Transportion

Among the numerous bikes, scooters and cars here are some other modes of transport and transportation.

utube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_fkq1DUa_Y

A much quicker and easier link for Lex's performance.

Guanang Performance

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO VIEW THE SHOW:
1CLICK LINK
2CLICK PLAY ON BLUE SCREEN
http://special.yunnan.cn/feature3/node_26260.htm
Lexi's dance is at 109minutes, if you don't want to watch the whole show.

Lexi has been taking a couple ballet classes by a Russian teacher. A couple months back her teacher recommended her to the local TV station and Yunnan Art College to perform for a festival in Guanang. The festival was to celebrate the local people and the town’s reputation as a famous and well known tourist spot.

While Lexi was taking class one night, a man and a woman came to the class unbeknownst to Lexi. They stopped the class and asked Lexi to do some combinations, turns, leaps etc. Lexi was completely caught off guard and was not sure what was happening, but did as her teacher said. In the end Lexi found out that they were scouting her for Yunnan TV and wanted to come straight to our house that night at 9:00pm to sign her. I was just beginning a study at 9:00pm when she called to ask if it was alright for some people to fly us somewhere for her to dance. Ha!

I said I couldn’t talk right then, but after I was done at 11:00pm the calls kept coming for the next hour or two. Show biz people……….night people. So after some back and forth Yeyuan and the director (who had not yet seen Lexi) came the next night to have her dance in our small apartment and to see if she was pretty enough. We gave them the 3^rd degree because we really had no idea what we were in for, and Jeff wanted to make sure we were not going to get kidnapped. :)

So after we felt it was legit and everything was in order we agreed to go. It was Lexi, me and one of Jeff’s student’s to help translate. It was the first time Christine had ever been to the airport none the less been on a plane. She was so excited! It was so fun to watch. Her mom would call her every day from her small village and ask if it was really true that this was happening to her. Her mom also wanted to know if she would be on tv, and in the end they interviewed Lexi and Christine translated so we think she made it on tv too!

When the day came we took a 30 minute flight and drove 2 hours to the middle of nowhere. After an hour and ½ I started to wonder if indeed we were being kidnapped. I asked questions and prepared an escape plan in my mind. Thankfully we arrived to our destination and all was well.

The first day Lexi rehearsed on stage and tennis courts. When I saw the stadium it finally dawned on me to ask how many people would be expected. The answer….. 20, 000 people! Gulp! The first night rehearsal, only about 1000 people in the stands. The second night for the dress rehearsal, only about 8,000 people. The final night, the actual show 20,000 people! Each night it grew. It grew into quite a spectacular show. The last night had fireworks and all! It was really an amazing show with such talented local dancers and famous singers/performers flown in from all around China.

The second night I ended up sitting next to two government officials one being the governor of Gaunang. These two stoic men “freaked out” when Lexi came on. They were slapping their knees, laughing hard and saying “hen hao, hen hao” (very good) with thumbs up. The story behind the song Lexi danced to was a love story about a Russian ballet dancer and Chinese policemen. At the end of the song the policeman gave Lexi a gift of rice and the crowd went crazy! Who knew? I have met so many VIPs and famous people the last couple weeks, but because of my poor Chinese I have no idea who they are. The last night I sat next to a doctor from Kunming who knew a little English. When Lexi came on, he nudged me and said, “That girl is all the way from Russia!”

After the performance Tuesday night, Lexi spent the night throwing up and killing cock roaches in the bathroom. The next morning she was still sick, so 8 Chinese leaders and staff took us to the hospital. Eight! Half of them men. They were very concerned for Lexi and Yeyuan (scout/teacher) even cried. Everyone kept telling me not to worry and...... well.....I wasn’t. I figured it was just something she ate and that she would get over it soon. But, while in China.......... it made them feel better to take her to the hospital. So Lexi who could barely walk, went down 5 flight of stairs in the hotel and walked up 3 flights at the hospital (no elevators in the town) in her pajamas......and need I remind you our entourage of 8 concerned friends.

Before we left the hotel, Yeyuan asked if she could perform a Chinese method of treating the stomach on Lexi. Lexi said “yes” so Yeyuan pinched the inside creases of Lexi’s elbow, her temples and the middle of her forhead until she bruised. She has a red star now in the middle of her forehead along with the other spots. If you didn’t know Lexi’s Chinese name is Xin Xin = Star. It was all just too funny. Lexi made me take a picture of her in the hospital with the star on her head and sick as a dog to contrast against her ballet princess pictures. They gave Lexi an I.V. which is very common here and the average treatment for any cold or illness. They did a sonogram and determined that Lexi had the flu. Everyone was greatly relieved so Lexi (still in pajamas), Christine, our two drivers and I hopped in a van and drove 2 hours to catch the 30 minute flight and arrived home at midnight. Lexi is all better now, with a faint red star on her forehead.

Visit to Shanghai

French Concession


Shanghai People's Theater: Mary, Owner and Howard

Visit to Shanghai

Lexi and I went to Shanghai the first week of May to check out the city and also look into Shanghai Ballet. It was an interesting trip. Lexi and I were thrilled to find so many familiar and western things. Our first day we ended up eating at a small book café; we both ordered a sandwich! I had pastrami! It ended up being an extra treat when we had a chance to talk with the owner of the café. Her shop is located where the famous and controversial author Eileen Chang used to live.

We connected right away and discovered that Mary would be visiting Stanford this summer for a swim camp for her son. Of course this is right in our neck of the woods and we are looking forward to meeting again this summer in the bay area. Mary also invited us to attend the Shanghai Ballet with her the next evening and Lexi I could not have been more thrilled.

So the next day we met a family from the states and visited with them in their home and got to know their lovely family. It was a mutual friend here in Kunming that connected us. Then that evening we met at Mary’s café and headed to the ballet of the White Haired Lady. The woman who offered Mary and us the ballet tickets is a famous talk radio host and author in Shanghai. We ended up attending the ballet with several authors and immediately were introduced to the owner of the People’s Theatre.

The ballet itself was ……….interesting and very political. We were quite surprised by the story. It took place during the revolution, a battle between the rich landlords and the poor farmers. The rich beat and mistreated the poor and in the end the new communist peasants and regime took revenge and murdered the landlords. Once again I was surprised how many guns were on stage in a country where guns are outlawed. During the performance several authors sat behind us who were watching this performance for about the 50^th time. They had been tasked to communicate about this performance to the people about the message.

Chinese audiences are interesting. They talk through the entire performance and at the end they all clap together in unison while each dancer takes their bow.

The next day we visited Shanghai Ballet where young girls begin boarding about 8-10 years old. It was a beautiful campus with more dance studios than I can count. The girls graduate and reach a professional level at 16 and feed to into professional companies around the country like Shanghai Ballet. It was interesting to see pictures on the wall of the dancers and ballet we had seen the night before.

Lexi had a private audition which was extremely intimidating while 5 people watched her make up her own dance without music. The people were very kind and it was a great opportunity. Yesterday we received notice that Lexi did not get in. But, we are all okay with that. It was a nerve wracking decision and we feel confident the right outcome came about.

The following day we tried to visit BSF, went all the way there and discovered they were not meeting due to the China Labor Day holiday. We were disappointed but, glad to have the chance to see where they meet. We visited the French Concession area of Shanghai that evening and it was beautiful! Surprisingly a very European feel.

The next day we headed home to Kunming to prepare for our next crazy trip…….Gaunang.

Thirsty?

The college took Wyatt and I back to the minority village on Saturday, which we went to before with Ben & David. We were there all day and saw some parts we had missed. Lexi & Bobbie were getting ready for Shanghai and Savana was getting over a bad cold (she's better now).

Maybe Savana would've been well sooner if she'd had some of this medicine. If you click on the picture to get a closer look, you will see that the jar is full of dead snakes. And yes, that's a spigot on the bottom. This little room reminded me of medicine wagons of the 19th century (or the Pete's Dragon song "Every Little Piece"). Snake parts will heal you of everything and keep you looking young!

There were also live snakes in many glass cages. It was part of the Miao Village. Which also had this:


The snake building is on the right.

It was great inside here. Especially in contrast to the Tibet Buddhist temple which was very dark and oppressive. All the pictures on the wall were scary looking gods/demons trampling men underfoot.

Wyatt also got to ride the zipline!