Typical Week?

Once again we've had another interesting and adventurous week!

On Wednesday, I got to skate with my East Lake Crew. We met at the skateshop again and then headed down to the railway station, where, to my chagrin, there was around 200 Chinese people waiting around, watching and performing Karaoke, who, when we arrived, started watching us perform, but to our credit we put on a hell of a show and allowed many Chinese men, women, and children to get a taste of what a performance art skating can and should be all about, F-U-C-K skateboarding as a sport, I have always felt this way and always will, and here on top of that, it's not illegal, it is appreciated for what it is, a new form of benign urban kung-fu used to showcase the beauty and control humans can achieve where passion meets art. Next Saturday we are going out again and I plan on bringing my camera to take pictures and film the session, so watch out for those!

On Thursday, we, meaning the foreign teachers, were invited to attend a welcoming shin-dig for the Freshman at our College, Yuan Pei, there were prizes given away, which we had to pick some numbers on slips of paper out of a bag, there was a talent show with singing, dancing, a KFC Rap, and even shadowboxing, as well as a Fashion Show with dresses made out of found objects such as trash bags, newspapers, and umbrellas. We were the guests-of-honor and were treated with great respect and hollaballoo, even more so then the students performing, which was very strange, in fact, it is common in their culture and common at the show for the students to be chatting loudly while the performers were on stage doing their thing. To be fair, since the chinese are uncomfortable being the center of attention, usually, it was probably for the best that people were not completely focused on the person on stage because they would have choked hard because for example, in class this week for Business English, I had my students have casual business conversations to "break the ice", yet while they were talking, in a group of five, outside of the classroom I might add, the students were so nervous and shaking up that their jaws were literally quaking, so it seems that the chatting is actually ok, if not encouraged, in order to make the person performing more comfortable by not having everyone focused on everything they do.

Well, "nuff said", as Stan Lee was want to say, and who be I to argue with a master such as he? I'll leave you with that little rhyme and with the advice to check out our pictures and videos on Flickr and YouTube to get a feel for what's new.

P.S. Make sure to check out our apartment video walkthrough on YouTube!