Or, IT’S CHRISTMAS!!!
Yes, it’s here! Deck the halls, tinsel ar y goeden, seren yn y nef, goodwill and mead to all men and women! My favourite time of year, when everything is huge and hearty, getting tipsy on brandy, carrots for Rudolph, carols by candlelight, cheesy Christmas tunes, giggling about mistletoe, bear hugs, the Snowman, steaming kitchens, teeth chipped on silver coins in the pudding, Scrooge and the spirits, and goodwill and peace to all those we love!
As you can tell, I’m excited. Even if it’s a bit ahead of meself. See, for most of us here in Ningbo, it’ll be our first Christmas away from home. And naturally, we want to celebrate it in style, so planning has already begun. And since we haven’t had the stores blasting out tunes and flogging inflatable Santas for the past month, we’re getting geared up early to make up for it. I’m proudly charged with making Christmas cake, for which I have no experience to offer, but a pan of plums gently crystallising on my bedside table. Pretty soon the gorgeous syrupy smell will fill the room and replace the aroma of acrylic paint that’s been dominating it since I started colouring my mask (that’s a separate story altogether).
So, after an early Christmas rant (but a happy rant, a rant of excitement and joy! I’m not sure what the proper word is for a happy rant), let us kick off this blog with the new Chinglish of the Interchangeable Period of Time Award! This invitation to a blood donating event was just so wonderfully poetic, and yet so bizarre, I just had to give it the award. All I can say is if I got invites like this back in Britain to donate blood, I’d have started years ago!
“A beautiful flower will give courage to patient to fight against the disease. Blood donation is like sending a flower, bringing hope of life to the others and sending pleasure of joining together with the families. If you donate your blood for others, there are no doubts that you will receive the help from others once you or your relatives need blood. Blood donation is like a relay race, passing the love from one person to another. If you donate one bag of blood today, it will mean a lot to the others.
Love and dedication are not just empty talk indeed. If you have a warm heart and feel responsible for the society, please join us! Give a pint, get a pound. You can’t afford to miss it!”
I particularly love “Give a pint, get a pound”. Remember, this is China, so they clearly don’t mean a pound sterling… but then, what do they mean? Is it a reference to Shylock and his pound of flesh? It honestly wouldn’t surprise me. Truly bewildering.
So, what’s been happening here? Well, a couple of events as ever to keep things from getting too dull. My career on the catwalk kicked off tonight thanks to my friend Kenrick. After I roped him into going to the Sweeney Todd auditions, I guess I owed him a favour, and this week he called it in. Being asked to model some clothes for GXG (anyone heard of them? I don’t know fashion, so I don’t know if they’re famous or not), he needed some more people to help him out. Myself and another friend Rick were keelhauled into position, and so this Tuesday night I found myself striding down the aisle of the auditorium wearing an outfit that I don’t think I could be paid to wear in public! All grey coats and skinny trousers and skinny ties… ych a fi! Still, we took it with a pinch of salt, and given the audience was only about thirty people, a good portion of whom where only there to support us, we decided to ham it up and put on a show! It was tremendous fun, and then I slept through the next hour or so of Chinese students strutting up and taking it all very seriously. I got a voucher to spend at GXG which I shall never use, and felt much better once I was back in my comfy torn jeans, hand-me-down shirt, and £2 market-bought scarf.
Got a bit of culture over the weekend too, all in the name of my theatrics. The Sweeney Todd rehearsals have been going slowly, and were getting a bit stale. To put a spark back in it and a spring in our steps, the directors decided we would go to a local drama group for some acting lessons. Much like climbing the mountain a few weeks ago, I didn’t know that much about it on the way there. It had been explained in a little detail, but I was hazy as to what we were doing and wasn’t expecting much. I thought it would be some small traditional Chinese drama group who would give us some advice on projection and stage directions, things I already knew. Unlike the mountain run however, I was neither disappointed nor unpleasantly caught off guard.
Firstly, the drama group were English. I know that sounds a little… well, I don’t want to use the word racist, but after two and a half months of conversations held about acting in someone’s- either mine or the directors- second language, it was really a pleasant change to have a laugh together with a bunch of Brits- the jokes didn’t need explaining, I could ask really technical questions without having to worry about being misunderstood, it was a nice blast of the old. So that was nice.
Second, they were professional actors, so they knew what they were talking about. They all of them oozed experience bought from years of trying different ideas and hundreds of shows, both good and bad, and that made me trust what they had to say far more than the directors of our show. They also had some ideas I would never have thought of myself, which were really helpful.
Finally, and best of all… we got to watch their show. And the show was Othello. Not just an English play, but SHAKESPEARE. Oh it made me happy. Tragedy, comedy, big acting, real villainy and heroism, gritty themes… it was a great performance, and really handy to see the techniques we had been taught actually used in a real production. And of course, I didn’t waste the opportunity to make a fool of myself. During the workshop earlier we had been taught by the supporting cast, we hadn’t met the guys playing either Othello or Desdemona. After the show every one of the actors came out to greet us and ask what we thought, did we enjoy it, and have a bit more of a relaxed chat. And this time, Desdemona and Othello came out too, and we met them. So I was chatting away with someone, then Othello came to join us (Eugene, his real name was). The woman I was talking with introduced me and Eugene to each other, and he held out his hand to shake mine and said “Hi Dan, great to meet you”. It’s a simple enough sentence, isn’t it? Doesn’t require anything special in the answer? A simple “Nice to meet you too Eugene,” would have worked, maybe with “Congrats on the show, I really enjoyed it,” if I could work up to it. But I had just watched this man playing Othello, one of the most tragic Shakespearean characters ever written, a role of ENORMOUS gravitas and weight. As if that wasn’t enough, he himself was a six-foot something, bulging-muscled, deep-voiced, dark-eyed, goateed and cropped black-haired, giant of a man. So maybe it’s no surprise that instead of saying anything particularly sensible I panicked like a startled teenage girl and just said in a squeaky voice somewhere in the back of my throat:
“Mnargh…”
That will haunt me just as I’m about to fall asleep for some nights to come. After I’d stopped my knees from trembling at vastness of this man’s presence and got my tongue working again I managed to introduce myself and eventually worked up to answering his questions about our show, my course, Improv, etc. We had a good ol’ natter and eventually we, the student crew, thanked the pros and made our way home. But I don’t think I’ll forget for a while how when meeting this great actor, and having a chance to talk to him and congratulate him, I instead went weak at the knees and squeaky in the voice and said,
“Mnargh…”
Aside from that, nothing really to report. Lectures go on, coursework gets submitted, exams are beginning to appear on the calendar (boo!) and Christmas preparation is well under way. Damn those plums smell good!
I suspect I’ll put one more post up before Christmas to report a bit more on our preparations- if nothing else, I’ll want to declaim if the cake is going well, and if it isn’t then there’ll probably be a story to tell nonetheless. Until then, take care, and enjoy the snow and the cheer!
Lots of love,
Dan
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