In the spotlight again
Been a busy week and a long day, but I really should write something. About the only thing of interest, however, was tonight's English corner. Friday evening is Yau Neih's "music corner" where she teaches English songs and dances. Well, yesterday we get word that someone (I think the local TV station) wanted to videotape the proceedings. Oy. Yau Neih didn't announce this in any of her classes--she didn't know if folks would be intimidated and avoid the corner or on the other hand feel obliged to show up and give their teacher face. It wasn't going to be Candid Camera or anything, so they could always leave when they saw the camera. Anyway, we were kind of curious what would happen.So around six twenty I head over to the English Resource Room (or library, if you will) to fetch the stools. You see, the corner is held in the lobby of the new classroom building. People need someplace to sit, so we need to bring some plastic stools to accommodate folks. I have somehow designated myself official stool shlepper. Sometimes I run into students who offer to help, other times I handle it all myself. Anyway, tonight I scored some helpers on the way to the resource room. As we were heading up the stairs, one asked me if I had heard that they were going to be interviewing the students at English corner. I said that I had heard about being videotaped, but was unsure about interviews.
When we got back to the lobby, other students were tacking up the song sheets (big sheets of poster paper with lyrics written upon them) and a dude with a video camera was catching cutaway shots of the lyrics. The student turn out was pretty good, including about seven male students. Now we knew that there was some faculty/administration pressure to attend since we usually don't get any guys attending. Anyway, Yau Neih gets started and things pretty much go as normal, save for the videographer going around shooting footage. When the dancing started, six of the guys were brave enough to join in. (One sat and talked to our neighbor Michael.) This proved to be somewhat interesting. I have taken to sitting out the dance segment of the program since some of the dances require switching partners and a couple of the female students have been intimidated by me. I didn't know if it's my gender or if my dandruff shampoo isn't working. Anyway, I was wondering if the male students would cause a similar disruption. What I didn't figure on was the boys having a similar reaction as the skittish girls. One guy was absolutely adamant about not switching over to a female partner. I can't recall the last time I've seen a deeper shade of red on someone's face. But in the end, the dancers managed to cope with the slightly disruptive element and have a good time.
In the end, the corner ran almost normally. A couple of students were pulled out of the crowd and briefly interviewed. We, too, were tapped to say a few words on camera. (I was given the instructions to "say something about America, or China, or your hometown.") We were told that we would be told when the segment would air on TV, but that's what they told us about the tea shoot. Apparently that aired a week or so ago without our knowledge. Anyway, so ended the latest installment in our Chinese television career. I wonder if I have to start paying dues to SAG and AFTRA?
posted by John @ 6:53 AM
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