Talent Show

To entertain a group of American exchange students our school hosted a talent show last night. And a big talent show it was...2 hours and about 300 people in the audience. My students were involved as MC's and did a fantastic job (obviously) but the performers were primarily students from the rest of the school. What a show. It ranged from extremely talented young individuals to some of the most bizarre performances I have ever and will ever see. Let me tell you about some of it. First (and favourite) on my list is the Chinese hand puppet show which broke into a rendition of a Michael Jackson song. Four hand puppets in traditional Chinese character, like the Monkey King, singing Heal the World in off key, Chinese accents. I was sitting in the front row laughing uncontrollably. I nearly had to leave. Next up, things didn't get much more normal. A group of dancers came on stage. Girls first, and they were actually pretty good...but then the boys came on. Break dancers, but not good. Picture Elaine from Seinfeld on steroids and doing her best break dancing imitation. Out of sync with the music, deadly serious expressions on their faces, trying their best to work the crowd by raising their arms and shouting "Make some noise!", but completely awful at dancing. Now, normally, this isn't something you laugh at, this is a time when you feel sorry for the person on stage because they're not good, but the thing is, the crowd went nuts! The crowd loved it! It was some of the worst dancing I've ever seen! Coupled with my first experience at a Chinese club last weekend and I'm getting the impression that Chinese people are looking for something different out of their dancing than we are. One final highlight was a boy and a girl doing a duet version of We Are The Champions. They sang romantically to each other the entire time. It started well but as the music began to crescendo around them, they kept singing gently at each other like it was a ballad. It was really weird, but again the crowd loved it. I finished the night with sore cheeks from how hard I was laughing.