Voice of Will: Candle Lighting Ceremony for Freshmen

2004-09-30 - 9:15 p.m.
So I have a theory. The Village People would make a fortune touring China.
I say this not from wishful thinking, but from some sound facts. 1. They are one of the most requested kereoke bands in china (at least from what I hear... badly, off key, and horrible english), and they get played a lot.

Take the other night for example. We were invited to the Freshmen candle lighting ceremony. Sounds pretty innocent right? WRONG. Not when the college has 3600 freshmen. So we go into the olympic sized stadium (seats about 4 thousand, and has an olympic sized track and field. All 3600 freshmen are on the field. WE are seated right in the middle of them (we are after all a prized specimen (foreign english speaking teachers). So I have Rae on my shoulders to see better, and William Jr. and Zeb are on either side of me. The kids are a SMASH. When Rae waves, she gets 1000 waves back. Freshmen are calling out for us to come over and see them.

Then the ceremony starts so we sit down. Imagine listening to speaches for 2 hours. Now put that in chinese. Now put that into translated english by some students. Imagine some of the speaches giving awards for ghu only knows what... at one point I thought my gall bladder had started a revolution to attempt to seize my brain, and thus end its suffering. Thankfully my small intestine quashed this revolution.

We were spared from further agony by a very high class/snazzy musical session. It was chinese opera. The singers had some very good range, and talent and the dancers could dance, and they looked good.
Then comes .... the village people. (YMCA) now just visualize this. 3600 freshmen, 200 foreign teachers, and about 2000 spectators doing the YMCA. Now put most of them in green fatigue pants, and khaki shirts.... is your head huring enough yet? No?

Next song.... the macarena. I'm not kidding. And now the foreign teachers are being called on stage... so who should go? RAE!!

As the old saying goes, all good things must eventually come to an end. right? Well sort of. We were asked to participate in a television interview for the province television. We were briefed on the Moon festival (a time for families to come togehter, and a time for people for people to think about others with their families.) So we have been on chinese television 2x now. (see previous entry about surrealism.)

Will