Today my school had its 70th Anniversary celebration. It was very different from what a school in American might do. As you can see above the stage is set like one might be at a concert or some big event that you need to pay for. Actually if was like a concert in a way, because many groups of students gave performances and speeches.
A few groups did modern dances and a few groups did Chinese dances. One group even sang Peking Opera, however I was disappointed to see that they were not all decked out in full Peking Opera attire. They only had fans. An alumni from 1958 gave a speech, I didn't lsiten to a lot of it because I was preoccupied with students asking to take my picture (sometimes they didn't even ask), but I did hear him say in English "Long live China, long live China!" The crowd loved that...I wonder why he said it in English? Would it not be more appropriate to say it in the Motherland's native tongue? Hmmm....
For this grand occasion many older alumni came. These people were divided into two groups, the unimportant old people, and the important old people. Unimportant old people can do nothing for the school in terms of connections so they are not put in the good front row seats. The important people are either company big-wigs, or government officials. They get to have their own wooden desk, chair, and complementary water bottle.
From what I was told at the AFS pre-departure orientation China is all about connections, and sometimes it is made more clear than usual.
This program was given the first prize in most entertaining and cultural school ceremonies.
At the ceremony students wore uniforms. I heard many complaints about these "ugly" and "uncomfortable" uniforms. In the middle of the ceremony it began to rain. Everyone dawned a rainslicker provided by the school. The audience appeared to be cotton candy, because the rainslickers were yellow, pink, light blue, and red.
I will post a picture of that too! It's rather entertaining!
Students were happy to go home at 12 o'clock for lunch (their attendance was mandatory) snd begin the week long holiday for National Day.
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