It’s Children’s Day on Saturday, June 1^st, and I have now done performances with kids 2 years in a row. Last year, if you remember, I had a choir class with whom I practiced for 5 – 6 weeks prior to our little shows we put on at the Children’s Palace in Longfeng and then in Yixi the next day. This time it was the usual Chinese surprise style adopted to say that we will be performing on Saturday the 25^th May, a date they told me on Saturday the 11^th of May! I can hear you saying “So what! Two weeks is enough.” That may be true if I had been teaching a choir class this term – but I wasn’t! That meant we had time for 1 rehearsal next week then the performance the following Saturday. A perfect opening for us to make complete fools of ourselves. I was not happy to say the least. So in a 10 minute rush discussion we had to decide on 2 songs and just who was going to sing them, that is, which class? I was at that time teaching my Pre-Starters A class, it was Saturday morning, why not do it with this lot of kids? I had 17 students in that class, 9 boys and 8 girls. I asked them do they know the “Bingo” song? Yes! Do they know the “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” song? Yes! Okay, let’s practice now. I grabbed my guitar and away we went and actually it was a welcome distraction from the usual subject matter of Pre-Starters A English which sucks.

So, last Saturday I donned the glad rags ( a long sleeved white shirt and black trousers), strapped my good guitar to my back and hopped on my bike at 8am and made my way to the concert hall which is part of the school complex at which I teach. The place was buzzing just like it was last year. Parents trying to park cars, kids running around, the ever present Chinese opportunist food, balloon and stuffed toy seller and the usual pompous Chinese officials strutting their stuff. The costumes the kids wore were, in some instances, fantastic as usual. I have read in the national news that males outnumber females in China by a staggering 120 million but for these concerts the girls outnumber the boys 50 to 1. Once inside the foyer we had a student art exhibition on one side with existing students doing some artwork and a zheng stand on the other. The zheng is a Chinese instrument that is a kind of lay down harp – a cross between a guitar and a harp I guess.

 Inside the hall it was a carbon copy of last year – absolute pandemonium with the noise level at 90 decibels and the concert had not even started! Kids with parents and grandparents, dressed in costume or not if they were not performing, make-up being applied, leggings being adjusted, headdress getting feathers fluffed, food and drink being stuffed down throats with the usual no hands trick by the kids as parents pampered to the max by holding the drinks to the mouth and all but chewing the food for their children. Looks bizarre but something I am very used to now.

The concert started with a big fanfare and so loud….well it had to be to be heard above the audience. Deafening really and the Chinese get so excited when they are doing announcements that it’s almost a shriek. Acts came and went, some good, some bad and some mamahuhu (so – so in Chinese) but all cute. In the meantime nobody in the audience took notice of or applauded acts unless it was their own kids. Seems it’s a natural phenomenon here but I found it kind of rude and a tad ignorant. The audience noise was truly terrible. On the positive side the unrehearsed act I was to present would go unnoticed for its out of tune singing and lack of co-ordination neither of which problems we had last year. Sigh!!!

Children’s Day on Saturday continues for us as teachers and we have arranged to entertain kids in the local park. That will be a new experience as well. I have elected to teach and play tunnel ball and cross pass to the kids and hope that the parents and assistants can help keep the kids under reasonable control. The park will have about 150 kids playing in it, that’s 147 more than I have ever seen there at any one time in almost 2 years!