Day 55 - Opera Panel, Eva's Class Party

Day 55

I had to teach this morning, but David was picked up in a car by a professor and two of his students and driven to what they call the “Blue Hall” for a panel discussion of the Chinese opera that we had seen the past two nights.  They brought him into a room where there was a large U-shaped table and all the names around there were in Chinese, but there was his name in English.  It kind of stood out from the others a bit.  As the panel started, they went around the room and introduced everyone. 

David's seat at the conference about the opera.  They even had his name on a name plate.

The woman on the right with the brown bag on her shoulder was connected to the opera production.  The man next to David is Steve, who interpreted for him during the conference.  Steve is a big wig at the TV and Radio station for Shandong Province.

There were quite a few international people there.  They want to take this opera internationally and they are trying to figure if it would be worth the money they would have to put into it to do it.  The man who interviewed us last night, Steve, was there to interpret for David.  The head honcho over the whole Shandong Province Arts Program was the first to speak.  Then the woman next to David spoke for quite some time.  Then they asked David to speak.  He had been trying to think of things to say, but it kind of shocked him when they suddenly asked him to speak and he almost went blank.  He did manage to say some good things but the one that stood out to him was that the arts can speak to you in a language that words may be hard to convey.  Shortly after he was done, they said he could leave, so he did because we had promised Eva to help her with her class today and he needed to be back here in time.

David's picture by one of the general's costumes that was used in the play.

Goings on of the conference.

After lunch, we waited for Eva to pick us up.  We went with her to her class and they welcomed us warmly.  We did a presentation on places in the United States that we have been to.  Then the students did some performances for us.  In the class, they not only have them learning English, but they are also majoring in other languages.  The Spanish majors got up first and sang, “Take Me Home Country Roads” in Spanish, with David accompanying them on the guitar.  Then the Korean majors did “Gangman Style” and at the end, they pulled David and me up there to dance with them!  We didn’t do so well…  There was one girl who sang a song in English and another who did a dance in the Ancient Chinese style.  That was beautifully performed. 

This was the girl in Eva's class that did the ancient Chinese dance for us.  I love how they use their long sleeves to produce a graceful and beautiful performance.

They wanted to play an English game, so I made up a “Boggle” power point and we played some “Boggle”!  They seemed to like it!  We also sand a couple of songs for them and then it was time for class to be over.

Eva had to teach another class, so we went to a store that was close by to buy some things that were hard to take home when we walk, so we did that and then decided to go over the Stan and Nancy Pace’s apartment because we were tired of shopping at that point.  They wanted to hear all about the performance last night that they had to miss because they were teaching, so we told them.  They seemed to enjoy our visit.  We walked back to where Eva had parked and she drove us home.