Craptacular Notes

The last performance that the ZUT foreign students will be involved in ended yesterday afternoon. One of the hostesses, Weika (I only know her by her Chinese name, 维卡) from Kyrzygstan, didn’t show. All her lines came right before mine, so they decided to just give them all to me. So not only did I have double the lines, but I no longer knew any of my cues. I did a pretty good job memorizing all my new lines quickly, but when we got onstage some of the other students started screwing up their lines and fudging them, which caused me to do the same. Overall, it came off OK, but the first performance was much more polished. Anyway, we all refused to do another performance, so that’s all behind us now.

After seeing them for the second time, I also remember which numbers were most impressive. One was a Mongolian dance. Really cool. The girl was amazingly limber, and did the whole dance with a stack of bowls on her head, which never fell. Then there was this group of three guys which did a dance number to a Michael Jackson medley. Now, I know that sounds lame, but they were really good! They had moves in perfect sync with every single grunt and squeal that Michael Jackson made. Good stuff. The last one was a dance which was supposedly inspired by a true love story set during the Communist Revolution. The Chinese name is 红色恋人 (“Red Lovers”). I’ll have to look more into that story. Anyway, their dance was really cool because the guy kept picking the girl up and flipping her around and stuff, and at one point the girl even held the guy up in the air! Nice.

Here’s an excerpt from an online chat session I had with a friend who teaches at another campus of ZUT (and didn’t realize I am a student at the same school on a different campus). It kinda relates to the whole craptacular thing:

> She says:
any fun plans for the weekend?

> 潘吉 says:
yeah, like HOMEWORK and being in the 50th ANNIVERSARY CRAPTACULAR at my other school

> She says:
our school has a 50th anniversary too! i was not involved in the craptacular but i was a judge at the equally crappy english song competition last night

> She says:
two guesses for the two most popular songs that were sung?

> 潘吉 says:
there are too many

> 潘吉 says:
big, big world?

> 潘吉 says:
yesterday once more?

> She says:
YES. and YES.

> She says:
damn. you are good.

> 潘吉 says:
really? those are the two??

> She says:
yep!

> 潘吉 says:
wow. Good thing I’ve been here over 3 years or I might not have gotten that!

Anyone living in China is all too familiar with the fact that the same 10 English songs are played over and over in China. Another one that I really hate is Hotel California. I didn’t like it before I came to China, and now I despise it from the depths of my being.

[Note: I’m still looking for a job in Shanghai. All leads are greatly appreciated.]