Lantern Festival
Today started out just as another day. After I finished my 5th grade class with Lily at 1050AM, i booked it out of school and down the street to snag a motorbike taxi. I got to Yongning (proper spelling, not Yongling) at about 11:05AM and only few a people were around. I figured we prolly wouldn't head out for another 15 minutes cause that's the way Chinese people work. However, I was more surprised when we didn't leave till about 1145AM. I guess I didn't have to be there so soon. Guo Sifu showed up with some packed lunches. Everyone scarfed their food and they were all amazed when I didn't take my rice box. Listen, you don't need to eat that much rice. Its just a waste of stomach space and no nutrition. I changed my clothes. We then headed out. We packed up a mini-bus filled with people.
On the way to Shiqi one of the kids threw up. Alot of chinese people get sick on buses, its very surprising. I never thought of something like that. We got to Shiqi and unpacked the trucks and bus. We then headed into the stadium where the festivities would start. Wow, this place was pretty big. We were around the 35 yard line if there was a 35 yard line. There were a lot of lion dance troops there along with some other activity groups. There was also a large contigent of buisness employees that were there as advertisement for their companies. The 1+1 Superstore Grocery Store chain had four people dressed up in these giant yellow chick suits. It was really funny. They would let us take any fotos with them though. What a shame.
I just hung around waiting while the rest of the people showed up for the festivities. I was getting lots of stares from other teams. There was one dragon dance team where the guy doing the head was giving me dirty looks and imitating me as I was warming up some muscles. It was kinda chilly. What a Turd Ferguson. I was taking fotos of the team as well. I also allowed a couple of the kids, Victor in particularly, to take some pictures. He actually took a couple good ones. He also took a bunch of crap. :D
About this time I had one news agency come over to me and interview me. It was fine. After her not understanding me, Guo Sifu came over and helped out a bit. Told her what I do and what I would be doing (which I ineviatably didn't do). After some more time it was time to start the show. There was about 10000 people in the audience of the stadium. Wow. I took a place by the press reporters and video people. I had my video camera in my right hand and my digital camera in my left hand. I kept noticing chinese people taking my foto. Oh well, I have to expect it. The lion dance blessing was really kool. There were about 50 lines on the sidelines just rocking out. Really cool. It reminded me of being in Kung Fu movies that have big Lion Dance tournaments and a "VIP" daus in the stands overlooking with their power.
After they were done, they moved to the side. I kept getting yelled at by the police to stay behind the line, the problem was, they kept setting the line further back. First it was the white line. Then it was the yellow line, then it was the red one...etc etc. "But the TV crew guy is out there! I want to do that too!" Punk. There was also one police officer who was taking fotos of the event as well. I asked to take his foto and he said no. Hey, at least I asked him. He didn't bother to ask me before he took mine without my permission.
After lion dancing was done, other events took the floor. First, the Zhongshan Health Attendants. WHat I think were nurses. They were dressed up in full uniform and doing some pretty funny form things. Like marching in place, then other stuff. It was just bizarre. It was like watching that video clip at the end of the Daily Show one day during the "Moment of Zen": It was a bunch of elementary school kids, about 16 lined up in rows all bouncing a basketball in a low stance at the same time for Yasser Arafat. Friggin' bizarre. After them, it was the cheerleaders who didn't even bothering "Bringing it on". Their form/dance they did was even worse than the Nurses.
Now, after the cheerleaders, this group of old chinese women came out with flags around their waists and they did a neat dance to a cool song. It was really nice. After them came another group of old women and a couple old men in the back. They all had red fans. They all started doing a taiji form. I was like, KOOL! it was awesome, they all flipped the red fans open at the same time and there must have been 100 or more people out there, becuase it made a huge resounding FWHOOP! It rocked.
After them came the drum and cymbal people. After that, I think it was done. They started blowing air up the asses of the important people on the daus while everyone else sat down in boredom. I went and sat on the troops cart that carries our percussion session. I was looking down doing something with my fotos and people were coming by and taking my pictures without my permission. Son of a bitch. Because you are being a dick, I won't give you anything. I kept my head down and I turned myself away from their likes. The girls on the cart were giggling everytime I got irritated with them.
After more time of that finally things got underway.
They started bringing out the balloons. They had a torch guy come out like it was the Olympics. Whatever. And then the important people left thru the lined up lions and all the lions were saluting them and the drums were playing. Then we started the parade. We started walking out. Once out of the stadium we were behind the biggest dragon I have ever seen.
The head alone was larger than the guy controlling it and it was about 30 people long. They had three people holding a rope tied to the tail like they were holding it back from the candy ball in front. Very cool. I was staring at them and they were staring at me. It was stop and go parade style, after about 20 minutes we got going along with no stops. We were walking down the Palm Tree Street towards one of the government buildings and the seats where the important people were at. As we walked down I took a bunch of fotos of stuff. It was also kinda funny, all the kids were staring at the shiny stuff in the parade, but all the adults were staring at me. What's a gweilo doing here? It seemed like I was the only gweilo invovled in the festivities. I saw one other walking in the crowd. After we reached the end we headed back to the mini-bus. We drove back to Xiaolan. It was about 530 when we got back. I ended up walking home almost because of the fact that there were no empty taxi bikes around. Fudge. Well, got home after grabbing some food. I was relaxing and threw in O Brother Where Out Thou. Funny.
Afterwards headed to bed. I was super tired.