[This is my Trail] It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

[Rachelle]

Actually, I guess it should go the other way. It was the worst of times first. For the last couple of weeks I have been really sick. I'll spare you all the details, but the words projectile and explosive could be used to describe the situation. Ick. Who knows what I ate to bring this scourge upon myself, but I'm thankful to say that it has passed now. Oh, the worst of times in China. The unknown malady also caused me to miss a trip to the countryside for work that would have gotten me involved in some other aspects of the work we do. Since I didn't go I'm kind of out of the loop, which isn't really fair, but what can you do? Hopefully I'll get another chance.

I began eating again on Thanksgiving and did have the traditional meal including turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. I ate with some other "Thanksgiving Orphans" at a western restaurant in town. It wasn't as good as homemade, but I can't complain too much. Our "gravy boat" was a whole pitcher. Awesome! :)

Truly the best of times in China was on Saturday night, though. I gave myself an early birthday present and went with three of my (American) friends to a Jay Chou concert. If you've been following this blog/my email updates for a while, you may remember the milk drinking Chinese cowboy music video.


That's the guy! Needless to say, there was a lot of pointing and giggling among the Chinese that four white girls would go to the Jay Chou concert, but hey, who's to say foreigners can't like Jay Chou too?? I took a video of the same song, but the quality is not the good. It's more for the sound--watch it so you don't miss the "Oh Susanna" interlude in the middle. Hahaha. Oh China!



Anyway, Jay Chou puts on a great show and it was worth every jiao of the 250RMB ($36) we paid to get in (100RMB for fake tickets, and then 150 for real ones). I would have been more pissed off about the fake ticket thing if the same thing hadn't happened to me in the US (for tickets that cost a lot more money). And scalping was still cheaper than buying them for face value. The tickets we had cost 580RMB. And they included free light up swords (which you can see in all the pictures), whistles (an unfortunate choice--listening to a gazillion shrill whistles at the same time is not pleasant), ponchos, a little backpack, and paper binoculars. Haha. It was a regular little gift bag!

In addition to the normal singing, dancing, fireworks, and lights of a pop show, Jay Chou actually played the guitar, the piano (he's really good), the drums, and a traditional Chinese instrument called the guzheng. The concert also included square dancing, latin dancing, dueling pianos, an amazing break dancing kid, a giant high heel, lots of instruments, people, etc. rising up through the floor, and another traditional Chinese instrument called the erhu. If you watched the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, you know that the Chinese can put on a good show and Jay Chou is probably one of the most (if not the most) popular musicians in Asia these days. He's also an actor. Therefore, he puts on a really great show. It really was a great concert, and a real "Chinese" experience. Also a great chance to practice our character reading because they put the lyrics to the songs on the big screen like it was KTV (karaoke). Awesome!

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Posted By Rachelle to This is my Trail at 11/30/2008 07:13:00 PM