Last night we went to the Sichuan Opera, which really wasn't an "opera" as you might traditionally think of one. There were several different performances that weren't related to one another...this might be the best explanation: http://english.dreams-travel.com/guide/chengdu/sichuanoprea.htm
The pictures turned out better than I thought they would considering how high up we were, so I'll attach some. The videos I took are better, but unfortunately I don't know how to add those here.
Not many exciting things to report from this week. The Transformers movie was actually pretty good! We met a few new people there, so that's always nice. On Thursday and Saturday we went to the English salon thing again- where a group of Chinese people and foreigners go so they can practice their English (or meet Chinese people, like us). This is different from the English Corner where there are over a hundred people all trying to talk at once...this is organized by a guy we know named Tony and there have never been more than 20 people there. We play games, watch Friends, have debates in English, speeches, etc. There is one picture above. On Thursday afternoon we went to the training for the bar waitresses at the CDC. It was about nutrition, but we only had very limited translation so we didn't get as much information as usual. The bar waitresses usually work really late and then sleep all day, and they drink a lot and are around smoke often. They typically only have about 1 meal a day so the lecture was about how to get more vitamins/nutrients throughout their day. David (they guy giving the lecture) spoke about how the street food is really unsafe because sometimes they use paper instead of meat...we had no idea what he was talking about until David C. sent me this article from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/12/cardboard.food.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch
This Tuesday I am giving a lecture/discussion on communication to them...I'm excited but a little nervous. It will be interesting to see how it goes with translation, etc. I really don't like speaking in front of groups, but I know that I'll have to do it in my future career so it will be good for me.
On Friday, we went to DuFu's Thatched Cottage. Here is some information about DuFu:
http://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/poets/dufu.html
The cottage area was beautiful and we learned a lot about Chinese poetry and arts during the Tang Dynasty period. Actually, I don't know if we learned a LOT, but considering that I knew nothing about that time period before I went, it was really interesting. We saw a lot of artifacts from the period that had been excavated there...it's amazing how things like bowls really haven't changed over thousands of years! The picture of the pagoda above is from the cottage area.
I had an experience with my email being blocked after I accidentally put a forbidden word, which I definitely won't put here since I don't want the same thing happening to my blog! I could get onto my email after about 5 minutes but I couldn't click on the email that had that word. Strange. Janell and I were talking about this and how most (not all) of the Chinese people we have talked to are okay with this. It seems as if the most important thing is the end result, regardless of the means. So, for example, if people died during Mao's ruling period because of decisions he made, that wasn't a great thing but "China wouldn't be where it is today without him". Also, if the government feels the need to censor things, it's ok because they have the best interests of the public in mind and it will be best in the end. It's an interesting perspective that I think is similar in SOME ways to how we typically think in America and very, very different in other ways.
You can also see a picture of my room above and a picture of the dragon candy I won from the sugar blower at Jingli street!!! I had to spin a wheel and when it landed on the dragon, everyone around me was so excited because it means I will be lucky. :)
