Weekend Cultural Exchange

I was just trying to work out how many chicken wings there were in
half a kilo when I
spotted my friend Robin with her daughter Sammy outside the chicken
shop. Their presence
has given me a way out of this embarrassing, if not ridiculous
challenge. I called out to the
owner, "I don't know how many chicken wings there are in half a kilo.
Can I have four, no,
maybe six chicken wings please" as I ran out to greet them. When I got
home, I learned that
he had actually given me, predictably, five chicken wings.
Incidentally, that's the trouble with
being indecisive. Some shopkeeper will make the decision for you if you
don't do it yourself.

Anyhow, Robin invited me to a performance on Saturday. Sammy has been
learning "clowning"
for a week during her summer break. In this country, you can learn
about almost anything
under the sun. I almost enrolled myself in a tree surgery course a few
years ago. I stopped
only to save my friends from laughing themselves to death when I told
them.

Saturday came. The location was at the Wharf Theatre at the Rocks. I
met up with Robin
inside the caf? where she was having her second
skinny-soya-decaf-cappacino. I ordered
something a little bit more straightforward. I had a normal cappacino
and toast. It was a
lovely morning. While I had the chance, I returned to Robin a few items
that had erroneously
found their way into my house. One of them was a canister of
ScotchGuard. It is incredible
how much attention one can draw to oneself with a misplaced item, like
a canister of
ScotchGuard. Everybody was wondering why she was holding a canister of
ScotchGuard
all day in a performance by children. I must confess that it did look a
bit ridiculous. The bright
red lid and the tartan design of the can unfortunately clashed with her
outfit that day.

Oh, this brings me back to the performance. It was a special
performance held by the
theatre that has a company of visiting Chinese children singers. The
arrangement was
for the Chinese kids to execute their performance followed by their
Australian counterpart.
The Chinese organiser had put up a big long banner on the back wall of
the stage filled with
Chinese characters, which of course, no Australian could understand. It
fell off a little later
on probably because it wasn't put up properly in the first place, but
nobody really missed
anything. They never got it in the first place.

The Chinese performance started with the sweetest little Chinese girl
introducing the
song to be performed. She would say,

"Bla bla bla bla bla bla Mau Shi"

A much less appealing Chinese man would then appear to do the
translation.

"The next song is Mau Shi"

We didn't think that he was very useful because he forgot to translate
the most important bit,
which was "Mau Shi". So, to this day, I still don't understand what
"Mau Shi" actually meant
and what that song was all about.

The Chinese kids performed the traditional way and with rigour. They
were aged from
eight to eleven. Strong voices, precision timing and facial expressions
were all there.
What could be missing were perhaps a bit of innocence and homeliness.
There were both
solo and group songs mixed in with some dances. I was particularly
bowled over by one
young boy. He had the most incredible voice. It was strong, rich and
yet youthful. It was
distinctively a child's voice but without the whining. He went up and
down the pitches with
ease. He also sang with his heart and his song transformed me to
another place. The fact
that I did not understand a word was unimportant. I was
mesmerised.

The Australian kids were literally from the other side of the planet.
They were everything
but disciplined. They either mumbled or spoke too softly or quickly. I
didn't understand much
of what they were saying either. On that score, they had an equal
footing with the Chinese
kids. But they were unequivocally and unambiguously themselves, as
children. They were
expressive as who they were. Their shyness, their embarrassments, their
wits and energy
were all out there, and they made no effort to disguise any parts of
it. Another major contrast
was their lack of footware. All of them went to stage bare-footed. The
Chinese kids had
make-up on their faces.

After the contrasting performances, we went outside to have our
barbecue. Communication
was a little difficult between the two cultures due to the language
barrier. Australian kids came
up to me asking me how to say "You sang very well" in Mandarin. I made
up something and
even volunteered to say it for them, since I really wasn't too sure
exactly what the correct
pronunciation was. We found the right little girl. We got her attention
and she looked up at
me with anticipation. I said what I had to say and she proceeded to run
away from me. I
thought of going after her demanding a reason, except that I didn't
know how to do that in
Mandarin. So I had to let her go. Sorry kids.