Peking Opera and other, less hilarious things

I've been either really busy or feeling really icky lately, so when the choice comes up to blog or take a nap, the latter pretty much always wins. On Tuesday afternoon I fell asleep at 3 pm and woke up at 7! I was a little groggy for a couple minutes and then I realized that ahhhh I had been supposed to meet my tutor at 7! I put on shoes and grabbed my work and ran to the building where we meet, but when I got there at about 7:15 my tutor was nowhere to be found. I called her and she was like it's okay, are you free on Thursday? I was confused but apparently she had gone back to her room and was doing other stuff now and couldn't come 15 minutes after our scheduled meeting time. And then on Thursday at our meeting time I got a text message saying she had stuff that she forgot about and could we meet on Friday? Haha so at least my tutor and I are equally disorganized, so we don't get mad at each other. Yay!

Oh man, so my tutor is part of this "English Corner" group that meets on Thursday nights to practice their English, so I went along last night (after another huge nap o'amazingness) and it was totally fun. They have a different topic every week, and when they run across words they don't know, they write them down and then send them all out in an email with the definitions. It's all kinds of cute. I got to have the final say-so on English language matters, too, being the native English speaker. It's nice to know what's going on for a change. They wanted to know if the English names they had picked were normal ones (one girl was named "Duckie," which I thought was awesome) and what is the English word for the king's second wife (this one stumped me) and what do you call people when they both like each other but they're not technically dating yet so you can't say girlfriend and boyfriend. Obviously this was the perfect opportunity to begin the global spread of "not-girlfriend"! Mahahaha. Joy also made me tell English Corner about the Duckie Maniac Club, because she thought it was so cute. They liked the concept, especially the girl who was named Duckie. :) Chinese people seem to like hearing about my family, and are always impressed that I have three brothers. After all, due to the one-child policy most people don't even have one brother. China would totally get a huge kick out of my brothers. Hi brothers! Hen hao!

I am sick with a sore throat and accompanying grossness. Practically everybody is sick this week. I blame it on pollution, and also maybe the fact that nobody covers their mouth when they cough or sneeze. Since yesterday morning I have drunk almost 8 liters of water, and I take my vitamins every day and sleep like a fool, so I should be better soon I hope. Tonight we are going to make dumplings with a Chinese family! I am totally excited, and if I learn how to successfully make dumplings you shall all have many dumplings when I get back to America. Hen hao!

Probably the highlight in silliness of my past few days, however, was Peking Opera. We went Wednesday night, and it was hilarious. I was preparing myself for it to be a little bit torturous, but it was mostly just fun. Imagine, if you can, an Asian soap opera where all the characters are played by clockwork Teletubbies with creepily exaggerated makeup. Now imagine a Monty Python parody of said work with voices provided by Alvin and the Chipmunks and music provided by a horde of first-graders with percussion instruments. Add a bunch of dancefighting and you pretty much have the traditional Chinese art form of Peking Opera. In short, it is one of the silliest things I have experienced in China. The story (from what I could get from the occasional tangled English subtitles and the action on stage) is as follows:

A woman and her sister come to a monastery. The older one is looking for her husband, who went to the monastery and never came back. They run into an old monk (obviously the bad guy) who tells the woman that she is a demon girl and doesn't deserve to have her husband back. The two women threaten the old monk, and when he continues to be rude to them, they summon a flood to the monastery. The part of the flood is played by a passel of people holding large blue squares of fabric attached to sticks. An army comes out to fight the girls, and there is a huge long fight scene with constant loud Chinese percussion and elaborate dancing. I think the older sister gets hurt, but they say something about going to meet at the bridge with the bad monk. I think. At some point there is another dancefight where 6 henchmen throw javelins at the younger sister, one at a time so she can neatly and conveniently bounce them back at the soldiers who threw them with her feet or sword. It was like a juggling show, seriously. The younger sister tells the older sister that if her husband shows up, she will kill him (the exact words being "I will shoot him with my sword") for deserting his wife. When the husband appears, the younger sister wants to kill him, but the older sister keeps standing in between the two. The husband makes excuses for himself, saying that he didn't leave her, they just wouldn't let him out of the monastery. He swears that he was thinking of her ("I missed you when I had to listen to the sounds of wooden fish, if you believe the subtitles) and wants her back. Also he is wearing platform slippers. His wife reveals that she is no mortal woman, but an immortal snake who became a woman so she could have love (maybe, I'm mostly guessing at this). She sings a song with lots of long high whiny notes that slide up and down (remind me about this sometime when we're speaking in person and I will imitate it for you because the silliness of this sound cannot be accurately conveyed in words). The husband says that he doesn't care if she is a snake, he still loves her. The younger sister does not kill the husband, although she comes close a lot of times. Then it's the end, and everybody leaves to ride the bus back to campus and learn a new dance at Hip-Hop Club. At least, that's what I did.

I can't remember if I ever mentioned this or not, but this one time in China I saw 2 guys smoking while riding bicycles. That is the ultimate Chineseness right there; integrating smoking AND bicycles. If only they had also been spitting and arguing over prices with each other at the same time.

I might have done other exciting things recently, but I'm kind of dizzy and I'd rather go back to bed than try to think of them. Hen hao!