Adventures in Nanning, China

This is our 4th day off! We had Monday off in Harbin, Tuesday was our long long long travel day, flying here for about 6 hrs. Our bus leaving the hotel that morning had a flat tire and we thought we'd miss the flight, but the company sent out another bus, so we waited on our bus for an hour for the other one to come, while the other half of the company (on a different bus) waited for us at the airport! But we all made the flight since we WERE the majority of the flight.

Now we're in Nanning, in the Best Western hotel which is my favorite so far, evennicer than the Marriott, in my opinion. It's really pretty and roomy in the double rooms, with comfortable beds and puffy, enormous duvet comforters.

Yesterday, Wednesday, we had our first press event since the hiatus. Before that, many of us walked to the nearby Walmart in the morning, and it's a NEAT store here in Nanning! It has food, a Chinese "deli" where you could eat lunch, everything! (We were at a Walmart in Wuhan that wasn't nearly as nice as this one, which is why I am excited.) We had to buy bathing suits because our hotel has a pool, but we didn't know that before, so most of us packed our suits in the luggage truck, which doesn't arrive until tomorrow. I also bought some powdered milk tea, which I'm drinking now, laundry detergent, which is silly because I keep forgetting I have it and I wash my clothes with shampoo or body wash ... and bottled water.

After Walmart, we got dressed up for the press event. I am blending in with the kids better and better, since they are growing so much! Brigitta is just about my height now, although she still looks much younger and more innocent. :) And our boy swing is nearly my height, which is really good ... all the kids are growing, but they are growing at different rates!

Back to the press event: we went to a school where we were greeted with speeches by the headmaster, then we had a Chinese lesson with the Chinese students, who were about 8-9 years old. We read a little fable about a snipe (bird) and a mussel who got in a fight, and while they were fighting, a fisherman came by and caught them both. Then we watched the kids learn to say it in Chinese with the teacher demonstrating, and watched them learn to write the characters with the help of a video that showed the order of the strokes. Then we watched another animated video explaining the fable and showing its political background (all in Chinese). We SOM "kids" were sitting interspersed with the real students, but we had translators near us to help us understand what was going on.

Next we had a music lesson, and we sang a folk tune from this Guangxi region (of which Nanning is the capital). It was written on the screen with numbers indicating the pitches, and Chinese characters beneath, which of course we couldn't read, so we sang it on an "oooo," trying to go by the numbers for pitch. Suddenly, one of the women shoved a microphone at me and said to me and Caitlin (Brigitta), who was sitting beside me, "Try to sing it!" They videotaped us "ooo"-ing the tune into the microphone with the music teacher accompanying. It was very funny, but I think they were impressed because we got most of the notes right! Even I was impressed by us. :) Then we Americans all got up onstage and sang the folk tune together with the Chinese kids. After that, we sang (poorly, because we didn't plan it) a verse of Do Re Mi -- twice! We had a gift exchange, and got some neat woven shoulder bags, a booklet about the school, and some other random gifts. One of mine was a big, heavy sculpture of a woman carrying bananas -- it was apparently one of the ethnic minorities (there are a lot) of this region. It was huge, and I didn't think I could carry it around with me, but then we found out that CJ (Marta) had been pulled outside for an interview during the gift exchange, and didn't get a "big" gift, so I gave her my giant woman! I told her I can't take it home, which is true, and asked if she would do me a favor and take it instead. I pulled it out of the box and showed her, and she LOVED it, so she accepted it and was suddenly happy again.

Before we left, we were bombarded with autograph requests from the kids. At one point, Michael (Captain) and Christine (Maria)'s little desk where they were sitting was so covered with kids, I couldn't see THEM at all! The kids would come up and hand us a torn scrap of paper (from the fable lesson) and a tiny pencil, and we'd write our names down. So cute! Then we were herded outside for some photos and short group interviews, and then we took the bus home. It was one of the most interesting and fun press events so far! This is the kind of thing that would have been called a "field trip" during the school year, to accrue school hours for the kids, and we adults wouldn't have come. I'm glad we were told to come this time, since there is no school!

Shortly after we got back, Matt, our Friedrich, was having a 13th-birthday party at the hotel pool. What fun for him! We all (kids and most of the adults) put on suits and spent ages in the pool, playing with water guns and throwing floating balls that some of the parents had gotten at Walmart. Then we had pizza, soda, and fruit, ordered from the hotel (and really good!) outside on the patio, which was so nice! And then, of course, we had cake. The party started at about 6 and I didn't go to bed until midnight (although mot of the kids did, so it was just adults chatting late).

At one point Gretl's mom asked me if I would braid Gretl's hair, because they were going on all day trip to a waterfall the next day, and she wanted it up. She offered to pay me, and asked if I could braid HER hair too, and I said of course, with no pay. First I did two French braids on the mom. Then 8-yr-old Gretl came over and patiently sat contorted in a chair, with her neck bent at all weird angles, and let me braid a CROWN into her hair! It was so neat, and she was so good about it! I was shocked that she was able to sit still so patiently for so long, let along all bent over so I could braid upside down. THEN Marta came over and saw what I was doing, and asked if I could braid HER hair specially. She is the one with wild curls, so I said I couldn't do a crown, but I could try to do something creative for her, if she brushed our her hair completely. She went to her room (it was about 10:45 pm by now) and came back later with brushed out hair, bobby pins, brush, combs, everything I could possibly need. Then she patiently sat in the chair while I braided 6 French braids down the back of her head, kind of like corn rows but prettier. Her mom LOVED it and asked our theatre hair person to hire me to do CJ's hair for the show (because in the show she just gets 2 plain braids, because her hair is so curly and hard to deal with). The mom even offered to pay me! So funny. Perhaps I should have a second career braiding hair ...

Then all the kids went to bed, and I sat with a few of the Ukrainians and cast members for a while chatting, until i went up to bed. All in all, a fun day! This is only Thursday, and we're still free until the show on Saturday night!