I cannot even begin to express how perfect this day was. From sun up to sun down, everything seemed so surreal; it's been wonderful. Its been so busy, yet so fun, so I will try my best to get them all accounted for.
We have been preparing for this day for many weeks now, through spending many hours practicing our group and individual performances. My little ones have been rehearsing so much for Cinderella, and today proved that all of their hard work has paid off. We were the first to go on stage, and although the kids were nervous, they were absolutely flawless. The microphones were distributed properly, everyone remembered their lines, their acting was so sassy and hilarious, their English pronunciation was clear, etc. The actual performance was one of the best I've seen in all of their rehearsals too, I was so proud of them!
One of my favorite parts was when little Nancy (an evil stepsister) took the invitation to the royal ball Alex delivered to Cinderella (Jessica), and instead of stomping and smashing it on the floor with her foot, she lightly dropped it and tapped it with her toes. We had practiced this scene many times in class, but she later told me that she didn't want to ruin the letter, because it was beautiful. We typically practiced with a scrap piece of paper, so I should've know better than to spruce up the invitations and make them appealing. Whatever the case though, she was as darling as they come and did a great job.
Another proud moment was the scene when princess Jessica and prince Jason had their special dance at the royal ball. I taught them a very easy six step dance to a beautiful ballroom track, and they just owned the stage. Those two maintained direct eye contact with one another, Jessica curtsied her dress with one hand and had the other draped over Jason's shoulder, they managed to get a dip and a twirl in, it was just so cute. The crowd of parents and teachers went crazy for it. Then, my other favorite moment of the play is when Samson, my crazy little fidgety one, interrupted the dance and came running on the stage in his clock outfit yelling and squirming saying, "bongggggg, it is midnight". He is so dramatic and crazy, which made him an incredible actor and perfect for his part. Everyone laughed and he had the biggest smile across his face. Basically, I have a group of tremendous young actors. They all were so happy at the end when the parents cheered for them, and for me, that alone made all the hard work we've done so worth it. I loved every second of it; I can't wait to replay and watch the recording of it all over again.
The following performances were equally as wonderful as my own; all were so cute in their own way. Teacher Cam Cam's group sang "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and well, about two or three of the seven knew the words, so those individuals got the microphones, yelled ever so loudly directly into them, and well, it was just lovely. Those kids are too funny.
The next performance after Cameron's was teacher Ty Ty's. His class did Peter Pan, and his character assignments were prime. First off, the three most clueless kids in our class are all in his group, and they were all pirates together. Throughout the play, some would run around or dance on the stage (which was not planned) and just do their own thing. It was so funny, until they got a little scolding from the side crew. Then, they were all very well behaved and were perfectly behaved pirates.
Miss Candy was tinker belle, Dora was Wendy, Subie, Tina, and Marly were the lost girls, and Cary (who is also a little spacy) was Peter Pan. At the end of their skit, they all sang the song, "The more we get together, together, together, the more we get together, the happier we will be..." and it was so tender. They put their arms around each other and swayed back and forth while singing; the kids in his group just have the sweetest hearts.
Next on the list was Chloe's performance. Now, up until this point, we all had more difficult skits in my opinion. Teacher Chloe's group, however, was singing and performing "five little ducks", which is adorable, yet, we sing it frequently in class. That being said, you would think the performance would be flawless, right? Well, no. Ritik, the trouble maker in the little kindy class, was Daddy duck, and his only lines were "new day" and "bye bye", yet, Lisa, the mommy duck, had to nudge and remind him each time he was to say his lines, it killed me. Also, when we were doing dress rehearsal yesterday, the kid would either scream "new day" or whisper it, there was no happy medium when he spoke in the microphone. We were all really relieved when he decided to talk in our "inside voice" today.
The performance was funny in itself, but when it came time to sing the actual song, I couldn't keep it together. There was so much going on with each child, they each had agendas of their own. First off, we had Edward and Lisa with the microphones, competing to see who could sing the loudest, Fay Fay standing there and not having a clue as to what was going on, Raina and Ritik dancing around Fay Fay, baby Jack just sporting his cheesy grin to the crowd, and looking adorable as always, and Tony, oh Tony. He was yelling at the top of his lungs, elongating each of the words and throwing the tempo off completely. All the kids were singing different parts of the song because Tony slowed the pace down, so so much. Also, he was yelling so loud that his neck veins were protruding, his face was bright red from the lack of oxygen, and his little eyeballs had easily tripled in size. This song is long when the kids sing it normally, yet today, we learned the true meaning of a long song. It was hilarious experience, but also kind of painful at the same time.
After the crowd had settled and the soreness from laughing started settling in our abs, we moved onto the next performance. Teacher Lexi was next in the docket and her kids were performing Little Red Riding Hood. Jelemy is in her class and was supposed to be the grandpa, but he left for Canada to see his father on the 15th, so Marcus filled in for him. I was really looking forward to see Jelemy act and say in his monotone voice, "I am grandpa, and I am old", but Marcus did a good job at filling in.
Her character selection was perfect: Sami and Ella as Little Red, angry Angel as the big bad wolf, Marcus as the grandpa, and Jackie and Oliver as the strong guys who save the day. They are just a cute bunch of kids. Even if they completely botched the play, it would've been equally as cute. At the end, Lexi had them to sing, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by the Baha Men. I've always hated that song, until today that is. The kids sang it so proudly with their Chinese accents, it was perfect.
The last individual performance was Teacher Jenna's class, and they did Snow White. Something kind of funny about her play is that earlier in the semester, Jenna had assigned Nicole to be Snow White, but Marine came in and listened one day and said, "Nicole is no longer Snow White. Melanie will be Snow White, she is much better for the part". When I say earlier in the semester, I really mean about two or three weeks ago. That being said, Melanie had to put a lot of work into memorizing her lines for the big day. She did wonderfully and was such a beautiful princess. Also, she went out and bought a brand new Snow White outfit for the performance, brought it to class everyday, and was sure to show teacher Jenna and I everyday, she kills me.
After all of the individual performances, the younger kindy class did a group dance to "Scream and Shout" by Will I Am and Brittany Spears. You couldn't understand much of what they were saying, but hey, who needs that anyways?! My favorite part was definitely the chorus when they all gain clarity and sing, "I want to scream" and then follow with a piercingly loud scream. and then sing, "and shout", and then let out a deep roar. You could tell that they loved being able, and even asked, to scream and be crazy for the performance. It was such a good one.
Our kids then took the stage and did their dance to our mash up of "I Believe I can Fly", "Some Nights" and "I Feel Good". Jenna and I have worked so hard with them in learning the lyrics and all the transitions and dance moves. Although we have had to change little parts here and there, the kids picked up in things quickly and absolutely nailed it today. They do so many performances here that they are able to pick up dance moves and lyrics so effortlessly, they never fail to impress me. They also sang all of the words, loud and clear, and in English, so that made the dance just that much better. It was a perfect ending to the kids' performances.
Marine asked us, us being the kindy teachers, to put a little dance or some kind of skit together for the parents and kids. Jenna and I naturally got assigned the roll of finding and teaching a dance to our team, and Jenna came up with brilliant idea of doing the famous EFY line dance we all know and "love". I think I learned it when I was fourteen, maybe? Anyways, we tried doing it from memory, but we quickly learned that we were super rusty. We then decided to look up the dance on YouTube, relearn the moves, and teach our groupies. The dance was to the song, "We Like to Party" which is that super obnoxious song they play at like six flags and other amusement parks, but it turned out to be a big hit for our spectators. We also set off party poppers at the beginning of our performance, which caused a lot of excitement, and maybe some fear. I don't quite think that all of them were wuite ready for our loud popping surprises.
Once we were through with our little line dance, Marine began to play the slideshow Lexi and I had put together the day before. We gathered a bunch of pictures of the kids, us teaching, them on children's day, etc. that kind of summed up the semester. Even though I had watched the slideshow a million times while making it with Lex yesterday, I still managed to ball my eyes out while it was playing on the big screen. I had Jonathan on my lap and he would occasionally turn around and wipe my tears away and just say, "teacha, why are you sad?". I just wish they understood how much I truly care about them.
After the slideshow was over, Marine asked all of the teachers to go on the stage. We figured we would be taking pictures with the kids, but they just came down and showered us with gifts instead. There were handmade cards, pictures of them, necklaces, porcelain Chinese cats, bracelets, journals, treats, etc. It was the sweetest thing. Now, it was rather tricky though, because I was holding all these gifts, I was sweating from our dance, and I had just finished crying (aka I looked terribly haggard) and then the parents were trying to get us to take photos with their little ones. It was bad timing, but it all worked out somehow. We got some really cute photos with the kids and their parents, which always end up being the greatest treasure anyways. Also, when I read these cards when I'm back home, I know I'm going to start crying yet again. They say things like, "I love you teacher Kasey, I will miss you forever" or, "Thanksgiving. You have made my life brighter and I really appreciate you". Some may sound odd, but they are so meaningful to me, and they make sense to me. The people here are so wonderful, I can't even get over it.
After I pulled myself and my emotions back together, the six of us decided to get a little lunch and head on over to the pool. The sun was out, we were all dying of heat, and we all got our new swim suits from taobao! What more could we ask for? We spent the majority of the afternoon laying out in the beautiful sunshine and relaxing by the pool. However, I swear that the sun is so much stronger here, because I managed to fry myself, yet again. Hopefully this time I won't shed another layer of skin, that was just down right nasty. I'm crossing my fingers, and my toes.
This evening, all of us teachers had yet another performance scheduled for the primary students and their parents. We had to put on a show that would last at least twenty minutes, meaning we needed to get creative with our acts. Our first act was our group singing, and playing our ukuleles and guitars, to the classic, "I'm yours" we've been playing over and over on this trip. Next, we had our Kung fu masters, McKay, Jenna, Brent, Preston, and Amanda, perform what they've been working on recently in Kung fu. They said that they did terrible, but it looked great as a spectator. They were very entertaining to say the least, and they can take that how they please.
The next performance was just Konner and I singing Obadiah Parker's version of "Hey Ya", while he played his guitar and I played my uke. The performance itself was fine, but the best part about it was that we literally had kids surrounding us on all sides of the stage, Gloria yelling at them in Chinese to get off the stage, her voice trumping mine in the microphone, and my occasional giggle every time me and Konner messed up. I mean, we began practicing together ten minutes before the performance, what more could you expect?
Our group also finally performed the Chinese song we've been practicing, "Those Years", and that absolutely won the crowd over. Almost everyone began singing along, which made the atmosphere just that much better. Tyler and I were the only ones who actually memorized the lyrics, so they stuck us with the microphones and had us sing extra loud. I was impressed both with myself and our group for learning the song and being able to sing it all the way through, it was super tough!
After the primary performances concluded, our group headed out to the field and took some pictures together. Two of my students, Candy and Jaime, were on the track, so after we were through with pictures, Tyler and I began chasing them around and playing games with them. I wish more than anything that we had more time to just play with the kids, rather than just teach them. I realize I am here to teach them, but a little more play/free time like tonight would have been nice.
We ended the night perfectly by getting out favorite Taiwan smoothies. We were all terribly sweaty and hot after the performances and playing with the kiddos, that we just needed something to cool us off. Our sweet smoothie treats did just that, they're always a good fix.
It's been an amazing and very fulfilling day. I can't believe I have only two days left of teaching. It's blowing my mind and breaking my heart. However, I plan to make the best of my time and spend the little time I have left with the ones I've met and grown to love here. On that note, I am off to bed, 晚安, goodnight.
