CHINESE PAGEANTRY

Holy heck did the elementary school students put on a show this past Friday. I'm talking professional stage lighting, concert speakers, wireless microphones, smoke machines, costumes, costume changes, make-up, singing, choreography, and more. It was pretty awesome. I believe at that age I was considered talented if I could put on a sock puppet show. My favorite was their rendition of "Beauty and the Beast" which was renamed "The Castle and the Rose" because the principal thought the word "beast" sounded too negative.

THE CHINESE EDUCATION SYSTEM

On my birthday this year I served as a judge for my school's English language competition (most likely because of my grasp of the language). The students were required to memorize a five minute long monologue, and were then were asked to tell a story about a random photo they were shown (see the middle photo above). The students excelled at the memorization section of the competition, even making it seem easy. But when it came time to think creatively, almost none of them could say anything about the photos except for basic descriptions. This is indicative of the education system here in general where the major focus seems to be rote memorization, which sounds impressive until you discover most students have no idea what they are saying. The most amusing part of the competition was that all the boys wore suits and heavy make-up.