China (Supposedly) Has Talent

15 September 2009

After class one uneventful, yet fateful Tuesday, my classmates and I met a man who has since changed our lives and perspectives dynamically. This is not a man of great stature physically or within his own career. However, he makes up for his size and average success with a spunk only matched by that of an epileptic Cocker Spaniel. He is a giant of both gumption and lung capacity. He is in his mid-sixties, yet can go to bed after midnight and wake up by 6:00 am. He has the patience and endurance to stand the entire length of a bus ride across Shanghai in a single go without shouting at a single driver. He can quote the whole of Confucius’ writings in half a breath at a pace of 500 meters. He is: Zhang Laoshi the Miniscule and Mighty.

Now that introductions are complete, it is upwards and onwards with our selves. We met the soon-to-be-infamous Zhang Laoshi (laoshi is a title meaning “teacher”; in China, titles come second) outside a tepidly tedious Tuesday teaching session. He began spouting out English at a breakneck pace; at least, we’re all pretty sure it was English. Most of his words were tied together tighter than a Boy Scout’s best knot. We snagged enough word pairs to discern that he wanted us to go with him to the TV station that night to help out some Thai students that also go to Shanghai Daxue (university). We spent the rest of the day lazing about our rooms and cavorting in Shanghai. At half past six, seven of our group of ten showed up outside the International College, prepped and ready to appear on local Shanghai television. As I didn’t quite mention earlier, we had convinced ourselves that we were going to be on the 11 o’clock news or something as part of a University plug or something. Zhang Laoshi passed out our first gift from the University—awesome red and gold polo shirts. Please me dear, fellow meiguorenmen, (meiguoren=American person; -men=plural) a show of hands from those surprised by the colors. We loaded up on the bus with an Optimus Prime load of Thai students, and headed for the TV station. When we got there, we started to revise our hypothesis a bit. This place was beautiful. Certainly not your run-of-the-mill, Podunk local cable station. We moved inside, still only mildly confused. Then we started to see various groups of similarly dressed people in the lobby. We revised our hypothesis further. A variety show on which we were guests perhaps? Uh oh. We speak Chinese with half the talent and ¼ the vocabulary of a 2 year old. We moved into the actual studio. What in the name Elizabeth Windsor had we gotten ourselves into?! This place was, as the youngsters used to say, “off the heezy”. That’s “gnarly” for those of you from the 90s; “boss” for the 80s folk; “solid” for the 70s groovesters; and “a despicable, tasteless display of The Man subjugating the People with mindless corporate pig programming” for the 60s kiddos. This was the real deal. An actual TV show that was actually going to be shown live that we were actually going to be on stage for. This was actually getting real. Zhang Laoshi started flitting about, shouting alternately in Chinese and English. By the looks on the faces of the Thai students, he was making about as much sense in one as in the other. We gradually discovered that a famous Thai brother and sister (our age) were going to be competing on the show. We also, after much exertion, found out that they are students at our university: one in Master’s, the other Bachelor’s. He began babbling back and forth again, we became perplexed yet again. Then he pulled out a camera and started handing out posters and our school flag and we gathered that we were to be photographed to chronicle the event. Stewart and I were told to be in front and hold the flag (more likely than not because of our beards; this will come into play shortly). Zhang Laoshi bounded around the theatre seats we were in and jumped in the picture frame. The other laoshimen were lucky enough to snap the shutter on a rare breath. After pictures, we grabbed one of the Thai kids who spoke English well and he began translating for us from a less—excitable—teacher. We were going to be cheering for our fellow students from the stage, on camera roughly 80% of the time. Cool. We could cheer for an hour or so while sitting in the stands on stage. This could be fun, terrible, or both. All were acceptable. Zhang Laoshi finished taking his breath for the next seven days and began gesturing violently while doing his verbal tarantella between languages. Our Thai translator grabbed enough to tell us what the gestures meant: four of us were to be placed up front, right on the railing to be seen standing, cheering, and generally doing our best Zhang Laoshi impressions. The four students picked? Louesa, the pretty American girl; Wayne, the tall, good-looking white fellow; Top, our robust Thai translator; and *drumroll please* me, short and scruffy. Who saw that one coming? -No hands this time- The show got underway after a bit of instruction (in Chinese, of course) about how to act and the distribution of materials for following said instructions (bangymajogger noise sticks). The show began, and, believe you me, it was a doozy. I mean it had all the works: outlandishly garish outfits, smarmily attractive male and female hosts, mildly famous judges, and all manner of ado, to-do, and ruckus. The first duo was a European fellow and a young Chinese lady. Not fantastic, though not bad. They had an excruciatingly long talk with the hosts, judges, and what I assume were there families that would have rivaled The Bold and The Beautiful in terms of melodrama. Our students were next. They were unimpressive. The brother performed some acrobatic acts that any construction worker could imitate without dropping a hammer and the sister sang well, but unmovingly. To the whities, at least. The Thai lot went bonkers. We stood through the remainder of the show in relative states of excitement. The first couple won. Our classmates lost. Badly. Ouch. We returned to our rooms in some state of confusion and general obliviance. Oh. I believe I forgot to mention the true framework and purpose of the show. Have you heard of America’s Got Talent, starring such judges as Sharon Osborne and David “The Hoff” Hasselhoff (just to reinforce the point about moderately famous people)? This show spawns from that very genealogical line, and, thus, we initially dubbed it China’s Got Talent. However, after viewing the entire program, we decided that that was a thoroughly improper name, and have been referring to it in varying degrees of the opposite.

That’s the run of this event. Look out soon for the next post. Should be right behind this merry adventure. My love and affections to those of you who are consciously aware of it. To the rest, the same. I’m not picky. J

Sayonara, biéntôt, and arrivederci

Emperor Norton II, Emperor of the United States, Protector of Mexico, Assigned Look-Afterer of Luxembourg

P.S. I have found a new hero/role model/all-around nutter to admire. His name is Emperor Norton I. Check him out on Wikipedia and join the following.