Worst Kept Secrets

I’m four days away from a three week vacation, which is absurd to me - I haven’t had this much time off work in my adult life, and I have no idea what I’ll do with all that free time (AHEM. learn Chinese, finally, Miss.). The high point of the Chinese year is coming up - Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). Actually, a few nights ago at an Indian restaurant some of my coworkers who’ve been teaching in China for a while were complaining about how short our Spring Festival break is compared to other schools. It’s at least as big a deal as Christmas, and from my perspective, it seems even more unavoidable and all-consuming, without any intrinsically exclusive religious underpinnings.

The whole thing kicks off on the first day of the first lunar month (first new moon of the year), which is February 7th this year, and lasts for fourteen days, ending with something called the Lantern Festival. Bear in mind that I’m not speaking from my in depth knowledge of Chinese culture here, I’m just paraphrasing my wikipedia substitute. 2008 is the year of the mouse, in case you’re curious. The mythological roots of the whole thing involve a man-eating beastie called the Nian who came out of hiding to eat people every twelve months. Eventually, the ancient Chinese figured out that the Nian is afraid of loud noises and the color red. Hence, firecrackers and red decorations everywhere you turn. So one word for the holiday is Nónglì xīnnián (something something “the passing of the Nian”). If you want more details, just read the wikipedia article.It gets pretty complicated.

I’m excited about being in China (and not working) for all of this. It sounds like a great holiday. That’s why when I got a message from my boss asking if I’d like to take part in our organization’s Spring Festival production, I said yeah! I mean, all he wanted me to do was to lip synch to a Chinese song with some of the other foreign teachers and the Chinese staff. No biggie. Oh, on national television. Still, though, Chris said, “well, you’ve been here for two and a half months, it’s about time you were on Chinese television.” Fair enough, I figured, and I liked the idea of being able to tell people at home that I was on Chinese tv.

The lesson here is always distrust anyone who asks you to do something and promises it won’t be a big deal. A few days later I got a note on my desk requesting my presence at a rehearsal. That made sense - I figured it would be wise to get everyone together to at least hear the song and figure out who should stand where and all that. Well, rehearsal for our three minute skit lasted a good deal longer than the twenty minutes I was expecting. And there was another one the day after that, and the day after that, culminating in a grueling four hour marathon Sunday afternoon. Poor Chris has a special part that involves him fake playing the guitar for about ten seconds - this has required extra, special rehearsal time.

I don’t know why this surprised me. This is, after all, the organization that held practice for the tug-of-war competition on Christmas Day, as pictured below.

Um, they really are practicing tug-of-war against a tree. It’s a really arresting visual metaphor for oh so many things…

But I don’t mean to sound so scroogy about it. I mean, it’s cute, and it’s a fun experience. I like most of the people involved, and I think it’s pretty awesome that I’m going to be on tv. I’ve been spending most of the rehearsal time staring blankly at the Chinese choreographer speaking very emphatic Mandarin and then waiting for someone standing next to me to push me when I’m supposed to do something. My boss has been very attentive, giving me extra lessons in swaying and stepping. And I guess the end of the story is that I’m going to be on Chinese national television this Friday, getting pushed around by Chinese girls who better understand the moves. I’m told I’ll get a DVD copy of it when all’s said and done.

During the monster rehearsal on Sunday, we migrated over to the tv studio to get a feel for the performance space, and me, Chris, and a few coworkers crammed ourselves into the boss’s minivan, with him, his wife, and their two year old son sitting up front, and wedged in between Chris and Ben in the backseat, I felt like we were taking a family road trip, driving around Nanjing listening to classic rock. It was weird how fast I reverted to tween-age middle child, wanting to jam on my headphones and start sulking about something or another. It was also the first time I’ve been in a car that wasn’t a taxi or a bus since I got here, and that felt incredibly weird.

The tv station was pretty cool, too. We got to watch a bunch of other groups of educators rehearsing their skits for the big extravaganza, and some of them were a lot of fun. I was particularly hypnotized by a large group of tiny little women in matching red sweaters who read a poem and all looked terrifyingly like my mother. It was so stupid not to bring a camera - I really did feel like a little bit of a big shot during the whole thing. I mean, come on, how many national tv stations have you been in (sorry)?

In other news, it’s exam week, and I’ve been watching kids take tests for seven hours today. I’ve got a lovely and growing stack of essays to grade, so I’m going to get to that.