Tonight, I went to a free performance on another campus of my university! Anna, the English name of the mother of my Chinese family, drove me here. One item I enjoyed greatly were the costumes - they were very stunning and glittery and looked especially beautiful during the dance performances.
Another aspect I enjoyed was the use of various media. For example, there were dancing selections, singing selections, a poetry recitation, and instrumental selections which employed the use of an erhu (a two-stringed instruments which is played with a bow) and a guzheng (kind of like a Chinese zither). I have some pictures of the performances but the quality isn't very good because I was trying to be discreet about taking pictures since it feels weird for me to do so. Therefore, the picture above was taken by 王老师, my speaking teacher, and she shared it with my class group on WeChat.
Which, on that note, I'd like to talk about concert etiquette. In the US, taking pictures of performers is typically seen as impolite or in some cases unacceptable. But here, everyone had their phones out taking photos (however, that might be because this was a school event). Additionally, the crowd was quite noisy in my opinion and people would dart across the front to exit the hall (likely to head for the restroom) even though that was not the only way to go.
Also, there's this picture: two younger girls were sitting in front of me, and on the armrest they had a bag of shrimp which they were eating from during the performance. I don't know how typical that or any of the other behavior I've mentioned is in China, but I found it amusing.
I realize you guys could look these things up yourself, but for your convenience:
if you want to hear how the erhu sounds and see how it looks, you can go to this YouTube link:
if you want to hear how the guzheng sounds and see how it looks, you can go to this YouTube link:
Also, if you read this Ren Laoshi, there was a group of four guys that sang a version of the Bride Returns song (I can't remember exactly what it is called at the moment). The audience seemed amused when the performers started singing it like it was something they knew or recognized, and then I realized I knew the tune too and was confused because I couldn't remember what it was from at first!
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