Well friends, here it is. The Children's Day performance. My dear children have been practicing for hours over the last 3 weeks for this little shindig. Performances are a rite of passage here. Like killing your first lion or using bikini wax.
These things are always a blast and give me lots of blogging material. Such as this and this. This is the class with the littles. These kids are all around 3, and spent most of this performance jumping up and down in a bathing suit, waving loofa sponges.
This was one of my favorites because in the middle of the dance, there was a costume change. You see, the dance started off with all these girls in a t-shirt and their underwear. As they woke up, they were to put on shorts and shoes. Well, if you look closely, several of the girls' pants were too big and hovering around their waist, as if they were at a Tupac concert. One girl forgot her pants altogether and did the entire dance in her underwear only.
Then we were up. We did Amazing Grace in English and Chinese. I introduced the family and they wanted us to strike a pose and make a noise. So, we did. This was a fun blessing to get to share with everyone. There were several hundred people there, so there was a bit of an intimidation factor for the kids. I will say that I was super proud of them. I'll post the video in a few days.
Then my girl took stage. She had told me that only girls were in the front because the boys, "Were just not good at all. I mean, at all."
When this girl gets on stage, she becomes a different child. She commanded people's attention. As a side note, when we had rehersals a few hours earlier, a random group of 20 Africans walked in. As if receiving a memo, all kinds of people asked me who they were and if they were family. Yes. Yes they did.
The whole dance was a Navy theme and they did a fantastic job. The music shifted part of the way through when Michael Jackson did a Beat It routine. Makaria had been showing me all the Michael Jackson moves all week. It involved rhythmic pelvic thrusting and inappropriate hand placement. But I will say that this kid nailed it. Then the Navy finished up their part of the routine. All Navy's should have Michael Jackson impersonators. Maybe there wouldn't be so much war that way.
Riskiest routine of the night involved riding bikes on stage. I had flashes of children being blinded by the smoke machine and plummeting to a bloody fall on these things.
And there were sheep.
And Western China dances.
Then my little dude came out with his class. He is hard to spot and spent a significant portion of his routine popping bubbles with his buddy next to him. It was also a graduation performance for those entering 1st grade next year. I am one of those parents. I'm not talking about it.
But man, was my little dude cute or what. Oh my.
The announcer and Michael Jackson with Makaria.
It was a fantastic Children's Day! I am so proud of my crew.
