Started the day off with a good breakfast:
I ate alone in silence at a breakfast table with a Chinese mother and her daughter.
Next, we went shopping at a center catered towards foreigners. It was an indoor shopping place with four floors + basement & multiple stalls. They sold clothes, knock-off designer bags, electronics, knock-off electronics, jewelry, porcelain little things, fans, chopsticks, magnets, & other touristy things.
I bought 2 pairs of earrings. One may have been a rip-off.. I haggled down from 350 yuan (almost $60!!) to 100 (-$16). I should have gone lower though. I got the other pair for 30 yuan ($5). I'll post pics of the earrings later. I wore the 100 yuan one last night during the concert.
I tried practicing my Mandarin on some. When entered stalls alone (w/o my classmates) and said Ni hao, many started speaking a Chinese to me..... Then I awkwardly said "Sorry, I am an American" to them. About 4-5 of them responded asking my ethnicity, and I told them I was half Chinese. They all said I looked like a Chinese girl.
I tried asking "How much is this?", but my pronunciation was really, really off until Shawn, Sarah, Christina and others corrected me later. It still is off though.. I tried some phrases, and the vendors helped me out a bit.
We are lunch at the top level of the place, which I very much enjoyed. We had a nice view of the city from the top. The skies were much clearer and blue today.. Probably because of the rain the day before?
We then made our way back to the hotel room to pack up our stuff and head out to the concert hall
We rehearsed a bit. My cello doesn't sound very good. All the cellos are pretty low-quality.. Our school ones are much better. They functioned at least. And I got better used to my cello as the night grew on.
During rehearsal:
Cello selfie attempt
Horrible view of the audience seating.. I'm not sure if I'm throwing out the correct terminology, but there was a lower tier and upper tier with a balcony that wrapped around the sides.
Backstage with the cello fellows
We had several hours to kill between the end of rehearsal time and the start of our concert. Our concert began at 7:30 I believe, and we played after the one other high school with us (from Ohio). I attempted to sleep, played card games (kemp and drug dealer.. Not really a card game), and got more Chinese lessons with Taylin from Shawn. A couple people were practicing.. Like Erick who practiced his solo for what seemed like several hours to get acquainted with his cello. We were all hanging out in this one backstage area, so by the end of the night, we all had memorized how his solo sounded lol. We were provided box lunches to eat backstage. It contained a chicken drumstick, some veggies, curried chicken and potatoes, and some side that had egg that I couldn't eat.
Playing kemp (card game) with the friends.
Playin' cards
Shawn trying to teach Tay and I some Chinese phrases. I've been practicing a lot on the bus and during other times. (I've been annoying Anna with it). I learned how to count from 0-10 and say things like "Good morning", "Help", "Where is the bathroom", "Good luck", "My Chinese isn't very good", etc. Shawn also taught us the 4 different ways of pronunciation as well as some sentence structural things.. Xièxiè lâosheng! (I made up the spelling), but I was trying to say "Thanks teacher"!
The Ohio orchestra played first. Then, after intermission, Chamber played (13 people total I believe). We played Paranoid Android & a Piazolla piece.. Both fun, dramatic songs. We had some choreography and some vocal additions.. Leonard shouted 1,2,3 in English and then in Chinese during our first piece. We all sat in one row facing the audience. Performing those 2 songs were fun.
Then the Symphony came on.. We played Glinka, Mahler's Adagietto, a Haydn Cello Concerto (Erick soloed on a podium), Across the Stars (a Star Wars love song composed by John Williams), and finished off with the Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt.
We finally played a Chinese combined piece with the Ohio musicians called Spring Festival Overture, which sounded very Oriental and was fun to play for the audience.
We had a fairly full house, which was nice. The audience members had different etiquette as aforementioned our tour organizers. They saved their great applause until the end, and did not give a standing ovation. I'm not sure if that is a cultural thing, or if they were just too tired. A couple parent chaperons stood up in the audience but were not followed by the locals. As observed by Annie and a few others, the audience members didn't refrain much from talking to each other.. But I barely noticed. Some pointed at audience members.. Which I did notice.
We had to change our concert behavior a bit for the audience.. Adding in a couple of new motions and things for added respect for the audience members.
Overall I had a fun time.. Although most of the rest of the orch thought it didn't go so well. Many of my friends said they were falling asleep during the concert. But I was okay. Pumped up on the performance vibes of those around me. Instruments were not so great. And there were a few issues.. Like Erick couldn't see very well during because his eyes were too dry and Annie having her end pin malfunction a bit.. But the issues were fixed, and I thought the first concert went quite well.
After playing we had time to interact with the audience in the foyer. Mostly people wanted pictures with the group and a few of the soloists like Helena and Erick.. As well as Mr. Park. I didn't talk much other than saying Nì hâo and Xièxiè.
Our concert ended at around 10:20PM. A very long concert indeed.. I was exhausted. Once we got back to the hotel, we had to pack up our luggage and create overnight bags. so they could transport our heavy luggage separately while we travel on the high-speed train on Day 4.
I was planning on taking a shower, but I passed out while waiting for Anna to finish.
Overall a fun work day. I have successfully avoided using the squatter toilets the entire trip. Yay for Western toilets. That will probably change on Day 4 when we visit the Forbidden City.
I'm typing this at 5AM on Day 4. Anna is currently sound asleep next to me, but the sunlight is shining through our curtains and I'm fairly wide awake. I'm quite excited for today and shall post again soon! :)
Until next time!
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