Wind Ensemble in China

Today we had our second adventure in the amazing city of Guangzhou. Our tour guide was gratious enough to let us sleep in and not have to leave until 10:30 which was a definate bonus. Even when we did have to leave, it was for a short tour of the city and an instrument shop until 2:30 pm. Although I enjoyed Beijing I definately like Guangzhou better. The city is very beautiful, but there are a lot of area's that seem like total slums. We stopped at a lovely park/mall type of place. I honestly don't have a clue what the name of it was, but it had a large waterfall pouring off of the side of the mall down into the area that looked like a park. Everyone reading this must be very confused at what I'm trying to describe, so I'll just say that it was amazing and beautiful and leave it at that.

The instrument shop was so much fun! We got to play all sorts of Chinese instruments (and buy them!) and we also got to buy DVD's CD's and sheet music of all sorts for a ridiculously low price. Needless to say, it was like heaven came down and landed in the middle of Guangzhou just for us. Our dorky musician-ness came pouring out and we all had a blast.

After our tours we jumped back on the bus to head off to the Private Hualian College. When we arrived Dr. Holcomb told us to have our camera's ready and to get off quick. I was in the back of the bus, so the whole quick thing didn't work out so hot for me. But what we saw when we got off was like nothing we had ever seen before. There was a show being put on to welcome us and it was a group of percussionists playing on the side, and on a platform there were 4 of those Chinese Dragon's (well, they called them Tigers, but it looked like a dragon to me) performing an amazing dance. The dragons were the type where 2 people are under the giant costume and one works the head while the other bends over to create the back and butt. As soon as it was done we were ushered into this room where we were met by tons of students with cameras out taking pictures, shouting, clapping, and basically going crazy over us! If you think that our welcome was like this and then things calmed down you're wrong. For the rest of the day we spent all of our time (that we weren't rehearsing or performing) with at least 5, but usually more Chinese people crowding around us wanting to help us do everything and take pictures with us! It was like what we act like if we get a backstage pass to see our favorite rock band. It was crazy! I'm sure that there are at least 40, if not more Chinese people in pictures with me. After we rehearsed they were instantly back around us wanting to carry our bags, lead us to dinner, take more pictures, exchange e-mail address's and just talk and ask questions. It was nice that many of them could speak english, I just wish that I could have been able to speak some Cantonese other than "hi", "bye", "thank you", and "oboe" so that they didn't have to always fine the english words when they got stuck.

After the concert we were once again surrounded by the students and more picture taking happened. Then they put on another martial arts/dragon dance show type thing to say good-bye. As we walked with the students over to the bus we all agreed that we didn't really want to leave. They were so nice, they loved us so much, and we had so much fun with them that we wanted to stay at that school the rest of the time. While waiting on the bus for the last few people to get on a crowd of 30-40 students and faculty stood right outside waving and taking pictures and just basically watching us as if we were going to do something spectacular. It was the most amazing experiance of my life. But now the day has come to a close and another one is quickly approaching, so I better get ready.