
It was here that I learned that brownie mix can actually move some people nearly moved to tears if they haven't seen the stuff for quite some time.
Would you believe me if I told you that Ziploc baggies are nowhere to be found in Jilin? I'm still searching for them after a year-and-a-half (and still in vain).
Fun fact: Cranberries are mainly cultivated in the United States and Canada
Depressing fact: There are especially no cranberries to be found in Jilin
Shopping and relaxing aside, there was also still one potential event left that we could participate in. There was a fund-raising variety show the very next night after Thanksgiving day, put on by students and faculty from the various Maryknoll schools around the city. It was entirely optional for the assembled Maryknoll volunteer teachers, for most of us decided on going anyway, myself included.
And my goodness, am I glad I made that call. When they decided to call it a variety show, they definitely meant it, for it was quite a spectacularly diverse array of acts, ranging from a hip-hop breakdancing routine, a ballet performance, and even a small play (which was entirely in Cantonese, and thus I still have no idea what was going on in that story). Also included were:
A troupe of xylophone players who played several excerpts from the famous opera Carmen,
A group of elementary schoolers who did what I assumed was supposed to be a dance from one of the several ethnic minorities of southern China,
And a high school lad who did such a spectaculer acoustic rendition of Jason Mraz's song "I'm Yours" that I was both blown away and made deeply ashamed over the fact that he was able to sing better in his second language than I'll ever be able to in my first (which somehow I am being paid to teach at the university level, to boot).
There was also of course a sizabel martial arts display, which was definitely one of the highlights of the evening.
However, I think that my personal favorite act of the night was a band of middle school students who performed a legitimate acapella act, and nearly brought the house down with their renditions of "Sha La La" and "Stand By Me." And once again, their ability to sing in perfectly good English simultaneously wowed me to absolutely no end and shamed my own severely limited ability to burst into song in my mother tongue.
All in all, it was definitely a most enjoyable evening, topped off with a primary school chorus who belted out an adorable version of "I Will Follow Him," which the audience was greatly encouraged to join along in.
This blog entry was made possible in part from a pseudo-donation of photos from Maryknoll's Chinahands blog (audience members weren't actually supposed to take pictures, which I actually didn't realize until an usher kindly told me to put my camera away).
your pictures are much better than those pictures from Chinahands!
Posted by: 王朋 | 12/07/2011 at 10:24 AM